3 Seminarians, 3 Apostolates Bring 1 Uncommon Commitment to Christ
- Guest Contributor
- Feb 26
- 7 min read
Each journey to the priesthood began with a different question and a different apostolate, but the same Lord.
By Jay Sorgi
Each person who commits themselves to a life of Catholic mission comes to that point through a unique journey, whether it’s a calling to marriage, single life, the priesthood or religious life.
Three men whom God’s movements have led to the priesthood through St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver each showcase how the Lord takes the events and experiences of our lives and leads us through true discernment to find the path we’re called to take.
Focus on Jesus
“What’s the one thing that’s necessary?”
Dominic Borchers, who came to the Archdiocese of Denver from Ohio by a complicated route, is hearing God ask him to keep that question paramount in his heart and mind.
It has driven him from his native Ohio to Christendom College in Virginia, then to Oakland, California, eventually on a road trip long enough to require four oil changes, and finally to a change in his life’s calling to enter St. John Vianney.
The trip of Borchers’ life had him enter, then leave, the seminary in Oakland. He found his pre-Denver seminary apostolate in a consulting firm that helped Catholic organizations operate more efficiently.
Yet he realized that the call to deepen his own prayer life made him understand that a life in Catholic business wasn’t his calling, and he said God clearly helped him see the key question he needed to keep asking himself before an answer would come.
“The biggest thing that comes to mind for me is that time in between seminaries, because it was a time when a lot was cleared away. I very, very desperately wanted to know what my vocation was, because it was a bit of a question mark. I wasn't sure if I was going to go back to seminary,” he said.
“Everyone needs to discern their pathway, but more foundational to that is really our relationship with Jesus. It's been a grace,” he added. “When I'm grounded on just my relationship with Jesus, everything else kind of more easily falls into place. This needed to be number one.”
The moment of final clarity came over a week, when he encountered two different public commitments of saying yes to God’s calling — one a wedding Mass for his brother, the other an ordination.
“The wedding was beautiful, fantastic, and really did not move my heart very much. I was like, ‘OK, duly noted,’” Borchers said. “Then I went to the ordination. Long story short, it just blew me away. It was extremely profound and beautiful, grace-filled and very attractive. I just very clearly heard God calling me back to the seminary and asking me to be a priest.”
He encourages anyone who needs clarity in their mission to follow that key question, to find their “one thing,” which for him is simply and fully being with the Lord in everything.
“There are a couple of places in the Bible where it speaks about only one thing being necessary: Psalm 27, ‘One thing I ask of the Lord, this I seek, to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,’ and then Luke Chapter 10, the interaction with Martha and Mary … only one thing is necessary,” Borchers explained. “Spend more time thinking about the one thing that's necessary.”
(Photos provided)
‘God is faithful’
Sometimes, the focus of your life comes from experiencing God’s calling by doing that very thing in a different way. For Will Ives, it literally came from FOCUS, a Catholic missionary organization that brings others into a life of missionary discipleship.
“I came into the church in 2018. I had a fairly profound experience of God's mercy in the confessional. In receiving the Sacraments of Initiation after that, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is really it,’” said the Cincinnati native and Miami University of Ohio graduate who worked in the finance world before pivoting to a life of discipleship. “It wasn't just an intellectual thing for me anymore. It settled into the heart. So I wanted to do something. I wanted to give back to God for this amazing gift of conversion that I had experienced, repentance and redemption, and so I decided that I wanted to do something with college students.”
FOCUS sent him on mission to Pittsburgh, where he served for four years at what is now called the Pittsburgh Oratory, the Catholic Newman Center serving the nearby universities of Pittsburgh, Carnegie-Mellon and Chatham.
“It taught me how to share my faith. It taught me how to unabashedly invite people into a Bible study, how to lead a Bible study, how to talk normally about the faith and not get all anxious and nervous,” he said. “It also gave me room, an opportunity to discern, the freedom to discern my vocation.”
