Welcome to James Gilpatric, Our New Seminarian

Welcome to James Gilpatric, Our New Seminarian

As a teaching parish, we are blessed with the opportunity to walk alongside men as they discern and grow in their vocational call to the priesthood. This fall, we are excited to welcome James Gilpatric! Read his story below:

I am grateful to have been raised in the Catholic Church with parents who brought me, along with my two sisters, to Mass on Sundays at the Cathedral, and taught us the importance of living out our faith. In 2019, after graduating from Rufus King High School, I left Milwaukee to study business at Iowa State University. 

During college, I found a home at the Newman Center where I could continue to practice and grow in the faith. There, I met wonderful people who inspired me to live more intentionally, and over time the Holy Spirit has led me to a deeper interior acceptance and appreciation for the faith I was raised with. In this context, I have experienced Jesus subtly and gradually inviting me, through prayer and conversation with others, to discern a calling to His Holy Priesthood. 

After much consideration, I submitted my application for Saint Francis de Sales Seminary, and about a month after graduating in the Spring of 2023, I was accepted as a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. So far, the seminary journey has been a great blessing and in many ways a confirmation of the call to the priesthood.

I am now entering my fourth year of formation, and I am very excited and grateful to be with you in Menomonee Falls over these next four years. I will pray for the St. Mary and St. Anthony parish community and I hope you will please pray for me, that I may follow God closely in these seminary years.