26-year-old Jacob Derry did not sense a call to the sacred priesthood after graduating from the University of Michigan. He was living and working in Indianapolis and had his own ideas about where his life would go. That was until Jacob began frequenting Daily Mass and Eucharistic Adoration at the city’s Saints Peter & Paul Cathedral.

“At Mass I was just in my own prayer, just trying to say, ‘Okay, Lord, I am here, I am present, and my heart is here’. And just in the quiet of my heart I heard the Lord respond to that. And he said, ‘Yes, your heart is here but I want to be here,’ and when he said that I saw this image of Jesus pointing to the altar. He was saying, ‘Jacob, I want your heart on the altar as my priest’.”

Jacob, who hails from the parish of St John the Evangelist in Fenton, says he was surprised and, indeed, “really afraid” by these events but decided to respond as best he could including a particular request: “Lord, if this is from you then I need you to repeat this call.”

“And so, over the course of several months of spending more time praying and talking to the Vocations Director, visiting seminary, that eventually happened, the Lord repeated that call and those fears went away and now priesthood is the one thing that I’m so excited about right now.”

• Do you also feel that Almighty God may be to the Sacred Priesthood? Contact Father John Whitlock, Director of Seminarians for the Diocese of Lansing on 517-342-2507 or at jwhitlock@dioceseoflansing.org