
Joseph Solomon
Birthday | July 13 |
Ordination Year | 2023 |
Home Town | Bloomingdale, IL |
Home Parish | St. Isidore, Bloomingdale |
Undergraduate | DePaul University (Health Sciences (Minor: Biological Sciences and Psychology)) |
Previous Career | Martial Arts Instructor, Pharmacy Technician |
Languages | English, Tagalog, Spanish |
Hobbies | Taekwondo, watching movies, and learning about new technology |
Tidbit | I have a 3rd degree black belt in Taekwondo |
Favorite Saint | St. Joseph |
Vocation Story | I was born and raised Catholic, attending Catholic grade school and college. I am truly blessed to have support for my vocation from my family, especially my grandmother. I felt the call to priesthood when my father was hospitalized and when my grandfather was in hospice, where I witnessed a priest ministering to the sick in a more personal way than the doctors. That is when I knew that I wanted to minister to God’s people as a spiritual physician rather than a bodily physician. |
Priest Aspirations | Celebrating mass and listening to confessions |
What has been your favorite/most memorable story of your time at Mundelein thus far? | During my summer at the Institute for Priestly Formation in Omaha, NE in 2019, I was distributing communion to patients in the cancer center at Nebraska Medical Center. I entered the room of a 70-year-old man with aged tattoos and a smell that made me think he has not showered in days. I asked him if he wanted to receive communion and he slowly got on his knees to receive the Eucharist. I was speechless, first at the fact that a man his age could go on his knees on the cold hospital floor, but second that he recognized the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Let us remember who is truly present when we receive the Eucharist at mass! |
How can Mundelein's donors and community pray for you? | Please pray for us and all young people that we may follow God’s will for our lives and that we may be faithful to that vocation in which we are called. |