The Fr. Jonathan Meyer Interview with Matthew Kelly
Matthew Kelly:
I'm Matthew Kelly and welcome to Profoundly Human. Today my guest is Father Jonathan Meyer, Father Jonathan, how are you?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
I'm great.
Matthew Kelly:
Good to be with you.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
It's good to be with you as well.
Matthew Kelly:
Thanks for coming, we really appreciate it.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
Thank you.
Matthew Kelly:
So big questions first. Are you a coffee drinker?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
Well, clearly-
Matthew Kelly:
Coffee drinker.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
This is coffee.
Matthew Kelly:
It is coffee. Excellent. And what are your... How much coffee do you drink?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
It depends on what season of life I'm in and where I'm at. There were years when I was two shots of espresso to start the day off and nothing for the rest of the day. There were days where I did the butter and coconut oil brain octane fuel thing for a while. Currently I am coffee, first thing I wake up in the morning and normally a coffee sometime around three o'clock in the afternoon.
Matthew Kelly:
All right. And what about favorite food?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
Anything in the Italian realm. I love pasta. So an Italian restaurant makes me very happy. However, if that's not possible, a good steak is always delicious.
Matthew Kelly:
Favorite band or musician or music?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
This is where my favorites are really going to struggle. I'm just going to have to say anything from the nineties genre. I'm there with you. I graduated from high school in 1995, so anything that takes me back to that era is just great music. And I really am diversified in like in the different styles and types, but just good nineties music, just is where I'm at.
Matthew Kelly:
What about favorite movie?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
There is a very unknown film by many people. It's called St. Ralph, but it's not a Catholic film. It's a Canadian film about a young boy who tries to win the Boston Marathon and the film is deeply profound and has just so many great moments that... It's the film I've watched the most in my life and inspires me.
Matthew Kelly:
And what is one of the takeaways from the film for you?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
I would probably say magnanimity. It is about a young boy who believes that anything is possible and he is a dreamer and he is willing to act on his dreams.
Matthew Kelly:
Fantastic. So tell us about your childhood. What was it like growing up? Where did you grow up?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
So I've from the Midwest. I was born in Michigan, age of five, moved to Wisconsin, lived there for 11 years, and then we moved to Indiana the summer between my sophomore and junior year in high school. Graduated from high school in 1995 and went to two years of state school in Indiana prior to go heading off to seminary back in 1997. Those 11 years in Wisconsin were great. I would say they were very much defined by a lot of freedom and a lot of just life and creativity. When I think about my childhood, I think about building forts, I think about creating just so much fun with my friends in the neighborhood and my siblings, and it was just a powerful childhood. I'm so just so thankful for the freedom and the joy and the creativity that existed.
Matthew Kelly:
What about your parents? What are your parents like, or what memories do you have of your parents growing up?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
Well, my mom and dad, it's really beautiful, but my father was Lutheran until I was in eighth grade. My mom was a strong devout Catholic. And so she raised myself and my three siblings in the Catholic faith. And my dad eventually when he converted the faith, just bringing more unity to the family, but my parents were so supportive. My parents were the ones who were always at events and always around encouraging us. And I'm very blessed right now. My parents are in my parish boundaries, which is very unique for a priest to have his parents be his parishioners. My dad goes around our parish and introduces himself as the original Father Meyer. And he's very proud that his son is a priest. My mom is very much so dedicated our life to catechesis and works a lot with young people, informing them the ways of the faith and they're my heroes.
Matthew Kelly:
Did you grow up playing sport?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
I did. I learned in sixth grade that I was pretty good at running and just really dedicated myself to that. So cross country and track all through high school and then into college as well. And that served me, not just physically, but also just taught me so many lessons that I needed for success in my own life.
Matthew Kelly:
Do you like watching sport?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
I like watching live sport.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
I am not a TV sport watcher.
Matthew Kelly:
And what would be your favorite sport to watch live?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
My favorite sport to watch live would be basketball.
