Meet Summer Seminarians Joey Griggs & Robert Williams: Bringing a Desire to Learn to Our Parish

At just 6 years old, Joey Griggs experienced a traumatic injury from a biking accident. After that incident, he began discerning the priesthood.

“Though it was a challenging and uncertain time, the Lord worked in many special ways to give me a great amount of grace,” Joey says. “From that point on, the thought only continued to grow as Jesus led me through high school and college.”

Since building the new rectory in October 2019, we’ve had the opportunity to host seminarians, and last year we hosted Leo Morales and Alessandro Calderoni.

Joey Griggs and Robert Williams are the two seminarians who will be spending this summer with our faith community at St. Francis Xavier.

“I’ve known both Robert and Joey for a long time,” Fr. Brian O’Brien says. “They were both students at Bishop Kelley High School while I was assigned there. I’ve also known their families for a long time and have kept in touch with both of them for a while.”

Like Joey, Robert also experienced the first inklings of a call to the priesthood when he was 6 years old.

“I started altar serving at that time,” Robert says. “I loved being close to the altar during the consecration and would imagine what it would be like to be the priest during Mass.”

Both Joey and Robert have finished two years of seminary. Joey went to seminary right out of high school while Robert worked as a missionary for Saint Paul’s outreach on college campuses helping disciple students. Robert is fluent in German, and Joey knows some Spanish.

“They have brought joy-filled personalities and a desire to learn about parish life,” Fr. O’Brien says. “Joey will be here for all of June and July, and Robert will be here all of June and half of July. Then he is going to study in Italy.”

Our summer seminarians — (from left) Robert Williams and Joey Griggs

Joey is extremely grateful for the many prayers that have been said on behalf of the priests and seminarians within our diocese. He would also like to ask for prayers for his brother, who was married in June, and for his seminarian brothers at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis.

Robert is also thankful for the faith community’s prayers and looks forward to meeting parishioners.

“Besides having more time to pray, I am really looking forward to meeting people,” Robert says. “I am also looking forward to shadowing Fr. Robert and Fr. O’Brien to get a parish community experience, and I want to thank all of the people in our diocese for all of their support and prayers over the last two years.”

Fr. O’Brien and Fr. Robert Duck both benefited from summer assignments like this to help them to become our priests, and now we have the opportunity to do that for others.

“Our mission is to make disciples,” Fr. O’Brien says. “Joey and Robert are disciples of Jesus Christ, and they bring that life and energy to our parish even if just for a short time. This is part of our stewardship way of life since we have a responsibility to form the future priests of our diocese.”