Father Jeremy Hammond

My life before the seminary:
Raised a Catholic, I have always been around church. Family turmoil, however, didn’t allow faith to grow as I approached adolescence. By middle school, life lacked meaning. Precisely then, the catecheses of the Neocatechumenal Way were offered in my hometown. Those strangers announced that God loved me. That I should be loved by anyone had become unfathomable. Their words were such a paradox that I couldn’t escape them. Through life in my small community, and with the help of catechists, faith began once more to grow, to the point that even an attraction to the priesthood, experienced as a small child, returned. After six years, motivated by a deep-rooted gratitude, I entered the seminary. By God’s grace I stayed there.

What convinced me to enter the seminary:
As a young child I was drawn toward church and enjoyed it. It inspired myriad curiosities. As certain situations grew worse, however, these were forgotten. Then, as a teenager, I came to experience a deep gratitude toward God for allowing me to experience reconciliation, hope and happiness after a less-than-ideal childhood and in the midst of conflict in my family. Indispensably, these graces reached me through the Neocatechumenal Way. During a pilgrimage with other youth from the Way to Sydney, Australia for World Youth Day, I was inspired to consider a vocation to the priesthood after hearing one of the charism’s co-initiators speak.

Other interests include:
Creative Writing, Reading (especially theology, Cold War-era history, biographies and ecclesiastical art), Musical Composition, Casual baseball and football.