From: Braeunlingen, Germany
Status: Starts Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, Cincinnati, in August 2022
Summer assignment: St. Patrick Cathedral, Charlotte
Favorite verse or teaching: “I prayed, and understanding was given me; I called on God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.” (Wisdom, Chapter 7)
Favorite saint: “Mary is definitely No. 1. Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Fatima,
Our Lady of Sorrows – those are my favorites.”
Interests (outside of faith): Reading, weightlifting, tennis, chess
CHARLOTTE — At 25, Max Frei had money, a Mercedes, girlfriends and a high-rise apartment.
After graduating from the University of South Florida in 2017, he excelled in sales and was on path to financial wealth – until one day in 2019 when he felt the Lord calling him.
“Leave everything behind and follow me,” Max heard the Lord say that day in his 21st-floor apartment in Orlando, Fla., where he was working a two-year stint for a solar power company in preparation for joining his family’s business, an international coatings and paint company based in Germany.
“Suddenly the Holy Spirit filled me,” Max describes. “I was so filled with love, it was like nothing I had ever experienced. By hearing His voice deep inside my soul, everything just seemed lighter and brighter. I didn’t want to live my old life anymore – all I wanted was to be connected with our Lord.”
He stayed on the corporate ladder another year, joining the family business and traveling the world, all the while wrestling with the feeling that he was supposed to be on a different path.
Three years later, Max has completed the Diocese of Charlotte’s program at St. Joseph College Seminary.
This fall, he will enter Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati – one of 50 seminarians in formation to serve as priests of the diocese.
Pictured: Max Frei just graduated from St. Joseph College Seminary and will be entering major seminary this fall. He and other 2022 graduates are featured in a series of video interviews on St. Joseph College Seminary’s YouTube channel. (Photo by James Sarkis)
CNH: You describe experiencing an abrupt calling. Do you think the seeds were planted as a child?
Frei: I had multiple encounters with our Lord as a kid, but the big one in Orlando I remember most vividly. I was born and raised in the Black Forest region of Germany, the oldest of three boys. We were Catholic and we went to church every Sunday, but I never wanted to be an altar server or anything – which reminds me, God tells the funniest jokes: Look what I’m doing now, altar serving!
CNH: How’d you get into the fast life?
Frei: It started as a teen. I just wanted to fit in. Nobody else I knew went to church, so I didn’t want to stand out. After high school, I wanted to go to the U.S. I had dual citizenship because my mom was an American, so I went to visit a cousin in Florida, and I was mesmerized by the palm trees and good weather. I got into USF at Tampa and I partied a lot and began living a non-religious college life.
When I got out into the business world, it was all about how much money you could make. I believed if you worked hard enough, you would achieve success – which I did. Later, I came to understand that whatever status you might achieve, there’s no reward if that status is away from God.
CNH: Tell us more about the day you experienced the call.
Frei: I seemed to have it all, so I didn’t understand why I was not happy, not satisfied, or why I was here on this earth. The grace of our Lord triggered these sincere questions, and through His infinite love and mercy gave me this experience. I was not working that day, and I was home alone in my apartment when the Holy Spirit filled me. It was something totally outside of myself, and it went on for a while. I was in a back-and-forth conversation, having a dialogue with God.
“Leave everything behind and follow me,” He said.
“What about a family,” I asked. “I want to get married. What about the business and all I have achieved?”
No matter what I asked, I just had this overwhelming urge to detach myself from the worldly life – and go back to church and follow the Lord. And I remember to this day His promise: “No matter what you decide, Max, I will still love you.”
CNH: How did your family react when you told them you wanted to become a priest?
Frei: My mom was very happy but my dad found it hard to understand. Once he saw I was serious, he came to accept this.
CNH: How did you end up in Charlotte, at St. Joseph College Seminary?
Frei: My mother moved to Fort Mill, S.C., to take care of her parents, so I moved in with her to figure out my next steps. I reached out to several seminary programs but I was most impressed with St. Joseph because they were very organized, responsive, and it was easy to get key people on the phone. I spoke to Father Barone and Father Gober. At first, the seminary was skeptical about my application because I was not from this diocese and they really didn’t know me. But I was able to get references from people they knew, so they let me in – and St. Joseph was the greatest gift I could ever imagine. It really helped me figure things out, deepen my faith, and commit my life to the Lord.
