Michael Infantine, Staff Writer

Editor’s note: This article is the first in a series of interviews with men and women in the Notre Dame community who have responded to God’s call to holiness in different ways.  Here, newly ordained deacon and rector of Keough Hall, Patrick Reidy, CSC, speaks on discernment and shares his own vocational journey.

Infantine: How would you describe vocation in a general sense?

Reidy: God’s uniquely-given call for each person.

What is your personal vocation story?  What intermediary steps led you to where you are now?

I’ve thought about priesthood since I was a little kid, though most of my early exposure to ordained priestly ministry came through the diocesan priests who serve in Denver, Colorado.  Encounters with grace through preaching and confession encouraged me to take seriously the admiration I felt for many of the priests who served at my parish, and later at my high school, Regis Jesuit.  The Jesuits at Regis introduced me to the idea of religious life.  Their common life and their shared commitment to mission, both in educational institutions and among the poorest of the poor, inspired my discernment of religious priesthood throughout high school and well into college.

As a student at the University of Notre Dame, I encountered wonderful priests of the Congregation of Holy Cross—first in my residence hall (Sorin College), then in my classes (Political Science and Theology) and finally overseas (Jinja, Uganda).  Their joy was contagious; their zeal, overwhelming.  When they invited me to “come and see” during my senior year, I couldn’t resist.  I’ve never looked back.

What led you to the Congregation of Holy Cross specifically?

Family was something of a non-negotiable growing up in the Reidy house.  We prayed together, ate together, celebrated together, mourned together, learned together, grew together.  I make sense of my religious vocation, and my relationship with God, through the lived experience of family.  Holy Cross offered me just such an experience of family, modeled on that of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  The religious I knew as an undergrad at Notre Dame showed me joy in ministry, trust in prayer and fidelity in community.  The hope of their lives beckoned me to fall in step with them.

What did you want to be when you were little?

A firefighter.  I want(ed) to drive a fire engine.

Did you ever seriously consider another vocation or religious order?

Not another vocation, though in high school (before meeting Holy Cross), I did consider the Jesuits.  I knew that, like all the men who nurtured my vocation, I wanted to work in education.  I wanted to emulate the Jesuits I knew at Regis and the Holy Cross priests and brothers I knew at Notre Dame, men who taught, listened, preached, prayed, inspired.  They helped me seek a kind of completeness in God’s call, learned and discerned through the formation of my mind and heart, of my whole person.  My passion for mission flows from their example.  I want to assist students not only in recognizing and developing their own gifts, but also in discovering their lives’ deepest longing: to become the men and women that God created them to be.

How has your conception of vocation changed over time?

Vocation used to be a static concept for me, one linked with my identity as a person.  I’m increasingly convinced that my initial conception, while not incorrect, remains incomplete without accounting for the dynamism of grace.  Vocation informs my identity, yes, but only insofar as my identity remains intimately present to Christ.  It’s not only who I am, but how I am to be with God.  That shapes everything.

What is the most fulfilling part of your vocation?

The brotherhood of Holy Cross—men who made and live by the same vows I professed two weeks ago.  Their friendship and support, their wisdom and guidance, their prayerful example, all call me further up and further in as I seek to follow Christ.

What is the most challenging part of your vocation?

Living far away from Colorado—my parents, the mountains, hiking and skiing, Broncos games.  It’s silly, perhaps, but so much of who I am derives from my upbringing in the Rockies.  I continue to find God most readily in nature.

Do you have any advice for young people discerning their vocation?

Stop.  Rest.  Listen.  It’s hard, especially when so much of life at Notre Dame tells us to keep moving, but it’s just like falling in love.  If you make space in your heart for grace to move, God’s love will decide everything: “It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude” (Pedro Arrupe).

Michael Infantine is a sophomore studying PLS, and all this talk of vocation is making him acutely aware of the fact that he has no idea what he wants to do with his life after college.  Tell him it’s all going to be okay at minfanti@nd.edu.