Michael Anctil
First TheologyPontifical North American College
Theological College
Iowa State University
Send forth your light and your truth; they will guide me on.” (Psalm 43:3)
Hello! My name is Michael Anctil, and I am the youngest of two and was raised in Omaha, Nebraska, coming to Virginia after college. As I progressed through school and then work, I followed my strengths. But from chemical engineering to my work making medicine, I was driven by a passion to help others. I was continually drawn towards something more, but I couldn’t figure out what that ‘more’ was.
As I learned more about the faith in my own life, I wanted others to know about Jesus and his Church. The idea that perhaps I should be a priest entered my mind regularly through the years, but each time I pushed it aside in the busyness of my life. In mid-2020, a priest, responding to a request for advice, suggested I deepen my friendship with the Lord through increased prayer. As I spent more time with God, that recurrent idea of the priesthood came back to the front of my mind and persisted. As I continued to discern, it became clear to me that Jesus was calling me towards his priesthood, to help and to serve people through that vocation. The Dominican friars at St. Thomas Aquinas in Charlottesville, my home parish, were important in my instruction and in being good examples of priests, helping enable me to continue my formation and discernment in seminary.
Through my first years in seminary, I received many graces from the Lord, both from him directly and from those I’ve encountered in seminary, in parishes, in classes, and in ministry. God is abundantly generous. I am grateful for the many opportunities and encounters he has placed in my life, and I continue to seek to be conformed to his will and to the person he desires me to be.
Please pray for my brother seminarians and me as we continue to seek and follow where the Lord is leading us.
“My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways.” (Proverbs 23:26)