CNH: What advice do you have for young people who might be discerning a call to religious life?
Frei: Always seek God in prayer and ask Him with all sincerity and love what He wants you to do. No riches in this world will make you as happy as the love of God.
“For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?” (Mk 8:36)
CNH: What sort of ministry do you hope to practice?
Frei: I want to do whatever the Lord wants me to do, but I am drawn to helping souls. In my calling, I have recognized how precious a soul is. It has such a beauty and it comes directly from God. I would like to make sure people understand how much He loves them and how much He deserves to be honored and loved and followed by us. I would like to help souls get to heaven.
— Liz Chandler
Your DSA contributions at work
Your DSA contributions at workSeminarian education is funded in part by the annual Diocesan Support Appeal.
Learn more about the DSA and how to donate online at www.charlottediocese.org/dsa.
From: Charlotte
Age: 22
Home parish: St. Ann Church, Charlotte
Status: Started Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, Cincinnati, in August 2022
Favorite Bible verses: “How can I repay the Lord for all the great good done for me? I will raise the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people.” (Ps 116: 12-14)
Favorite saint: St. Peter, chosen by Jesus to lead the Church. “He is my patron, and I love seeing his journey through the Gospels as he goes from being a sinner to a saint.”
Interests (outside of faith): Playing guitar and reading a good book
CHARLOTTE — Peter Townsend was just 5 years old when he announced he wanted to become a priest.
Townsend had just attended the Diocese of Charlotte’s Eucharistic Congress and met Bishop Peter Jugis. The spark that lit his vocation was this annual celebration – a Catholic “family reunion” that draws thousands of parishioners from across North Carolina to celebrate the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
“I told my parents at the dinner table soon after the Congress that I wanted to be the pope, which they found amusing,” he remembers. “I guess that’s who I thought Bishop Jugis was. After that, for whatever reason, the thought of becoming a priest never left me, and neither has the desire to do so.”
Townsend admits that since entering the seminary, “I have done away with my former ambitions (of the papacy) and would be happy to be a simple parish priest.”
He recently talked about his journey with the Catholic News Herald:
CNH: Can you tell us about your life before you entered the seminary?
Townsend: I grew up in Charlotte in a very close-knit, Catholic family. I was homeschooled. My parents wanted to give me a solid Catholic education, to preserve me from a lot of the things that many of my peers experienced at too early of an age, and to allow me to grow up at my own pace.
CNH: How did your parents react when you told them you wanted to study for the priesthood?
Townsend: They had always told my siblings and me that we should strive to do God’s will. And so, they said that if I thought God was calling me to the priesthood, then they would do everything they could to support me in my discernment.
CNH: What types of things have you been doing since you entered the seminary?
Townsend: I began to pray the Liturgy of the Hours every day and started praying the rosary much more often. Both of these prayers are essential to the priesthood and are crucial for priestly discernment in the seminary. However, in my opinion, one of the most important decisions I ever made was to commit myself to at least one Holy Hour a day before the Blessed Sacrament. This one-on-one time with the Lord has influenced my discernment in more ways than I could have imagined.
CNH: What advice do you have for a young man thinking about becoming a priest?
Townsend: The Lord said, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7). I would say the same to any man discerning the priesthood. All one has to do is simply ask God and wait for His response. The hard part is when God seemingly doesn’t want to respond, or at least seems very slow in doing so. However, if this seems to happen, it is only because the Lord is waiting for the right time to reveal His answer. He knows exactly when to answer, and whether or not the person asking is ready to hear it.
CNH: What do you like about being a seminarian for the Diocese of Charlotte?
Townsend: I love the fraternity that is reinforced in our diocese through the seminary program. Over the course of the past four years, I have gotten to know the other men studying, discerning and praying beside me, and I would not trade their brotherhood for anything.
— SueAnn Howell
Your DSA contributions at work
The Seminarian Education program is funded in part by the annual Diocesan Support Appeal. Learn more about the DSA and how to donate online at www.charlottediocese.org/dsa.