Seminarian Mark Becker was on track to become a naval aviator until an injury forced him to change course. Seminarian Spotlight
CHARLOTTE — The sky has literally been the limit for seminarian Mark Becker who, ever since he can remember, had his sights set on becoming a Marine officer and “flying cool jets.”
He was well on his way when in 2020 – two weeks before receiving his wings – a major brain injury sidelined him, setting off a chain of events that would lead him down a path he had never considered – the priesthood.
While off duty, he suffered a subdural hematoma and was taken to a San Antonio hospital where he stayed for five days. His older brother, newly ordained Father Brian Becker, rushed to Texas from North Carolina to give him Anointing of the Sick in the Intensive Care Unit. His sister Deena also flew down as well as his parents, Tammy and Joseph, who was soon to be ordained a deacon at the time.
After his release from the hospital, the younger Becker brother spent two months in outpatient therapy and the next year and half trying to convince the Navy doctors he was fit to fly. As his friends all graduated and moved on in their lives, he felt stuck in his small South Texas town fighting for the chance to realize his lifelong dreams.
Becker describes this period in his life as his “time in the desert,” and said it was one where he did a lot of listening. As a result, God reordered his life and led him to new horizons.
He recently talked with the Catholic News Herald about his journey.
CNH: When did you first feel a calling to the priesthood?
Becker: From late 2018 to early 2020, when I was recovering from the brain injury, I didn’t know where God was leading me. I was still aggressively pursuing my longtime goal of becoming a naval aviator, but at the same time I was creating several different backup plans for my professional life. It was a turbulent time, and definitely the most difficult time of my life so far, yet through this suffering God reordered my interior life and drew me closer to Him. My dreams were slipping out of my grasp, and I was losing control of my plan for my life. Despite it being a terrible time, there was a constant underlying sense of certainty that I was in God’s hands and that His plan would be far better than my plan.
The call to the priesthood happened very naturally. My mom asked me while having coffee one day, “Well, have you ever considered the priesthood?” I immediately gave her a million-and-a-half reasons for why it’s not me God is calling, but that kind of lodged in the back of my head and the thought never really went away. It kept poking at me over the next few months, so I finally started to pray about this, and the more I did, the more it picked up speed. I had started dating a faithful Catholic woman. It was the first relationship I had when we were both very Catholic, and so I’m wrestling with all these things.
I finally I went into my church in Texas one day in the middle of the week. Nobody was there, and I went up to the sanctuary and out loud just said to God, “I think this is what you want. Please stop me if this is not what you want.” I asked what He wanted, waited around for a week … and silence.
Around this time, I had been telling a good buddy of mine, another Catholic in my squadron, my story. I was in the throes of it, and I was just bouncing ideas off him. He stopped me mid conversation and said, “I think you know what the answer is here.” That was the final nudge.
Siblings Deena Faust, Father Brian Becker and Mark Becker grew up in a faithful Catholic home where their parents, Joseph and Tammy, taught them how to pray and listen to God. (Photos provided by Mark Becker)CNH: How has your brother’s priestly vocation inspired you?
Becker: I had the benefit of watching from the sidelines as my brother went through the process. There were so many parallels that popped up between my journey in the Marine Corps and his journey through seminary and the priesthood – the sense of tradition, required high moral standards, the subordinating of ourselves to achieve a common goal, and a sense of brotherhood rarely found elsewhere. Obviously, it was huge having him on speed dial when I first started discerning. At the time, I didn’t want to talk to anybody publicly about it. It was nice to have someone who I personally know who went through the process himself and who also coaches other people discerning a priestly vocation.
CNH: With your father as a deacon and your brother a priest, why do you think so many in your immediate family felt these callings?
Becker: I don’t truly know. Overall, when my brother entered seminary in 2010 or 2011, the whole family became much, much deeper in our faith. I’ve heard stories of other seminarian families experiencing the same thing. It seems to be how God works, but there’s almost a gravitational pull deeper into the faith.
CNH: What about the Marine Corps has helped you in your studies for the priesthood?
Becker: Discipline, time management and self-accountability are all skills they’re trying to build into the guys at St. Joseph, and I got a lot of that from the Marine Corps. Building these skills opens you up. God’s going to work on you and your interior life.
CNH: What have you most enjoyed about studying at St. Joseph College Seminary?
Becker: The people here are incredible. Everyone’s fully invested in what they’re doing, and it’s a great familial environment. It’s not just like punching the clock, going to work and going home. These are my brothers. It’s awesome to have these years to grow in deep brotherly relationships, and I look forward to seeing what that will turn into 10, 15, 20 years down the road.
CNH: What is your advice for other young men discerning the priesthood?
Becker: It can be the most frustrating advice when you’re in the throes of trying to discern: Sprint toward God and try to become holy, and God will show you where to go from there. It’s incredibly frustrating not to know yet what school to apply to, where to move and all of that. All those things come after the first and most important thing.
