Freshman Profile: Liam O’Brien (NE’26)

Liam O’Brien (NE’26) comes to Thomas Aquinas College from Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, by way of the tough streets of downtown Denver, Colorado. After high school, he ministered to the homeless for a year, submitting his heart to service, and — unexpectedly — discovering a new love for the intellectual life.

It all began with a fateful conversation with his mother, Cecilia (Johnson ’92). “My parents encourage us to take gap years, which has worked out great for my older siblings,” says Liam. But he already knew — or thought he knew — that he wanted to attend Thomas Aquinas College. Why wait? “I went to my mom at the end of my senior year and said, ‘I just want to go to college.’ But she said, ‘No, you’re going to do a gap year.’” Relenting at last, he asked with some exasperation, “Well, what am I going to do?” His mother responded, “You should look into Christ in the City.” Dubious, Liam applied. It would change his life.

Christ in the City is an apostolate devoted to bringing Christ to the homeless, but applicants must experience what that actually means before they commit to serving as missionaries for the program. “I went to Denver for my visit, thinking this was something I was looking into just to make my mom happy,” Liam admits. “I didn’t have any intentions of doing a year with them.”

Meeting the missionaries, however, made him reconsider those intentions. “They were on fire for their faith, which was something I hadn’t experienced outside of my home before; that really spoke to me.” Walking the streets and meeting their dwellers settled his uncertainty. “The homeless spoke to a part of my heart that I think the Lord was asking me to give,” he says. “I felt the call to serve them.”

Liam returned to Denver as a missionary in August 2021, committed for a year’s service. It was a rich, sometimes difficult, time. “We walked the same street every day, so I would see the same people almost daily,” he says. Spending time with these men and women soon had its effect. “Approaching the most broken in society, I was able to see in my own ways that I was broken, too,” he says. “I formed real friendships with these people; our relationships shifted from me serving them to both of us giving to each other.”

“I realized that I truly missed the pursuit of knowledge as TAC does it.”

Encountering the brokenness of his new friends was not easy, and the company of fellow missionaries proved invaluable. “When I’d have a really rough time on the street, there was always the community to support and comfort me.”

After eight months of service, Liam had reaped such fruit from his time in Denver that he was seriously considering a second year. But in March 2022, he visited his sister Norah (’24) at Thomas Aquinas College, New England. “All through that visit, people would ask, ‘Are you coming here next year?’” he says. “Maybe the year after,” he would answer evasively. But when he returned to Denver, the question kept echoing in his mind.

“I realized that I truly missed the pursuit of knowledge as TAC does it,” Liam says. This sense of nostalgia forced him to confront his original desire to attend the College immediately after high school. “I had wanted to get out of Wisconsin, to make new friends and get on with my life,” he reflects. “But in a way, I was running away from where I was, which is never a good thing.” His year spent in Denver ministering to the homeless had tamed that restlessness, clearing ground where more authentic desires could blossom. He applied to the College within a week of visiting Northfield.

Well into his freshman year now, Liam has no regrets about his roundabout path to Thomas Aquinas College. Although it was difficult to leave his friends at Christ in the City, he remembers that the same faith that animated him as a missionary remains to shape his new life as a student: “At the center of both communities is wanting to know God and His creation better.” In gratitude for his year of growth and his enriched perspective, he adds with a smile, “I’m forever thankful that my parents forced my hand with the gap year.”