You never know where a vocation will come from. And this item from an Indianapolis newspaper tells of one vocation that took root and grew at an Ivy League school:

Christopher Roberts was seemingly on track. Taking classes at Harvard University, he was on his way to a career as a lawyer — until God steered him down a different path.

Roberts, 28, who grew up in Logansport, was ordained a priest June 16 and is serving as an associate pastor at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, 14598 Oak Ridge Road, Carmel.

He traces his calling to the priesthood to an evening Mass he attended during his first semester at Harvard. While looking up at that priest, he wondered whether God was calling him to serve in a similar way.

After Harvard, he attended seminary in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Question: What led you to your decision to become a priest?
Answer: When I was in college, I started to take my faith more seriously. Receiving the sacraments, praying and reading the Bible started to become very important to me. I grew in love not only for Christ but also for the church. When the women I went out with started asking me if I was going to be a priest, I realized it was time to start praying about it.

Q: When you graduated from high school and decided to attend Harvard, what career path were you thinking of taking at that time?
A: I was planning to go to law school, get married and have a big family. I interned for a lawyer one summer and for Senator Richard Lugar on Capitol Hill the summer before I began to focus in on entering the priesthood. I was hoping to clerk for a judge after law school and see where that would lead.

Q: Why did you decide to study abroad in Rome instead of attending seminary in the U.S.?
A: In view of academic background, my superiors asked me when I began seminary if I might be interested in studying theology in Rome. Studying in Rome seemed like a good idea to me because there were some very good professors there. There were also many opportunities to learn outside of the theological studies, including studying Spanish during vacations in Spain, being at the heart of the universal church with seminarians from all over the world and becoming familiar with the artistic and cultural monuments to Christian civilization all over Western Europe.

Q: Is there a certain saint you are trying to emulate? Which one and why?
A: While my personal history is hardly as dramatic as his, I have always had a very deep devotion to St. Augustine of Hippo. The world in which Augustine lived is very similar to the reality that I face as a priest. Augustine was the bishop of a diocese in North Africa in which Catholics were a minority. . . . Some of the Roman cultural elite were fierce critics of Christianity and the church. Most importantly, Augustine had a very deep awareness of his need for God’s mercy and love to follow Christ and serve his church as a priest.

There’s a lot more there, about his background and his faith. Read it and give thanks for men like Fr. Roberts, and pray for him as he continues his journey in the priesthood.

Photo: by Steve Sanchez, The Indianapolis Star