Matthew Kelly:
Yeah.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
And as a priest, I have a lot of children and I love going into high school football games... I go to football games all... But high school basketball games, high school football games ,is just a great way to support those kids, support those young people, support those families, but also enjoy a great game.
Matthew Kelly:
Fantastic. Who is the most interesting person you've ever met?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
I would say the most interesting person that I've ever met would be John Paul II. I had the opportunity to meet him when I was a student studying to be a priest and one of my heroes. And clearly when you look at his life and the impact that he's made, he's an interesting man, because he doesn't fit the mould in the box that so many people want to put either a priest or a Bishop or even the Pope, his diversity and his desire to really reach the whole world through preaching the gospel. A great inspiration.
Matthew Kelly:
Were you living in Rome studying as a seminary when you met him?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
Yeah. I had the opportunity to study in Rome.
Matthew Kelly:
And is that when you developed the two shots of espresso morning routine?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
It's really interesting. I never drank coffee until I was 30 years old.
Matthew Kelly:
Okay.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
I thought coffee was a sign of weakness because you needed caffeine to make it through the day, which means in my mind, you weren't taking care of yourself. You weren't sleeping, you weren't eating right. And so I lived, as sad as it is, I lived in Italy for four years and didn't have one shot of espresso.
Matthew Kelly:
Wow.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
So-
Matthew Kelly:
Some people might think that is sacreligious.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
I know.
Matthew Kelly:
How would you describe yourself to someone who had never met you?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
I would say I am a priest of Jesus Christ and my life exists for the sake of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with the world. That's who I am and that's what I'm about.
Matthew Kelly:
So my next question, that sort of answers my next question, which is what matters most to you at this time in your life? But go a little bit deeper into that. What is it that's most important to you at this time in your life?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
It really is the proclamation of the gospel. It's bringing people to life and joy and freedom, which is only found in that relationship with Him. And so I see my whole life being an outpouring of that, then that is what is most important. That's what I wake up for. That's what I go to bed thinking about. That's what I pray about, is how do I do that well to serve him and to bring that about in other people's lives?
Matthew Kelly:
So you grew up Catholic and you've spoken about your mom and her commitment to the faith, both raising you in the faith and even today as a catechist, when did the faith become yours? When did you sort of claim it as something other than, okay, I grew up Catholic. Was there a moment where you felt like, okay, it's mine now?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
Yeah. So that question, it's going to lead us down a little bit of a path. I was born and raised Catholic and up until my sophomore year of college, if people would've said like, what do you believe? I would've said, well, I'm Catholic. I go to mass every single Sunday. And I say an Our Father and a Hail Mary and a Glory Be every night before I go to bed. But I was raised in the church during a period and a time and an era where catechesis wasn't very strong and what we were taught often didn't get transmitted really well. And I really didn't have a relationship with God, I would say. So my sophomore year in college, I met a whole group of non-denominational Christians who were on fire with the faith and they started asking me questions and I had no answers. And I eventually got invited to a revival on campus, which I honestly didn't know what that word even meant.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
I thought that maybe they were going to bring somebody back from the dead. I really had no idea what a revival was. And it was a bunch of Christians, they had their Bibles and they sang songs. And the next thing I felt and experienced as I entered into that, is I felt an overwhelming presence of God, I felt tremendously loved. And it was at that moment that I actually heard God say to me, "John, be a priest." And my mind is just turning over and over and over, like be a priest. And God loves me. And I walked out of the room that night and a young girl came up to me and she said, "Jonathan, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior." I just looked at her and I said, I'm Catholic. I don't think we do that.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
And then she said, "John, do you know who Jesus is?" And I said, I say an Our Father, a Hail Mary and Glory Be every night before I got to bed, I think I'm good. I'll never forget it, but she looked directly eye to eye and she just says, "Jonathan, you have no idea who God is." She turned around and she walked away. And I remember just standing there. I was on a basketball court. I remember just standing there being like, I have no idea what just happened in my life. But all I know is it was real.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
