Seminarian Chris Kuehl

diocesan seminarian

I grew up in Petawawa and have lived there for most of my life. I have one older brother. I graduated from mechanical engineering at uOttawa in 2021 and then worked at an engineering consulting firm for nearly three years. My greatest inspirations to discern the priesthood are the exemplary priests and faithful parishioners in my life. I enjoy the outdoors and photography. I am most looking forward to the community of seminarians I will become part of at St. Peter’s.

Vocation story

I went off to university in 2017. At this point I was not practicing my faith. The Christian belief system I was brought up with felt shaky amidst the wide range of religions and philosophies in the world around me, and so I began a journey in search of truth. I spent a lot of my free time researching arguments against theism and evaluating how these held up to what Christian apologists had to offer. First I came to a confident intellectual belief in God, and then in Jesus and the truth of the Gospels. As I researched Catholicism, my eyes were opened to the vastness and depth of thought and teaching that the Catholic Church had to offer. In my research I found the Catholic Church consistently had robust answers to my questions and concerns, and although I found some difficult to accept, upon further investigation I understood and was convinced even of these.

I began attending Mass on Sundays, and I joined an online faith study with Catholic Christian Outreach at my university campus. It was through my time with CCO that I came to fully understand and believe that God desires an intimate relationship with each of us personally. During a private discussion afterward with my faith study leader, he encouraged me to return to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I had not been in about a decade. Despite my anxieties and reservations, my heart was convicted and God led me to confession. 

Confessing my sins was itself a profound and life-changing experience. But it wasn’t until I was driving home that my journey culminated into a moment that moved me to tears. In that moment, God’s forgiveness extended to me was more real than anything I have experienced. I could not understand how I could be loved like this, but I knew with certainty it was real. The concept of love was redefined to me from a vague and obscure idea to an experience that I would describe as overwhelming, unfathomable, unbelievable. After this moment I decided I would strive to follow God wherever He leads me. 

In 2023 I noticed an inkling within myself to investigate the priesthood more, so I began exploring the priesthood through literature and conversation with priests, and I started altar serving for the first time in my life. After discerning for about a year, I became confident in this call to enter the seminary, and I look forward to unveiling the next step of God’s plan for my life.