Josh Brooks looked for love on the basketball court, only to get cut from the team. The young man from Delaware County sought love in a relationship with a girlfriend, but he couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that something greater was calling him.
Then, in despair one day he looked at the crucifix hanging on his wall and understood that his search for the perfect form of love need not go further. “Josh,” he heard, “I’ve been waiting for you your entire life.”
Brooks wasn’t even Catholic. Yet, at that moment, he felt his first call to the priesthood. Now, he is preparing for his third year of college formation at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. His journey embodies the soul-searching and self-examination common for many young adults. The result of this process doesn’t have to be the seminary, but Brooks’ experience shows that through hope and faith, young people can embrace the call to find Christ in their everyday lives.
“We see this in this current generation, that many souls are being led astray and they’re falling into despair,’’ he said. “But that Catholic priest in the person of Jesus Christ, he’s chasing after those souls. That’s exactly what Christ did for me. And that’s why He is so attractive to a young man because He is calling him out of his element, calling him out of the world, to just be for God, to be for God’s people.”
‘Mind you, I was Protestant’
Born a Baptist, Josh was introduced to the Catholic faith when his parents enrolled him in a Catholic elementary school in West Philadelphia, St. Ignatius of Loyola. In school, he learned about the love of God, but his passion was basketball and he dreamt of becoming the next LeBron James. He spent his seventh and eighth grade years working hard at the game so he would make the freshman team at Monsignor Bonner & Archbishop Prendergast High. But then disaster struck. He failed to make the team. The dream of becoming a professional basketball player faded away as he decided to focus on his academics.
“I slowly started seeing my attention gravitating toward the Catholic theology classes,” Brooks said. He learned how the Catholic Church was the one universal family and how the priesthood is persona Christi. “I started thinking, wow, that’s beautiful. I fell in love with it and, mind you, I was Protestant.”
It was a thought that Brooks brushed to the back of his mind, as he reasoned he had a lot of time to think about his future. Then he met and started dating his girlfriend, but even that love never felt totally sufficient.
“I was seeking a higher love, a love that would transform me,” he said. “I told the young lady at the time that I wasn’t sure if this is the love that I am called to because the whole priesthood idea was still in my mind.”
His girlfriend, though, told him she wasn’t willing to wait while he figured it out. Heartbroken, Brooks headed to the chapel asking Jesus, if she isn’t willing to wait, who will? He heard Jesus respond, “I have the best love to give you.” Brooks added, “He was waiting for me the whole time, as He is doing with all of us.”
Pool tournaments, prayer, and brotherhood
His parents backed his decision to enter the seminary, and his seminary brothers have become a second family to him.
“I never had any brothers, I didn’t really know what a brother would be like,” he said. The camaraderie was great, but the spiritual companionship was even better. Each of the seminarians challenge each other to be a better version of themselves.
“We all have each other’s backs, really,” he said. “My brothers, seminarians, we like to play pool a lot. Some of us, we even have tournaments, whether it be in chess, or pool. But also, we walk with each other in our struggles.”
Fellow seminarian Sean Barker said what most impresses him about Josh Brooks is his deep spiritual life.
“He has a great prayer life,” Barker said. “Just seeing that prayer life wants me to be better, wants me to spend more time in the chapel and to take prayer life more seriously, to take academics more seriously, just take everything in seminary more seriously.”
The hardest part of Brooks’ formation so far is the realization that no one is going to be perfect. “Sometimes we don’t know how to deal with our imperfections or we feel we may have let God down,” he said. “As I said before, God’s waiting for us. He’s on this journey to holiness with us. He’s walking day by day with us.”
Unity with One Another
That journey extends to his parents.
“My mother, she was my ride to Mass every Sunday, and she would always sit in the pew with me,” he said. “My dad, he was just really happy for me. He did have a couple questions. But he just told me, if the Lord is calling you to do this, you do it.
“And that’s important to receive — that validation from their family, that your family was just going to be behind them the whole way through. And I’m just praying for my parents’ conversion to the faith. My mother is interested and but she’s taking her time. Our Lord is waiting for people, and He’s waiting for my mother.”
Brooks recognizes that many people – especially those his age – have left the Church or are searching for the perfect love in other places. For those, he has some advice.
“(The Church) is beautiful, despite, the flaws of her own people and the fact that for the past 2,000 years that she’s faced so many trials, so many adversities. Yet, she still stands. Why? Because Christ is governing that church. And really, when you think about, at the heart of what we want, we want community. We want unity with each other.
I just say to really approach the Catholic Church as a family, approach the church and see that we are an imperfect people, but we’re being governed by a God who transcends all things, and he knows us better than we know ourselves. And at the heart of our search for the highest form of love, we’ll find it here in the Catholic Church.”
Share this story