From Br. Pius: Just a brief word: first of all, let me say that it is a great joy for me to be a newly professed friar and to be working with Fr. Gabriel on the vocations team. It feels not to long ago that I was looking at this web page as a student at Franciscan University of Steubenville. You never know what the Lord will do with you if you give Him permission to act!

My own discernment was kind of a long process, gradually discovering Who the Lord is and what He had in mind for me. It started with the idea that I wanted to be a priest in 7th grade. I gave it some thought but passed it off as "just a crazy idea." The call resurfaced when I got very ill about 5 years later and rethought how I was living my life and who I was living for. Getting back to living the Faith in a serious way opened my heart to hear what the Lord was saying all along: that He was calling me to give myself to Him totally in consecrated life. I decided to go to Franciscan University to further discern my call, and it was there that I met St. Francis and his ideals as well as our community. Francis' radical love for Jesus and his desire to live the Gospel in poverty, chastity and obedience as an expression of this love was very attractive to me. So I searched for a place where I saw this lived out. A good friend at school (who is now a friar himself) suggested that I look in the direction of the Friars of the Renewal. So I did... and the rest is His story. The Lord led me by His Mercy and Grace to be a Friar of the Renewal. I am so grateful to Him for His call!

Wisdom quote: "Vocations to the ministerial priesthood and to the consecrated life can only flourish in a spiritual soil that is well cultivated" Pope Benedict XVI (full text here).