So I went back to my dorm room and I lived with four other college athletes and I knew I couldn't say anything to them about this experience. I would've been laughed at or just too hard to explain. So I went to bed that night and I didn't sleep. I remember just tossing and turning but I woke up that next morning. I was like, I have to make a decision. So I said, okay, God, I know that you are real. And I need to learn who you are. I need to discover who you are. And this priesthood thing, no way, just suppressed it, get rid of it.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
And so in the next few weeks, my life changed radically. Within two weeks, I had joined a men's prayer group and I was going to praise worship on Thursday nights and so powerful. I met genuine men that wanted to grow in fraternity and wanted to grow in virtue. I met a lot of young adults who just experienced life in a way that I had never seen before. All at the same time I struggled with but what does it mean to be Catholic? And I just kind of just kept pushing that away as well. Eventually at the end of that semester, there are many things, I'd been dating a young lady that I really thought I was going to marry. But I couldn't get rid of this idea of the priesthood and this newfound love that I had for Jesus and accepting him as my personal Lord and savior and praise and worship music.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
And the only thing that I could figure out in my sophomore mind in college was the fact that God wanted me to become a priest so that I could convert Catholics to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and savior. So I actually said I'm going to be all in. So I met with my parish priest, who I had never talked to in my life. And with a three week turnaround, I had affiliated with the archdiocese of Minneapolis to become a seminarian and was enrolled into college seminary in Minnesota at St. John Vianney Seminary. And at the time I had never prayed a rosary. I had never heard the Jesus Christ Was Truly Present and Blessed Sacrament and I was pro-choice and I really didn't know what a priest was besides the fact that priests were supposed to help people love Jesus. I didn't love Jesus from my experience of being a Catholic.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
So it just set me on fire with this desire to bring that conversion renewal to the church. And quickly I learned of course, after a seminary that I had a lot to learn. And from that I did a lot of study and that then led me to realizing the beauty of the Catholic faith. And I always like to say my sophomore year in college, I fell in love with Jesus. And when I entered into seminary, my junior year of college, I fell in love with this church and that love that I had to convert Catholics and that desire and that passion, this place in my heart, it's the same passion and the desire that I have today. So many of our Catholic brothers and sisters are asleep in their faith. And God, I believe is inviting every single one of them to have a reawakening, to have an opening, to surrender their lives and to realize the riches and the treasures that exist within the church, that many of them like myself, had just never really been introduced to, or they were, but it didn't take effect. And so my priesthood really has been a beautiful journey of trying to help people to realize that, yes, Jesus is real and yes, he loves you. And he has a church and that church is beautiful.
Matthew Kelly:
What did the girl say?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
So, I caused a fight and broke up with her and it was very hard because I really did love her and cared for her very much so. And he was a lot of tears, but in the end, in the battle of God or the girl, I think God should always win. And he did. And I'm thankful for that.
Matthew Kelly:
Why were you pro-choice?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
I was actually pro-choice because of my girlfriend, I remember having the conversation one night with her, somehow the topic came up from current events of what was happening in the news and the media. I remember turning to her one night and being like, well, what do you think about abortion? Which is, side note, how I think a lot of young people get formed on social issues is they just ask a friend. I can honestly say that, I never once remember hearing anything in any my CCD classes about abortion. I never once heard anything from the pulpit, from a pastor or for a priest. And I remember her just looking at me and she said, "There's no way that I would spend so much money on college and have all these dreams and allow a child to take that away from me."
Father Jonathan Meyer:
And so I remember just being like "That makes so much sense. Yeah. That makes so much sense." And that was my stance.
Matthew Kelly:
So you've been on this journey. How does God amaze you today?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
God amazes me today, personally in the fact that he hasn't given up on me. He keeps me alive. He keeps grace alive. He keeps my joy alive, but he amazes me today in that he keeps placing people in my life who I have the honor and the opportunity to see their lives change, whether it be a young person in our youth ministry program, or just a few days ago, a young adult brought her great aunt to the parish and her great aunt just got diagnosed with terminal cancer. She most likely has a month to live and her great aunt wants to be baptized before she dies. And you see just this beauty of the hunger that exists and it's beautiful.
