June 2, 2014
In the early ’80s, Ed Nowak was a student at Penn State University studying ceramic science and engineering and planning to marry his high school sweetheart. When that relationship didn’t work out, he decided to keep an open mind about the priesthood during his junior year.
“I kept on hearing the call, and finally answered it my senior year,” explained Father Nowak, who at age 53 is celebrating 25 years of priesthood.
Now that the decision to be a priest was made, the question turned to what kind of priest to be.
Making a similar discernment at the time was his friend Larry Rice, who introduced Father Nowak to the Paulists and is himself celebrating his silver jubilee. Both future Paulists also saw a Paulist poster in the campus chapel.
“I was excited about being a missionary priest and excited about welcoming people back to the Church and back to a close relationship with God,” said Father Nowak, who currently serves as director of the University Catholic Center at the University of Texas in Austin.
After graduating from Penn State in 1983, he entered the Paulist novitiate and then began academic studies for the priesthood at The Catholic University of America and Paulist formation at St. Paul’s College, both in Washington, D.C.
“My novitiate and seminary experiences were challenging but good,” Father Nowak recalled. “I was still learning and growing in faith, and getting to know myself more. Those experiences were very affirming of where I was and where I was going.”
After being ordained in 1989, Father Nowak entered campus ministry at St. Lawrence Church and Newman at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis from 1988-93. (Father Nowak served his deacon year at St. Lawrence prior to ordination.) He continued in campus ministry at the University of California at Santa Barbara from 1993-2002.
“In campus ministry, you encounter young adults who are owning their faith for the first time,” said Father Nowak. “You walk with them as they question and discover, and help them realize how important they are to the Church. You see them grow in their faith and leadership skills. It is so rewarding to be part of that journey.”
It was in 2002 that Father Nowak took the post of Paulist vocation director, seeking out and helping men discern whether they were or were not called to be a priest and a Paulist.
“It was about inviting people to be part of the mission and ministry that I love so much,” he said.
Father Nowak returned to campus ministry in 2008 as director of the University Catholic Center in Austin.
Father Nowak, who grew up outside of Pittsburgh in St. Philip Church in Crafton, Pa., also gives parish missions, retreats and talks.
“The Paulist Fathers have let me do things that inspired me to be a priest in the first place,” he said, “to reach out to people on the edge of the Church or not in any church at all; to let them know God’s love and mercy right where they are at in their lives.