Kevin McGraw grew up in the village of Elida, Ohio, seven miles from that state’s only Redemptorist parish, St. Gerard’s in Lima. He discerned a vocation to the priesthood before he knew about the Redemptorists. One day, noticing the pastor wearing a habit rather than usual black clerical garb, Kevin began asking questions and doing online research.
“I had thought religious life would be too radical for me, but I was drawn to the founder, St. Alphonsus Liguori. His vision was for us to be dynamic missionary preachers,” Kevin explained, adding, “Who would want to be less than that? I want to be the best preacher I can be.” The best piece of advice he found in his discernment was from the U.S. bishops’ website: “Try to make daily Mass as much a part of your daily routine as possible.”
He also was inspired by Bishop Robert Barron’s book Vibrant Paradoxes: The Both/And of Catholicism. “When you give everything to Christ, He gives you everything you ever dreamed of and more. We’re fulfilled in proportion to how much we empty ourselves,” Kevin commented.
While a student at Bowling Green State University, he worked in a ministerial position at the university’s Newman Center, testing his capacity for the ministerial life. He asked, “What better way to prepare for my vocation than in a place that gives you a sense of what it’s like?”
After graduating from Bowling Green State University, he entered the Redemptorists’ pre-novitiate in the Bronx, N.Y., in August 2013. After two years there, Kevin professed first vows in Toronto and arrived at Oblate School of Theology in 2016 with three other Redemptorist seminarians to begin the novitiate. He said he has at least two more years to go before ordination.
The Redemptorists selected San Antonio’s St. Gerard Parish and OST as the venue for their novitiate program because of OST’s pastoral emphasis and its long focus on Hispanic ministry. “Nearly every one of our parishes has some kind of Hispanic ministry, and this pastoral approach (at OST) is very helpful to us,” he commented.
“The Oblates are like cousins to us because their founder was a lot like ours; the pastoral approach means that it’s not just knowledge but the application of knowledge and the integration of service in the mission you’ve signed up for. There’s an emphasis on our missionary identity, so it makes sense to send us here,” Kevin said.
Kevin was attracted by the diversity of OST’s student population. “There’s a big chunk from Assumption Seminary, a variety of religious congregations and ethnic backgrounds, and there’s also an ecumenical dimension. In the four semesters I’ve been here, there’s always been at least one Protestant in at least one of my classes,” he observed.
He likes the frequent hellos when students mingle between classes and at lunch, the free coffee, the natural camaraderie among the different religious formation houses and the ease of networking and meeting a variety of professors which comes with a relatively small school.
“I’m interested in broadcasting and communication,” he said. “I’m filling my toolbox with tools to be the best pastor I can be, wherever the Redemptorist life takes me. I don’t know why anybody wouldn’t want to set the bar that high. So much is being invested in us, and we’re going to be involved in people’s lives.”
J. Michael Parker, Director of Communications