Rev. Mr. Brendan Coffey, S.J. ’04

It will be exactly 20 years between Brendan Coffey’s graduation from St. Joseph’s Prep and his ordination as a Jesuit. Still, he attests that he would not be on his current faith journey without his Prep experience.

“The Prep 100% played a major role in my vocation story,” says Coffey. “I cannot imagine I’d be here without my time at the Prep.”

When applying for admittance to the Society of Jesus, each applicant must complete a spiritual autobiography, a 20-25 page document that details why he feels called to the Jesuits. Coffey says, “The Prep was prominent in my story.”

After entering the Jesuits at age 30, Coffey has spent the past nine years in formation (two years at the novitiate, two years of study at Fordham University, two years teaching as a scholastic at Fairfield Prep in Connecticut, and three years at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley). This past month, he was ordained to the diaconate, the final step towards Holy Orders.

While the journey might be familiar to others who have become Jesuits, Coffey took time in his 20s to explore other avenues. He worked as a teacher in San Diego and New York City after a stint in the Alumni Service Corps. Still, there was a feeling that he was being called to something else.

“There was always something nagging at me, in the best sense,” Coffey says. “It was always present and came up in greater force at different times.”

Coffey is one of three members of his Prep class to enter the Jesuits (Rev. Vinny Marcioni, S.J., and Rev. Kevin Hughes, S.J., who was also from Coffey’s same hometown, same parish, and same Boy Scout troop). When he entered in 2015, Coffey was joined by another Prep graduate, Jake Braithwate, S.J. ’07.

It’s been quite a journey for a young man who says that, “as a public school kid from South Jersey, I had no idea what a Jesuit was,” Coffey says. But his freshman year at the Prep coincided with the school’s sesquicentennial and there was, he says, “a fervor about our status as a Jesuit school.”

“I remember that Father General at the time, Peter Kolvenbach came over from Rome and he was talking about how the Prep remained connected to the city after the fire in 1966,” Coffey says. “The message was that we were a school where faith does justice. There was so much and I drank the Kool Aid. It was everywhere in our education. I'm thinking especially of that incredible American Studies class with (Mr. Bill) Connors and (Dr. Chris) Rupertus. I can look back and recognize it as a thoroughly Jesuit class - smart and socially engaged, but with a real commitment to hope and service.”

November is Jesuit Vocations Month. The Prep remains one of the best feeders to the Society of Jesus. Coffey suggests that anyone who senses that “nagging feeling” to be willing to hear it.

“Listening to a priestly vocation can seem like a crazy thing, something that isn’t typical in our society,” he says. “I encourage young men to let God fill you with the courage to take this seriously. I waited for a while and that was okay. I needed to hit a few walls first before I could find my way straight into this. I am glad that I finally was willing to give it a real try. When I was ready to put that forward as a real possibility, it felt like a leap of faith. But I would push anyone to take the bold leap. It’s worth it.”

Coffey has already felt the joy of life as a Jesuit. When he doubted whether he was worthy of the responsibility of being a priest, he was reminded of the words of his novice director, Fr. Jim Carr, S.J..

“He asked, has this been good for you,” Coffey says. “I replied, of course, it has been everything I ever wanted and more. He then said, ‘then the simple question is this: do you want more?

It’s only going to get better when you are a priest.’  I am thrilled that I have found in this vocation the same meaning that my friends and family have in marriage and raising kids. A life of incredible joy, a life-giving generosity of heart. Every step of the way, it seems like it is getting better. 

He expects that his first assignment will be to a parish, like most new Jesuit priests. He hopes to be able to teach again but now as a Jesuit. And he is incredibly moved to the work of a priest. “The idea of being a priest and being sacramentally available to people is incredible to me,” he says. “You are there at times quite significant to people in their own life's journey: weddings, baptism, anointings, burials. We get to accompany people in these moments. It is such a gift.”

And he hopes to be a person who plays the role that so many at the Prep did for him as a student. “The Prep was a place where I felt cared for and seen, we all felt we belonged, we all thought we mattered,” he remembers. “There was a sense of deep community and deep responsibility. You felt it in service and on retreats like Kairos, but also in the way our teachers cared about us and in the manner in which students treated one another."

The Prep brotherhood was evident early. “One of the things I most loved about Prep was that seniors really looked out for me when I was a little frosh,” Coffey says. “It shocked me and taught me something so important about the Prep (and something I've witnessed at other Jesuit schools). I talked about this recently with (former President) Fr. (David) Sauter, and he claims everything changed when Kairos came to Prep. Whatever hazing happened in his earlier days as President stopped almost immediately after those first retreats entirely by the will of the seniors.”