Ordination 2021

Fr. Thomas A. Bambrick, SJ 

• Born: October 8, 1980 

• Entered Society: August 28, 2010 

• As a Jesuit: Father Bambrick has engaged in ministry with immigrants and incarcerated youth in Minneapolis and with college students and those experiencing homelessness in Detroit; performed pastoral work in a hospital and retirement center in New York; taught at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Milwaukee; offered spiritual direction; served as a deacon at St. Patrick Parish in Oakland, California; and served on the leadership team of the Jesuit Anti-Racism Sodality. 

• Assignment Following Ordination: Father Bambrick will serve as director of Jesuit Mission and Identity at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School- Twin Cities. 

I am filled with gratitude for so many companions on this journey. I have been accompanied, formed, and sometimes carried along by so many people who offer me their love, prayers, and support. Truly, I would not be who I am today, and I would not be able to do what God calls me to, without the immense community of support around me. And hopefully I am able to share some of the abundant love and companionship that I have received with others along the way. I give thanks for all of you who have shown me glimpses of the kingdom of God—the beloved community where all are welcomed, embraced, and cared for. I look forward to working together  

Fr. Garrett P. Gundlach, SJ 

• Born: June 5, 1987 

• Entered Society: August 28, 2010 

• As a Jesuit: Father Gundlach has engaged in ministry with the Lakota people on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and with migrants and refugees in Chicago, Paris, and Beirut, Lebanon. 

• Assignment Following Ordination: Father Gundlach will return to the Middle East to engage in pastoral ministry in Jordan, as well as volunteering and ongoing Arabic studies. This fall, he will return to Beirut to study Muslim-Christian dialogue at Saint Joseph University. 

Gratitude can begin no better than with the hundreds of lunch sandwiches and weekend or weeknight pancakes that my parents made for us boys, each a small example of their huge love that has carried me here. I cannot thank them enough for the ways they built, nourished, and steered our little “house Church” into larger engagement with—and service to—the world around us. I am grateful for the dozens of families and friends of these larger communities, the other families that surrounded my own family: grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, classmates, and the after-church donut-social friends, these families who not only helped my own world feel bigger, but also safer. There’s no way I could live so comfortably as a Jesuit—whose “home is the whole world”—were it not for these widening and encouraging circles of family and friends. 

I am grateful to my mentors-become-friends and my inspirations-become-companions, who have guided my adult life. From Boy Scouts to St. Catherine’s High School to Marquette University campus ministry to Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest and more, I can’t thank them enough, as they’ve endured my flakiness and over-persistence, my marathon questions and unflagging energy. So often they helped me to direct this somewhere good—such as prayer, community, simplicity, service, and celebration. 

And I am grateful to my friends-become-inspirations who have been my companions in this adventure of vocation and of discovering God’s dreams for our world. Blood brothers, Jesuit brothers, family-becoming-friends and coworkers, thanks for the laughter in light moments and honesty in heavy ones, for patience in my self-righteous and arrogant moments, and encouragement in my weakest ones. Let’s keep going. 

Fr. Robert E. Karle, SJ 

• Born: April 25, 1985 

• Entered Society: August 28, 2010 

• As a Jesuit: Father Karle performed apostolic work at an ESL school, a L’Arche community, and the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota; engaged in various forms of ministry (including teaching yoga at Fordham University and at a Bronx food pantry) in New York City; taught religious studies and yoga at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis; cofounded the Ignatian Yoga organization; and served as a deacon at St. Ignatius Parish in San Francisco. 

• Assignment Following Ordination: Father Karle will serve as associate pastor at St. Mary’s Student Parish in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

I would like to express my deep gratitude to my family, friends, Jesuit mentors, and colleagues who have accompanied me throughout this journey. When I consider the Ignatian principle of “finding God in all things,” I first and foremost recognize God’s presence in the communities and relationships that have shaped my life. Amidst the many ups and downs, challenges, and forks in the road, I have always felt the unceasing support and care of the people around me. I wish to express my love and gratitude for my four grandparents and my great-grandmother whom I grew up very close to and who imbued in my family and me what I consider to be at the heart of the Catholic tradition—love, mercy, table fellowship, and servant leadership. May they rest in peace. 

I appreciate the way Jesuit life allows me to be myself and to carve my own path while progressively incorporating into this 500-year-old global institution of the Society of Jesus. Rather than being forced to conform to a cookie-cutter mold, I’ve been encouraged to live as my authentic self and to share my unique gifts and challenges alike. For, above all, authentic self-giving is the only way a vocation can flourish. Surely, it also involves a willingness to be formed by the other and to let go of thoughts and behavior patterns that no longer serve. As we say, it is both a freedom from and freedom for. Thank you to all those who support our freedom to carry on the mission and ministries of the Society of Jesus. I am grateful for the ways my community of friends and family helped me realize my areas of growth and brought out the best in me. 

Fr. Aaron B. Malnick, SJ 

• Born: May 28, 1979 

• Entered Society: August 25, 2012 

• As a Jesuit: Father Malnick ministered with the Missionaries of Charity in St. Louis; taught theology and worked in advancement at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois; and served as a deacon at St. Mary of the Assumption in Brookline, Massachusetts. 

• Assignment Following Ordination: Father Malnick will serve at Demontreville Jesuit Retreat House in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. 

As I am deserving of nothing, You have given me everything. Help me to reciprocate this grace. 