Matthew Kelly:
Powerful. Your a life as a priest, obviously very busy, very demanding. I know that you coach track, cross country and not just a little bit here for an hour or something that it's a serious commitment and a significant part of your life and ministry. Tell us a little bit about that.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
So God never wants to bury a gift. He always wants to magnify it and exalt it and use it for His Kingdom. When I went to college directly out of high school, the only thing I wanted to be was a cross country coach. And so I went into education because in the nineties, my only experience with all of my coaches was that they were teachers in schools. That's changed very much in today's culture. So I went to college to become a high school teacher so that I could coach. When God called me to be a priest, I had to be like, oh God, I'll sacrifice this to you. If I'm going to become a priest, there's no way that I could ever coach, but I'll sacrifice this desire. I'll sacrifice this dream.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
But once ordained, I realize that God wants to take those desires into those dreams and He wants to bless them and He wants to use them for His Kingdom and for His glory. And I would've coached if I had taken my other path, I would've been a coach and I would've probably been a decent coach, I guess, of some sorts, but it would've been more about me. And once ordained, I quickly realized that schools are looking for anybody who's willing to be a positive influence in the life of young people. And I was very blessed with one of my first parish assignments that a whole bunch of my high school alter servers just happened to be on the cross country team. And I was trying to recruit these high school boys to get them into the sanctuary. And I quickly realized that if you build a relationship with them, by spending time on their side, that they're going to come to your side.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
And so I got to know their parents, I got to know them. And after that first year, they asked if I'd be willing to help them with the summer training program, that then led to me building a relationship with a coach that then ultimately led to shaking a lot of hands and smiling, ultimately meeting the athletic director who when the current coach had to leave on maternity leave, he reached out to me and said, "Would you be willing to be the head coach of our cross country program?" And I said, yes. And so I'm in my 12th year of coaching now at public high schools. I'm in my second public high school. And it's a beautiful commitment every day from three o'clock until 17:30, to be in the lives of young people, to see them on their turf and their terms, but to call them to something more, which is often very subtle.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
I'm not in that school to walk around and boldfully say, "Jesus is Lord" but my actions and my words and the way that I treat them in the way that I coach them, preaches the gospel. And so from that, it's been powerful, we've had families that have come back to the faith. We've had baptisms. We've had people that... But more importantly, not that... That is really important, but the ability to encourage young people and build them up, knowing that God willing, one day that's going to be a husband, a wife, a father, a mother, and that those relationships changed lives. Yeah. I love coaching.
Matthew Kelly:
So spending all this time with young people, what would you say is the greatest need of young people or one of the greatest needs of young people today?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
They need a mother and a father and they need someone to pay attention to them. They need someone to pay attention to them that's a real living human being. And if that can be a mom and a dad, that's the best, they long for human interaction. And that's what they need. That's what they're screaming for, behind every desire that they have on every social Instagram, Facebook, or whatever, Snapchat, they are longing to be affirmed and to be noticed and to be loved. And it's a great need.
Matthew Kelly:
When that is not fulfilled or filled in a healthy way, what is the fallout you see? And how has that changed say over the last decade or two decades?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
Yeah. So the fallout can be as terrible as suicide, as cutting, which is prevalent in our schools, the numbing effects of alcohol, of drugs, of food, but also just the darkness that they go deeper and deeper and deeper into a technology, hoping that technology is going to somehow eventually reach out and touch them. And so whether it be gaming or whether it be social media, but you just see an ever-growing desire to remove myself from reality for a sake of somehow being affirmed, loved, or finding pleasure.
Matthew Kelly:
So obviously one of the things facing young people is big decisions. You've had to make big decisions in your life. And if someone comes to you, they have a big decision before them, whether they're young or old, how do you counsel them to approach the big decisions of life?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
That's a good question. First is prayer, silence. I truly believe that silence is key to be able to allow God to speak to your heart and for you to hear God speaking in your heart. So I am always encouraging people to spend time in silence, to take those situations or difficulties or questions or proposals or opportunities, dreams to silence. And I'm also a big believer that writing things is so important. So for me, it's post-it notes, by the way, for some people it's journaling for some people it's writing letters to yourself or to God, but our minds race so much that we need to get things down so we can see it and it's concrete and it's real. And so I encourage people always just to go to silence, to find the Lord, to hear Him speak into your heart, to write about it, for clarity. But the third step is the one that people don't do. They don't act. And that can be the hardest... Is just, I got to act. And even I got to make a commitment somehow to be able to move forward on this inspiration that God has given me.
