At the age of 33, after 13 years of formation, I was ordained a Jesuit priest on June 8, 1967, in St. Joseph's Church, Aurora, Illinois. I have now been ordained for 42 years. In retrospect, it has been a great trip, a great ride, a great journey, with many, many blessings along the way--but not without some bumps and trials too.

 

But the dominant theme has been service--the opportunity to serve people, to help people in one way or another. That has been the most gratifying and most satisfying aspect of this vocation.

 

During my Jesuit formation, I taught high school English for three years at St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago. I enjoyed this immensely, and I would have been happy to return to the classroom after ordination.

 

But soon after I was ordained, Father Robert Harvanek, our provincial superior at the time, asked me if I would consider working at Loyola Press. I told him that I would think and pray about it, and I would get back to him. I did this and I accepted his invitation, rationalizing that I would be "teaching one removed," not actually in the classroom, but influencing youngsters and adults through the publications of religious textbooks for students and spiritual books for adults. This intention has been wonderfully realized.

 

I came to Loyola Press in 1969. Perhaps the most gratifying experience for me has been the successful publication and sale of our religious education textbooks. Along with this, however, was the publication of Cardinal Bernardin's Gift of Peace in 1997, which spent 16 weeks on the New York Times' best-sellers list and sold 350,000 copies. That little book was a deeply personal, deeply spiritual account of the last three years of our beloved Cardinal's life. It surely had a profound spiritual influence on all who read it.

 

Book publishing and online communication is not your conventional priestly ministry, but it is a powerful way of spreading the Good News of Jesus and His kingdom to many, many people.