These words bubbled up to my lips during my last retreat as I took a long, loving look back over my years of formation—both before and throughout my time in the Society of Jesus. From my Polish grandmother, who always “joked” about my brother or me becoming a priest, to the strong faith foundation given to me by my parents, Greg and Judy; from my grad school education at Loyola University Chicago—where I met some of my first Jesuits—to Jesus Christ, who forgave me in the confessional at St. Peter’s Church in Chicago; from the novitiate staff—Frs. Tom, Charlie, and Chris—to all of the women and men I have ministered to and who have ministered to me over these years of formation (from the inmates at the Ramsey County Jail to the parishioners at Church of the Gesu in Cleveland and from the guests of St. Anthony’s Shelter in the South Bronx to the students of Loyola Academy); from friends who have believed in and encouraged me to follow Christ’s call to benefactors both known and unknown…I have been deserving of nothing, and yet, you have given me everything. I pray that my priesthood reciprocates this grace.  

Fr. Hung T. Nguyen, SJ 

• Born: November 20, 1987 

• Entered Society: August 19, 2006 

• As a Jesuit: Father Nguyen taught at Saint Ignatius College Prep in Chicago; accompanied migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border; was involved in spiritual direction ministry and Holy Week mission trips with students at Colegio San Bartolomé La Merced in Bogotá, Colombia; ministered at San Quentin State Prison in California; and served as a deacon at the Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Community of Divine Mercy Parish in Oakland, California. 

• Assignment Following Ordination: Father Nguyen will serve as parochial vicar at Sacred Heart Parish in El Paso, Texas. 

In January of 2017, I arrived in Bogotá, Colombia, for theology studies. During the first week, we visited the Jesuit church on the main plaza, which was in the late stages of a renovation project. That day, the workers were laying the bricks in patterns to cover up the bare floor. The sanctuary area was being dug up, exposing the various layers of bricks and stones which detailed the stories of the 400-year-old building. I was privileged to see what lay hidden underneath the floor before the project’s completion. 

As I complete my 15th year in formation, culminating in ordination to the priesthood, I give thanks to God for having blessed me with many gifts in my life. Particularly, I give thanks for my family, my friends, the Society of Jesus, and the many benefactors who are the bricks and stones that have helped build my life as a Jesuit. The limitless support from you all, which is often unseen, has become firm ground for me to stand on in this vocation of service and love. I am in a privileged place to recognize the precious gift of the human, spiritual, and intellectual formation that I have received, made possible by your generosity. Many have also offered countless prayers, blessings, and words of encouragement for me in my formation. In the name of our loving and generous God, may you receive the abundant graces to live in peace, love, and joy. 

Just as that church floor was meant to hold up the mystery of the Body of Christ, I ask that you pray that my priesthood will be a humble service to the people of God. Please know of my prayers for all of you. 

Fr. Trevor J. Rainwater, SJ 

• Born: January 2, 1988 

• Entered Society: August 28, 2010 

• As a Jesuit: Father Rainwater taught theology to freshman at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy. 

• Assignment Following Ordination: Father Rainwater will continue graduate studies for his licentiate in liturgical history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. 

I am extremely grateful to all the benefactors who helped make my life and the lives of so many other Jesuits possible. Just as Jesuits bring people to Christ, so does everyone who works at our institutions. The guidance of lay colleagues, who are willing to continue to spread the message of how transformative having a personal encounter with Christ can be, is especially important with Jesuit numbers decreasing at some of our institutions. 

With that in mind, I am also thankful for those who have been part of my formation from St. Paul to St. Louis and from Detroit to Toronto. As much as I was formed by God throughout formation, I was also formed by individuals, both inside and outside of my Jesuit community, who shaped me to be a better minister in the Lord’s vineyard as a newly ordained priest. 

I am grateful to my family—the foundation of my vocation. While going to Mass together and praying at meals strengthened our bond, it also laid the foundation for experiencing Christ in Scripture, which is a key point of the Spiritual Exercises. Additionally, it has been through this strong family unit which I was a part of that I hope to share with others with whom I live in community. 

Most importantly, I am grateful to God for allowing me to be of service to others and to help to show others, in my own tiny way, how God has been generous to me and how I must share and discuss this gift. 

Fr. Jeffrey D. Sullivan, SJ 

• Born: November 19, 1980 

• Entered Society: August 29, 2009 

• As a Jesuit: Father Sullivan has served as youth minister at St. Procopius Parish in Chicago; a teacher and campus minister at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois; and a prison chaplain at the women’s Federal Correctional Institute in Dublin, California. 

• Assignment Following Ordination: Father Sullivan will serve as a campus minister at Creighton University. 

Few words can reflect my Jesuit formation better than the words that Jesus speaks to his disciples in John’s Gospel: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” While Jesuit formation has not always been easy or linear, I have had the great grace of having so many people make sacrifices in their lives for me on my way to priestly ordination. 

My parents, Dave and Karen, are the exemplars of the love that Jesus expounds upon in John’s Gospel. Sacrificing much—their time and treasure—for the sake of providing my brother and me with 16 years of Catholic education, they have modeled this grace in a very humble and loving way (doing so with our signature Indiana twang and Hoosier hospitality). 

My vocation has also been sustained by loving families who have opened the doors to their homes and hearts for me throughout my Jesuit vocation. My brother Daniel, my sister-in-love (“in-law” does not feel right) Kendra, and their children, Jonathan, Gabriella, Anna Kate, and Timothy, have loved me into being. My aunt and uncle—Linda Ryza and Deacon Pete—have taught me how to be a minister of love and service. My college friends, Neal and Hannah Reykdal and Jason and Sara Beste, have invited me into the very sacred role of being a godfather to Owen Reykdal and Xavier Beste. I am grateful for how they open their hearts daily for others. 

And, finally, my Jesuit vocation would not be possible without the following companions who have laid down their life for me these 12 years: Fr. Patrick Gilger, SJ; Fr. Joshua Peters, SJ; all the unnamed but unforgettable Jesuits in my life; Elaine Mueller; Diana Valenzuela and the St. Procopius Youth Group; and my friends and colleagues at Creighton University.