Nativity Seminarian David Hottinger

The second of George and Molly's six children, David Hottinger attended Nativity School from 1992-2001.

He followed his older brother Danny to Cretin-Derham Hall, and from there to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied history and economics. 

David then worked Northwestern University in Chicago for a year and in 2010 moved home to study law at the University of Minnesota.

David never could discern well what he would be "when he grew up." In fact, the priesthood held no attraction and the thought of the the religious life never even occurred to him.

Nevertheless, In 2012, while in his second year of law school and after three years of anxious wrestling with the sense that God was calling him to something, he entered as a postulant with Pro Ecclesia Sancta, a religious community stationed at the Church of Saint Mark.

Then in 2013, after taking the bar, he moved to Peru to compete his religious formation. In August of 2015, he made First Vows and returned to St. Paul to begin his studies for the priesthood at The Saint Paul Seminary.

He is now in his first year of Pre-Theology and living again at St. Mark's.

This reflection has been edited from its original version published in the parish bulletin and posted here on 10/29.