Mesa welcomes a newly ordained Catholic priest

Matt Lowry was starting out as an electrical engineer at Motorola and being nurtured for management. And he was actively dating. But the sparks that were flying were neither electrical nor romantic. Lowry was feeling the attraction to the Catholic priesthood.

When he opted for seminary, it meant cutting off a relationship with a woman. “I counted once — I had five relationships that lasted for six months or more and I was approaching marriage a couple times, and so I was seriously considering that,” he said. “It was only those times of deep discernment with a woman that really helped me discern that I realized I wasn’t to give myself away yet because I wasn’t sure who 'myself’ was.”

He chose a seminary education. Now, he is embarking on a career where marriage is out of the question. On June 7, Lowry was one of three men ordained priests by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix in rites at Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral.

“For a long time, and even now, I would love to be married, but I think I love being a priest, and I think God led me this way,” said Lowry, 29, whose first parish assignment is Holy Cross parish in east Mesa. The other two new priests, the Rev. Arthur Nave Jr., 27, and the Rev. José Jesús López, 34, have been assigned to parishes in Avondale and Cave Creek respectively. All three started work Tuesday.

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Lowry was 7 when his father was transferred in 1986 to Arizona by the IRS. He grew up in St. Theresa parish in Phoenix and later graduated from Camelback High School. “I was really good in math and science, and my brother went into electrical engineering, and I said, 'Well, that sounds good to me.’ ”

He enrolled at Arizona State University. During college, Lowry helped the youth group at St. Theresa. Later, he took over as youth leader. That experience, including retreats, helped guide him toward ministry. Lowry went to World Youth Days in Rome (2000), Toronto (2002) and Cologne, Germany (2005), where young Catholics are challenged to recommit themselves to deeper spirituality.

He regrets he cannot attend the next Youth Day July 15-20 in Sydney, Australia. “I would have loved to go to Australia, just to recognize the universality of the church, that there is something bigger going on than just looking at my particular church,” he said. “There were people from countries all over the world who couldn’t speak the same language, but yet, we were unified in the Eucharist ... It was just a great spirit of joy and peace and being one.” His Youth Day trips especially “got me really excited about the Catholic Church.”

During his senior year of the electrical engineering program, Lowry interned at Motorola. After he earned his engineering degree in 2000, he was offered two jobs. He was put into a rotation program “to grow me as a manager and to try to give me a big vision of the company,” he said. “I kind of joked that my 'final placement’ was outside the company,” when he opted for seminary.

“To be honest, I never really considered being a priest until going on a retreat after high school,” he said. When a priest made the appeal, Lowry experienced a what-about-me? feeling. “I thought, 'What if God is calling me to be a priest?’ ”

Yet he just “carried the question in the back of my head, and it was almost like trying to push a beach ball under the water — as I went on with college and beyond and was dating, the idea kept coming back.”

He said he couldn’t “stop the idea anymore. It was like 'I have to go now in order to be at peace with myself.’ ”

“I think a lot of people are being called to holy vocations,” he said. But that call is being “drowned out” and family environments aren’t as stable “where a relationship with God can be fostered.”

He said Catholic youth, too often, blend so well into the culture “that they have the same perspective as everyone else.”

“In a way, when the church speaks to Catholic youth, it speaks to all youth and recognizes that they are looking for true meaning because the world offers such flashy things” as the Internet, MySpace.com, Facebook and a “lot of surfacey stuff,” Lowry said. He noted how Pope Benedict XVI, during his April visit to the U.S., told a youth gathering that “Jesus Christ is where you will find true meaning. Put your hope in Christ and you will experience true happiness.”

Lowry enrolled in St. Meinrad School of Theology, a Catholic seminary in Indiana, where the discernment continued and where candidates go through rigorous testing to screen out men who may be unfit for the collar. “They want you to be happy. They want happy, holy priests that can be effective. They don’t want any more problem cases,” he said, alluding to the priest sex scandals of the past decade. Seminarians were occasionally asked to leave, and even when some left or were asked to leave, “they kind of rejoice in that. ... Our role is to help form Christian men for the priesthood.” Even those seminarians who leave partway through the four-year program will have benefited and will be better Catholic men and future family leaders, Lowry said.

Meanwhile, seminaries also have stepped up teaching practical skills, including cooking, the ability to live alone, conflict resolution, making friendships, sexual and emotional formation, setting boundaries, renewing oneself, avoiding addictions and staying fit. Lowry, who will serve the 3,800-family Holy Cross parish led by the Rev. Richard Felt, said he is eager to get started. On the side, he enjoys pickup basketball in the park, running, computer games and indulging his eight nieces and nephews.

Of the 10 who started with him at St. Meinrad, “there were five of us who made it to the end,” he said.

During the recent two-hour ordination services, Lowry he felt the “grace of peace.”

“I knew that I was in God’s will, and there was nowhere else I would rather be,” he said. “I was trying to enter into the moment and enjoy the ordination and let each part of the rite speak to me.” Afterwards, he would spend another two hours getting handshakes, hugs and well-wishes, especially from the St. Theresa parish community.

Lowry said he simply wants to do God’s will. “I have always found happiness and joy doing that. It has given me strength to move through my life and make changes, to break up with girlfriends, or whatever. I believe that it is through God’s will, and I do it generously.”