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
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.