As a young Cole McDowell sat among more than a dozen priests and multiple bishops celebrating an outdoor Mass on the front portico of the Basilica of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral in Bardstown, Ky., the late-summer sun beamed on his face and he was overwhelmed with a call to the priesthood.
The Bardstown-native was a freshman in high school volunteering as an altar server for the Archdiocese of Louisville’s bicentennial celebration Mass on Sept. 28, 2008.
“I just had this overwhelming sense that ‘This is where you belong. This is where I want you to be. God is calling me to be up here as his priest and serve his people,’ ” he said, recalling the event, in a recent interview.
Now, Deacon McDowell was ordained to the diaconate on April 20, 2024. He will be ordained to the priesthood at 11 a.m. on May 31 at the Cathedral of the Assumption.
“It is the culmination of a seven-year journey through seminary and a much longer journey since I began discerning. It’s a great gift — this whole vocation is.”
— Deacon Cole McDowell
That moment in 2008 “launched me on this path of serious discernment,” he said. But his journey to the priesthood began much earlier.
The oldest of three children, Deacon McDowell, 31, was raised in a “blessed, stable marriage,” he said. As a child, he created his own illustrated Bible and liked to “play Mass” with his cousins at his grandmother’s house.
Growing up, “Church was very intimately wedded with family life, community and with school,” he said.
Catholicism is “in our blood, it’s in our heritage,” he said, noting that his mother, Connie McDowell, traces her ancestry to Kentucky’s first Catholic settlers from Maryland in the late 1700s.
He attended St. Joseph School and Bethlehem High School, both in Bardstown, alongside his cousins. Each Sunday, his extended family sat together in the same section of the Basilica of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral, he said.
“That created a very stable foundation for me,” he said.
His two childhood pastors — Bishop William Medley of Owensboro (then-Father Medley) and Father William Hammer — also provided “great models of what priesthood should be,” he said. His high school chaplain, Father Michael Wimsatt, also helped him to see that the priesthood “might be something for me,” he said.
But the journey to the seminary took some time.
Upon graduating from high school, Deacon McDowell decided to study at Western Kentucky University, majoring in history and English literature. Then, he went to the University of Notre Dame, earning a graduate degree in early Christian studies.
Almost a decade after the bicentennial Mass that inspired his vocation, Deacon McDowell began seminary at Theological College at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
During his seven-year journey through the seminary, he’s come to a greater understanding of “what the process of discernment is all about,” he said.
“It’s tempting to think that once you’ve ascertained you have been called to the priesthood, discernment is over. I don’t think that’s the case. Every Christian should be discerning all the time. We should all be discerning what God’s will for us is,” he said.
That’s why daily prayer is central, he said.
“You open yourself up to the will of God. … How does God want me to live out this priesthood? How does God want me to live out this priesthood tomorrow? So this all-encompassing, thorough view of discernment is what has changed for me,” he said.
Reflecting on his years of preparation for the priesthood, McDowell said he’s found joy in the people.
“The greatest blessing for me in seminary has been meeting other seminarians, other priests, people that I otherwise would have never encountered and growing in holiness together with them,” he said.
As his presbyteral ordination nears, Deacon McDowell said he’s excited.
“It is the culmination of a seven-year journey through seminary and a much longer journey since I began discerning. It’s a great gift — this whole vocation is.”
Deacon McDowell will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving at 11 a.m. on June 1 at the Basilica of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral. He grew up attending the 11 a.m. Sunday Mass with his family, he noted. “This is my family’s Mass.”
After his ordination, Deacon McDowell will serve as associate pastor of St. James Church in Elizabethtown, Ky., effective July 1.
Thank you, Olivia, this is a wonderful article!