That discernment ramped up as FOCUS sent him to Denver to help lead Catholic men in the Bosco Project, an intentional Catholic community for men to grow in their commitment to the faith. There, he met Father Jason Wallace, archdiocesan director of priestly vocations.
“We had dinner, he invited me out, I told him my story, and then he got me a one-on-one conversation with Archbishop Aquila,” Ives said. “Even though I had a very checkered past pre-conversion, he looked at me with mercy, and he said, ‘We want to have you here.’”
Ives says that God understands when we take the path he called “bumbling around” before we succeed in understanding him and our life’s calling.
“I just was very angry at God, turning my back on God, crises of faith, not knowing if I really believe this, throwing my hands up and yelling at the Lord and not understanding what he was calling me to, [but] I kept coming back to the sacraments. I kept showing up,” he said. “I started telling him, actually, what I was feeling and not just trying to say words that I thought he wanted to hear, but really telling him how I was feeling and how I wasn't understanding. That's where I think my prayer got very real. And I think God really wants to hear that, then he answers. He is faithful when it really comes down to it.”
One of Ives’ most powerful inspirations is his grandmother, who, in her nineties, was baptized, confirmed and received her First Communion.
“I've been praying for her like crazy because I love her to death,” Ives said. “That's been hugely motivational for me. The Lord's always coming for us, no matter how old or how young or what age.”
‘What do you want for my life?’
Just because you work to bring God glory through your current vocation doesn’t mean that he’s calling you to the specific life and job you’re doing, even as he loves and honors your pure desire to serve him.
“It was a long and, at times, agonizing pathway,” said Tommy Myers, who was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in New Jersey. He moved toward a deeper Catholic faith after a powerful experience in Confession. “The priest, after giving the absolution, turned and asked me if I had ever experienced the call to the priesthood. It planted a seed in my heart just to take my faith more seriously.“
Myers said that before he could even think about the seminary, he had to “figure out what it is to be Catholic.” It started in 2018 with working for the Augustine Institute, a formerly Denver-based Catholic organization that provides content and education to equip the faithful for evangelization.
“I was immediately surrounded by professors who had their PhD in Theology, PhD in Scripture, PhD in all the things that I could possibly want to learn as a kind of a budding Catholic,” Myers shared. “I also had access to the sacraments, daily Mass, Confession, basically whenever I wanted it, because it was in my office building. My entire life was suddenly kind of steeped in the Catholic intellectual life. It taught me things that I needed to know about my faith, how to live it well and gave me a community to pursue that faith with.”
Yet Myers said that as he discerned his path, he had to understand what he would be giving up to follow the Lord into the priesthood.
“I was meeting beautiful Catholic women and becoming friends with beautiful Catholic families, none of which I had experienced in my life up until that point,” Myers said.
“It's difficult to say yes to celibacy if you don't really know what you're saying no to. That was integral to my discernment, dating and discerning marriage,” he added. “Throughout that, kind of always having this little whisper in the back of my mind.”
After a process of what he said was “shoving it under the rug,” Myers’ day of discovering his calling came on May 7, 2023, when the whisper became a spiritual shout.
“It was just very clear to me during Mass, during the elevation of the host, Jesus made it very clear to me that he was going to go into seminary, and he would like me to follow him there,” he recalled.
The rest is history.
“I moved out to Colorado thinking about the priesthood, but never had peace or joy or conviction or clarity around whether or not that really was what I was supposed to do or even wanted in my heart of hearts,” Myers said. “But since that experience in May of 2023, I've only had clarity. I've only had joy.”
For those who may be discerning their path, Myers suggests building their relationship with Jesus, and then flipping the question that so many ask about their life’s vocation on its head.
“The trap that I fell into for so long is asking, ‘What do I want to do with my life?’ Some of those desires that I have for my life are good, but not all of them were,” he admitted. “Flip that and say, ‘God, what do you want for my life?’”
