The Alumni Spotlight highlights Georgetown Prep alumni making impacts all over the globe. Prep's 5,700 live and work all over the world in every field imaginable. The Alumni Spotlight series captures our graduates' stories and Georgetown Prep's impact on their lives after their four years as a student. To submit a story, email alumni@gprep.org.
What have you done since graduating from Prep?
After completing my BA at Georgetown University with a history major, I knew I needed a complete change from study and, after summer work, decided to travel. As it happened, my first destination answered my need. I spent nine months at the Madonna House Community in Combermere, Ontario, a Roman Catholic community of lay men and women and priests living a simple but radical Gospel life. During the nine months I spent there as a working guest, I fell in love with the community and it's simple Nazareth life of prayer, work, and hospitality. It clarified my life values and deepened my desire to live the Christian life wholeheartedly. Immediately following this period, I spent two years in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, living in a JVC community in Baltimore and serving those in need of food and other basic necessities at an ecumenically-funded emergency services center in south Baltimore. My attraction to the life and vocation of the Madonna House Apostolate remained strong and I returned there in 1981 to enter the community. I made my first promises of poverty, chastity, and obedience in 1983 and my perpetual promises in 1990. In my 36 years under promises as a lay man in the community, I have served in many of the community's missions. I helped open our house of prayer in North Yorkshire in 1985 and later was re-assigned as its director in 2004. I spent several very happy years working on our farm, which serves our main community center in Ontario, where I was the cheesemaker and assisted in other farm duties. My assignment to our mission in Ho, Ghana in 1995-96 was short but a heart and mind-expanding experience. I served as one of our directors of formation (for new members discerning our vocation) for four years beginning in 2008. We have missions in Regina, SK and Edmonton, AB which run soup kitchens and clothing rooms, serving those in need. I have received numerous assignments to both these missions and am presently the director or our house in Regina. It is a privilege to serve those who come to us.
What advice do you have for current Georgetown Prep students?
Develop a spiritual life, a habit of spending time in prayer daily. It will open your heart in a personal way to God, who brings joy and makes all things possible – including living through the challenges, difficulties and personal failures in life which are bound to come. It is true that failures, once accepted, help make us become more compassionate and open to others in need. Pray to know God's will for your life and be confident that you will, in due course, come to know it. Keep your focus – don't give up! Read the lives of the Saints – great men and women! And become one yourself. Life is certainly not easy, but with God, it is always an adventure.