To Speak "To God or Of God"

1999 Graduate Ordained to the Priesthood

(Summer 2008 Newsletter)

When Thor Hilander came to Thomas Aquinas College in 1995, he was attracted primarily to the curriculum, made up as it is exclusively of the Great Books. He was not yet a Catholic, nor did he have an inclination to enter the Church. Towards the end of his second year, however, the example of his own classmates and the inspiration of the College's holy chaplains had so affected Thor that he was baptized a Catholic at the Easter Vigil, taking the name Augustine.

After receiving his first Holy Communion at that Mass, he recalls being "aware that the gift I received just that once in the Eucharist could never be repaid, but wanting to give this gift in service to others. That was the moment I discerned I might be called to the priesthood. As the months went along, I made sure to keep my eyes and heart open whenever I visited a religious house."

With prayer and the help of the College's Dominican chaplain, he eventually determined he had a vocation to the Order of Preachers. As Fr. Augustine explains, "having come to love and appreciate the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas at the College, I knew that I needed a religious order that wasn't afraid to study and follow the teachings of the Angelic Doctor." After visiting St. Albert's Priory in Northern California and seeing there firsthand the Dominican life of prayer, study, community, and service, he realized that this was the life he wanted to live.

After graduation, he entered the novitiate at St. Albert's and spent the next eight years preparing for the sacrament of Holy Orders. He studied at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California, and did a year of ministry at Blessed Sacrament, a Dominican parish in Seattle, Washington. "I considered this an extension of school," says Fr. Augustine, "and made sure to get my hands into every pot. I worked with RCIA and marriage prep; I sat in on finance council meetings, parish council meetings, and facilities council meetings; I met with parishioners one on one, at parties, and informally. I wanted to find what worked with people, and what I found is that it takes being visible to them. Jesus himself was with the crowds."

Fr. Augustine was ordained to the priesthood on Saturday, May 31, 2008, at St. Dominic's Parish in San Francisco by the Most Reverend Allen Vigneron, Bishop of Oakland. He was vested by his brother priest and former classmate at Thomas Aquinas College, Rev. Michael Hurley, O.P., ('99) who was ordained just last year.

Fr. Augustine, who holds a Masters in Divinity, has received his first assignment as Associate Pastor at St. Thomas More Newman Center at the University of Oregon in Eugene where he will be ministering to thousands of students, faculty, and staff. "This will involve more than dispensing the sacraments," says the newly-ordained priest. "I hope to introduce students to a more well-rounded faith life by helping them move from the assent that a child makes to his or her parents to an adult faith in God Himself."

With his new life as a priest before him, Fr. Augustine says, "I look forward to a life where I will speak 'to God or of God,' as was said of St. Dominic."

-- Qtrly Newsletter, Summer 2008

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