Transitional diaconate ordination for Jacob Bovee will be May 17
By Suzanne Weiss | For On Mission
When his good friend died during high school, Jacob Bovee wavered in his faith.
“I was asking all these questions,” he said. “Why are we here? What is the point of life? Why would God let this happen?”
Bovee sought the answers to his questions in Scripture and prayer, and it wasn’t long before he found them.
“God put us here so that we can have a relationship with him,” he said. “Bad things happen, but they’re only temporary in the sense that (they’re) limited to this world and we have eternity to look forward to.”
Now Bovee is finishing his theological studies at St. Francis de Sales Seminary in the Milwaukee area and preparing for his transitional diaconate ordination — his next step on the path to priesthood — on May 17 at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in Green Bay.
He credits his family and the priests he’s encountered for his desire to enter the seminary.
Bovee was born in Columbus, Wisconsin, and grew up in Hortonville, just west of Appleton. His parents, Jon and Laura Bovee, raised him and his three siblings in the Catholic faith and tradition.
“We were going to Mass every Sunday,” Bovee said. “My parents were consistently growing in faith, especially as they taught us how to pray. I saw them grow more devout as I grew up.”
His father felt closest to God in the open air, he said.
“My dad has always loved bringing us outdoors, and he would always talk about how God created the world, how he made all of these beautiful pieces of nature,” Bovee said.
“It rubbed off” on him, he said. “I often like to clear my mind and go to the woods for a nice, long walk and pray. It brings into perspective how amazing God’s design is. It’s fascinating to observe — and humbling.”
Bovee said he was inspired to follow his vocation as early as third grade by Fr. Mark Vander Steeg, who was pastor of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Greenville when Bovee attended elementary and junior high at the church school.
“I looked up to him,” Bovee said. “There was something about him that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He was cool, he knew what the point of living was, and I wanted to know what that was. I served for him at Mass with some regularity. That was my first experience with the priesthood and feeling a desire for it.”
Fr. Vander Steeg now serves the Diocese of Green Bay as vicar for priests and pastoral leaders.
At Hortonville High School, as Bovee went through a period of questioning his faith and looked for answers, “stubbornly, I left the Catechism to the last,” he said.
A pivotal point in his life came when his parents encouraged him to attend a Catholic retreat in St. Louis, Missouri.
“My family had been good about keeping me on the straight and narrow path, as much as I resisted,” he said.
The priests at the retreat opened the Gospel to him, he said.
“Their explanations, coupled with the compassion they showed, made me believe in the faith, in what they were saying,” Bovee said. “It kindled a desire to do what they were doing for other people, to be like them. It was that and going to adoration when I was there.”
“I came to understand that at the heart of the priesthood is the compassion of Christ. They became priests because they wanted to love like Christ. They wanted to love people.”
Among the priests who influenced him was his uncle, Fr. Greg Ihm, who serves in the Diocese of Madison.
The final decision to pursue the priesthood came late in his junior year of college at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, where he graduated in 2020 with a degree in humanistic studies and history.
“It took a while before I was able to say yes to God,” he said. “I was definitely discerning whether I ought to get married. I made a lot of good friends. I also grew in the discipline of prayer.”
Bovee would take late-night walks in the (university) arboretum, “praying, asking the Lord what I should do with my life,” he said. “It took about a year, cooking in my head, praying about it before I finally got up the courage to enter the seminary.”
Once he is ordained a transitional deacon, Bovee said he looks forward to being assigned a parish for the summer and performing baptisms, weddings and funerals.
That will be followed by one more year of seminary before his priestly ordination.
“We’re really excited to see the culmination of all the hard work he has put in,” said his mother, Laura Bovee.
“Jacob has always had a heart for the marginalized, people on the outskirts of society,” she said. “I think this is a good place for him to be able to help people find God, discover their identity and discover their mission.”