By Fr. Brady Wagner

 In my junior year at the University of Colorado in Boulder, I had a major transition in my life.  I began to pray…daily…and not merely to offer petitions to the Lord, but specifically to express my desire to know Him and love Him.  And in learning how to pray, particularly by praying with Scripture through the lens of the mysteries of the rosary, my desire to know God only grew with every encounter.  At the same time, the men in my Bible study encouraged me to be open to a call to the priesthood.  The thought, as far as I could remember, had never crossed my mind, but I quickly realized that it had never occurred to me to ask God what His will was for life.  I had always known that He had created me and created me for a purpose, but I thought I was alone to try to figure it out.  I simply didn’t think that God spoke to us in prayer or if He did, it was too dangerous a task to discern so I never asked or sought to hear His voice.  By entering more deeply in a life of prayer, however, I began to see how God leads us and speaks to us.  In the asking and waiting for an answer, my longing for Him grew as well as the desire to do His will.  The moment of receiving the call came: “Come and see” (Jn 1:39).  That was enough, and my life has been different ever since.

 Fr. Brady was ordained in 2010 and is serving at St. Frances Cabrini Parish in Littleton. He has recently accepted a position on Endow’s Board of Directors .