Jacob J. Boddicker, SJ, 33, grew up in Tipton, Iowa, where his family attended St. Mary’s Catholic Church. He spent two years at the University of Wyoming in Laramie studying archeology before transferring to the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls to study history. Boddicker participated in activities at the Catholic student centers at both schools. During his junior year of college, he found he was unsatisfied with his studies and unsure of what he wanted to do with his life. Boddicker had a sudden realization that only God knew what he should do, and he began to develop a prayer life. When a speaker at a lecture about the history of the church mentioned the Jesuits, Boddicker felt a push in his heart to find out more. As he read about the Society of Jesus, especially the stories of St. Ignatius and the North American Martyrs, he had a growing sense that God was asking him to pursue life as a Jesuit; he entered the Jesuit novitiate in 2006 after his senior year. As a novice, Boddicker worked on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming and immersed himself in his studies about the Catholic faith, falling in love with the church. He then went to Saint Louis University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 2011. Boddicker next spent a year working at the Jesuits’ St. Camillus health care facility in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, followed by two years of teaching at Marquette University High School in Milwaukee, where he also was chaplain to the trap shooting team. For the last three years, he studied at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California, where he earned a Master of Divinity degree while serving as a deacon at the Basilica of St. Joseph in Alameda, California. Boddicker attended World Youth Day in 2013 in Brazil and serves on the board of The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network. After ordination, he will spend the summer working at St. John’s Parish on Creighton University’s campus in Omaha, Nebraska, and then work on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Boddicker will celebrate his first Mass as a priest at the Basilica of St. Josaphat in Milwaukee.