In my own journey, it was falling in love with Jesus in the Eucharist and falling in love with the devotion to His mother.
Mark Becker
From: Charlotte
Age: 33
Home parish: St. Matthew Church, Charlotte
Parents: Deacon Joseph and Tammy Becker
Siblings: Father Brian Becker and Deena Faust
Background: Baptized at St. Matthew Parish in the gym before the church was built, grew up in Charlotte, attended All Saints before it was St. Matthew Catholic School, continued on to Holy Trinity Middle School and then a Catholic high school in Dunn Loring, Va., graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, where he was involved in the Catholic Student Union, was a flight instructor for a year, went to Officer Candidate School in Quantico for a 10-week boot camp, was commissioned as a second lieutenant with a flight contract, spent six more months of training at Quantico, went to flight school in Pensacola, Fla., and received orders to Kingsville, Texas, for further training to become a naval aviator.
Status: Began studies and formation at St. Joseph College Seminary in 2022, expected to transfer to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary & School of Theology in fall of 2024
Favorite Bible verse: “Into Your hand I entrust my spirit; You have redeemed me, Lord, God of truth.” (Ps 31:5)
“This verse has been one of my favorites during my time in seminary. It is the verse that Jesus cried out from the Cross just before He breathed His last. It is one of the prayers that is said during compline (night prayer) and is a striking and beautiful way to surrender yourself and unite yourself to Jesus on the Cross just before going to sleep.”
Favorite saints: St. Paul of the Cross and St. James. “St. Paul of the Cross has been popping up again and again in my discernment, both before and during seminary.
My brother and Sister Mary Raphael of the Daughters of the Virgin Mother had both been asking St. Paul of the Cross and St. James the Greater to intercede on my behalf for quite some time prior to me entering seminary. I was not aware of it at the time, but both of those saints had a role in helping me to see, and to conform myself to, God’s will.
Interests (outside of faith): All things mechanical, especially cars and airplanes.
Want to watch Mark Becker tell his story?
Check out St. Matthew Parish’s “In the Pews” segment:
Seminarian Spotlight
Seminarian Elijah Buerkle (back row, second from right) poses with his parents, siblings and cousin on the day his eldest sister, Sister Maria Jacoba, entered the convent. Buerkle played tennis at Belmont Abbey College, earning the Elite 23 postseason award in 2022 for achieving the highest GPA among the top eight teams in the conference. (Photos provided) CHARLOTTE — With a strong biblical name and a faithful Catholic upbringing, it might seem like a foregone conclusion that the young Elijah Buerkle would one day discern the priesthood. Yet, it almost didn’t happen.
As the second of 10 children – the younger brother in a set of twins – Elijah was homeschooled through high school. His mother leads the family’s academic formation while his father, a professional tennis coach, leads the physical aspect for their children aged 6 to 23. Days full of activity are balanced with praise and thanksgiving as his parents, David and Maria, come together to lead the family in prayer and tend to the spiritual formation of their children.
Elijah took to tennis naturally, becoming one of the top 15 high school players in Georgia and winning two state championships in the doubles tournament and runner-up in singles play in the level 2 state championships.
After high school, he chose to follow in his parents’ footsteps and attend their alma mater – Belmont Abbey College – where he would play tennis just like his father.
He earned a spot in the Honors College program and was majoring in philosophy, politics and economics, with his sights set on a law career. While competing in tennis at the collegiate level, he received top marks in his classes. Elijah had spent three successful years as an undergraduate, but a nagging question that first arose in high school began to surface again: “Is God calling me to be a priest?”
Meanwhile, his oldest sister – now Sister Maria Jacoba – had started discerning a vocation to religious life with the Benedictines of Mary Queen of the Apostles and his twin brother, Gabriel, was preparing for a secular career in the grocery business. Both were good paths, but where was he called to be?
Soon Elijah started taking steps to discern whether he was being called to the priesthood. He sought spiritual direction from Abbot Placid Solari, chancellor of Belmont Abbey College, who was an immense help to him.
Then, after going on a FOCUS mission trip and receiving some additional sage advice, Elijah had his answer.
He recently shared with the Catholic News Herald what he’s learned along the way:
CNH: When did you first feel a calling to the priesthood?
Buerkle: My senior year of high school. There was a Polish priest who became the pastor of my parish in Georgia, and I was really inspired by his example and virtue. He was the first priest that I encountered that I really looked up to as a man, so I was really drawn to that and drawn to his vocation. It was his holiness and love for the Lord that drew me to him. He spent a lot of time in prayer. He was very adamant about the need to spend time in prayer, to receive the sacraments, especially confession, so it was his discipline and strength as a man, but then he also spent a lot of time investing in my family and in me when I needed help. That led me to really continue to grow my faith over the next three or four years. I continued to meet more great priests I’m really inspired by as I look more and more into it and that slowly led to me finding out about St. Joseph College Seminary.
