Meet Our Summer Seminarian

Hello! My name is Christian Huebner, and I’m a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Washington assigned this summer to St. Edward’s. Fr. Scott asked me to introduce myself a bit in this week’s column. I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska with two wonderful parents and three younger sisters. We were Protestant with Lutheran roots, but when I was still young we began to attend an Evangelical Bible church. That was where I learned to pray, to love the Scriptures, and to seek out fellowship with other Christian believers. College took me to Minnesota, to a small Lutheran liberal arts school called St. Olaf. Here, the Lord began tugging at my heart to join a deeper communion with the Church. I was drawn to the traditional prayers and liturgy in the Lutheran campus chapel, but I also knew I needed the living prayer life of the Evangelical congregations I’d grown up with. After college I attended law school at Yale. There, I met a group of Catholic friends who were living a life with both the depth of tradition I admired in the Lutheran church and faith in the living power of Christ which I knew from my Evangelical roots. Over time, through friendship, books, and hard but honest conversations, I learned more about the Catholic faith, until one day a door opened in my heart, and I knew I wanted to become Catholic. Within that first year in the Church, and for several years while practicing law (which brought me to DC), I perceived a holy restlessness in my heart. The possibility of becoming a priest, of following a call placed deep in my heart, hung before me. Even though it frightened me, I knew I wouldn’t really be happy unless I gave the Lord a “yes” and entered seminary. That was five years ago, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this life. Please pray for me, and for all young men and women who sense the Lord’s call to priesthood or religious life within them. He does great things in our lives, and everyone has a part to play in nurturing these vocations. God bless, Christian