Matthew Kelly:
What do you love most about being a priest?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
Clearly would be... Quintessentially, the two... A priest is being a sacramental agent in the world. So celebrating the sacrament, celebrating holy mass, celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation hearing people's confessions, but in the overarching, it's about conversion. I love the fact that a priest exists to bring conversion to individuals, but also conversion to communities. And I love seeing the transformation that takes place in people's lives, through the sacraments and through the conversion and renewal process.
Matthew Kelly:
We speak about conversion. Many people tend to think about a moment of conversion rather than the constant and ongoing conversion that God calls us to each and every single day of our lives. When you're so actively involved in trying to bring about this conversion in other people's lives, how do you attend to your own need for conversion on a daily basis?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
Personally, I've what I call my non-negotiables. So non-negotiables as a priest. I say, mass every single day, I pray the Liturgy of the Hours, which is the divine offers, which are several prayers that we have to pray throughout the day. I'm committed to spending two hours every day in front of the Blessed Sacrament to be in the presence of our Lord and to allow Him to be my all and my everything. I try to live a life of penance and discipline, asceticism. I would say those are my non-negotiables. Those are the things, I have to be doing these things. If I want to be doing what I want other people to be doing, I need to myself be living that life of radical holiness. If I want to call other people to be in disciples and followers of the Lord.
Matthew Kelly:
So we all experience seasons in our spirituality. When you get stalled in your own spirituality and you still have to wake up every day and serve people in their pain and in their need, what do you do when you feel like you're stalled spirituality? What do you do when feel you're stalled spiritually?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
For me, it's going back to the fundamentals. So that list that I just gave right there would be my first question. Okay. If I'm not where I'm at, is that because one of these things is missing? That I have found to be tried and true ways and means for me to be the priest, the saint, that God is calling me to be. So I look back at that, but also with the sense of, okay, has God invited me to something new at this moment? Is there another way or something that I should be doing right now in my life that I wasn't doing before? Yeah.
Matthew Kelly:
And do you look back on times where you felt like you were stalled spiritually and realize, okay, no, I wasn't stalled spiritually. God was doing something new, God was doing something different. I just didn't have the frame of reference to recognize it.
Father Jonathan Meyer:
Yeah. So clearly one of the principles of the spiritual life is that when things don't seem to be going great, where there isn't great consolation, where there isn't a lot of maybe grace that's felt or experienced. Those are your growth points. This is why I love coaching is because it's the exact same. You can't train the human body without putting that human body through pain and through suffering and through toil. But also if we look at how the body ultimately conditions, bodies plateau, but then to get to that next level, something needs to happen to be able to push the human body to the next level. But plateaus are part of how people's training regimen happens. And so the same is true in the spiritual life. There's times where things may seem really bland or really dull, or I feel far away from God, but often, not often, those are the moments where God is clearly very close to you.
Matthew Kelly:
How is being a priest different to what you expected?
Father Jonathan Meyer:
In many ways, it matches up. If we go back to the original dream, I wanted to become a priest because I want to convert Catholics to love the Lord. It matches up so beautifully. And that was the original desire. That was the aspiration. When I look at the means of how that happens, I see it's very different than what I expected. For me, that often happens through celebration of the sacraments, perpetual adoration. Those were things that would've never originally been on my checklist. Even after I had my reversion in seminary, I don't think I had a clue. I think at that point, then it was very focused on the liturgy. I'm going to save the church because my investments are awesome. And because I celebrate mass perfectly and I quickly realized that that is good and just, but it is so much more about relationships and the entering into, through preaching, through catechesis, but also just being with people is what brings about conversion and renewal.