CNH: How did your upbringing influence your vocation?
Buerkle: My parents are devout Catholics and so that was very formative growing up. The faith was always part of our family life. We’d always go to at least Sunday Mass, if not also daily Mass once a week when I was growing up. We always try to pray the rosary every night. It was the family prayer. We were all homeschooled, and so we had a very Catholic curriculum and were encouraged to do a lot of reading both from classical literature and Scripture but also the lives of the saints. All of that was just very formative for my sister’s vocation and mine, and the younger ones are still on their way. My dad teaches tennis for a living, and so we’re all tennis players. He played at Belmont Abbey before me and so that was kind of the physical aspect of the formation. My mom spearheaded the homeschooling, what I see as the internal part, and then my dad would spearhead the external, ensuring we were all trained and disciplined.
CNH: How would you describe your life at the seminary?
Buerkle: I was taking a rosary walk when I started reflecting on the first three weeks of seminary and it just kind of hit me: I have everything here required for my own personal sanctity. It’s really up to me to use that. The people there – the seminarians, Daughters of the Virgin Mother and the priests – are all so holy, and they’ve really thought of everything. Father Matthew Kauth and the other fathers have really thought that program through.
I have spiritual fatherhood, motherhood, sisterhood and brotherhood there. It’s an incredible place that has helped me foster devotion to Our Lady and be instructed in very sound theology and philosophy. Looking back, I thought I was pretty solid when I was coming in, which I was, but how far I’ve come with the level of virtue in the past year and a half – simply by going through the formation program – has really blown me away.
CNH: What are the blessings and challenges of being a seminarian?
Buerkle: The thing that surprised me the most is that it’s not difficult. Obviously, you must be willing and desiring this vocation, but a lot of people think of seminary life as you’re sacrificing these goods of the world, that you’re not allowed to date anyone or you’re just not allowed to do whatever you want, but I’ve found being at seminary you receive so much more.
We have this beautiful familial atmosphere at the college seminary with the fathers, the sisters, and all the seminarians. It’s just such a beautiful house to be in, and we’re all very close-knit.
There’s a lot of laughter and a lot of fun and games. Then we’re all working hard, but it’s for this greater good of glorifying God, and it becomes so tangible when you’re living it. There are sacrifices, but it’s all so properly ordered toward God. Attending our “family meals” is one of my favorite things. Multiple times throughout the week everyone in the seminary family gets together for a wonderful meal, usually cooked from scratch by the Daughters of the Virgin Mother. I am notorious at the seminary for inviting people to come join us during these meals because they are such a joy – you should come sometime!
CNH: What is your advice for other young men discerning the priesthood?
Buerkle: On a FOCUS mission trip in Cincinnati, I heard a priest say the biggest mistake people make in discernment today is that they want to figure it out before they do anything, and so they will “wait and see” what they feel like draws them most. The problem with this approach, he said, is that everyone has a natural vocation to marriage, which means that 100% of the time they’ll be drawn to marriage because that is just what is natural. However, a person who does that never actually properly discerns if they have a “supernatural vocation” to the priesthood or religious life. The priest told us that the only true way to discern this is to actually go try it by entering seminary or a religious order. That hit me really hard because that had been me for the past two years that I’d been at college. By the next year, I entered seminary and knew almost immediately that God made me for this life. I love to be in the sanctuary offering prayers to our Lord and, of course, that is the vocation of the priest.
— Annie Ferguson
About Elijah Buerkle
From: Albany, Georgia
Age: 23
Home parish: St. Mark, Huntersville
Parents: David and Maria Buerkle
Siblings: Gabriel, Sr. Maria Jacoba, Anna, Isaac, Tobias, Matthias, Kolbe, Lilliane and Chiara
Status: Began studies and formation at St. Joseph College Seminary in 2022, expected to transfer to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary & School of Theology in fall of 2025
Favorite Bible verse: “When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” (Jn 19: 26-27)
“This passage stands out because I just completed St. Louis de Montfort’s ‘Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary.’ As St. Louis says, Christ earned the grace needed for our salvation on the cross, but we only receive it by the hands of Mary, our Blessed Mother, through Holy Mother Church. All of this is revealed to us at the scene of Christ’s crucifixion when He gives His mother to the Church represented by St. John. Thus, if we wish to be saved, we ought to take Mary our mother into our homes, just as St. John did.”
Favorite saint: St. Martin de Porres
“St. Martin de Porres was my confirmation saint. I chose him for his humility. He was this young boy living amid serious poverty whose father had left the family. He had such a heart for the poor to the point where he would give his own money to people who were poorer than he was. He didn’t feel worthy when he entered the Dominicans. He always took the last place and through that humility, attains such an incredible level of holiness. I look to him and try to learn his humility, take that lowest place, and to practice the charity he had.”
Interests and hobbies: Tennis, bass fishing, backpacking and reading