He had a job working for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a biomedical engineer when he heard the Lord calling him higher.

Ordained on June 19th, Father Charles said he knew about the priesthood and had a good example in his uncle, now Bishop Gerald Vincke. His dad is also a permanent deacon in the Church, Deacon Rick Warner, who serves as Director of Parish Life at Nativity of the Lord Parish in Alma.

Influences at home

Deacon Rick and his wife, Patty, raised their children to pursue whatever interested them. They didn’t push Father Charles toward seminary, and he and his siblings weren’t discouraged from following their own paths.

As a child, Father Charles wasn’t pushed, but rather was led by the examples of his uncle, then a priest, and his grandmother. He was also blessed to be part of a thriving youth community at their parish in Sugar Land, Texas, where he spent seven years. His dad was working for Dow Chemical at the time, and opted to move the family to the southwest suburb of Houston, while he worked in Lake Jackson.

“I think my time in Texas kind of solidified me in the faith. One – because it seemed like all my friends were the people I had classes with, played sports with, and the people I went to church with.”

He didn’t attend Catholic school, but “it was a huge church; I think it’s still the biggest in the Houston area,” he recalled, adding, “They have a Life-teen Mass, where pretty much 500 teenagers would all sit together in the front pews, and then all their family sat behind them. It was like the life of the kids was the life of the church.”

Beyond that, he traveled with his family back to Michigan in the summers, staying at his grandparents’ home. “We’d go to daily Mass with my grandma. My uncle was a priest, so he would be there too. He would celebrate Mass, just in my grandmother’s home, and I would be a little altar server, helping him set up and things. It just made the priesthood so commonplace for me.”

A devout Catholic, his maternal grandmother’s influence was subtle.  “It’s not like she pushed her faith on anyone, but just seeing the example, I think that that really influenced (Charles). You know, it just planted the seed. I think seeing that example had a lot to do with his path in life,” recalled Deacon Rick.

Though it was a common sight, and his faith grew during that time, the priesthood was an afterthought. When the family moved back to Michigan right before high school, the influence of his peers was not the same.

“That was a shock to me,” he said. “It was a very different experience, and it didn’t make me want to really get involved. I still got involved, but my heart wasn’t in it, and so I was just like, I want to get off to college as fast as possible.”

“For all of the kids, whatever they wanted to do and in the direction, we just fully supported them,” said Deacon Rick. So, when Charles wanted to attend the University of Michigan, his parents stood behind him.

“Later, when he moved to Washington, DC, and he was working for the FDA, creating a life out there, I thought that was his path,” his dad recalled.

“So priesthood was always just another thing out there to do. It was an option,” Father Charles commented, adding that after getting his Master’s Degree at the University of Michigan, he used it as a bargaining chip. “So applying for jobs and things like that, I was like, well, if things don’t go right or I don’t get a job, I can always do the priesthood thing. It was always my last resort.”

God is patient, though. “God knows the heart, and knows I knew I wasn’t ready. He answered my prayers, and he got me a job.” It wasn’t long before he settled into his job as a biomedical engineer with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Father Charles reviewed and assessed orthopedic implants seeking approval for use, specializing in spinal implants.

A deepening hunger for faith

A faithful Catholic, Father Charles’ path seemed fairly settled, as he worked as a biomedical engineer for nearly six years. “I loved the job. I had a great supervisor, great coworkers, loved the work,” he said. “I had a lot of responsibility and ownership of what I was doing. They trusted my opinion and my work.” But even with that, Father Charles knew there was something more.

After about four years in his job, Father Charles started thinking about the future, and he knew something didn’t feel right. “Something was missing, and what was missing was God. My relationship with God seemed like it didn’t exist.” That was enough of a crack for God to start His work.

“That started this prayer journey for me. I started reading Scripture on a daily basis, and that led to praying daily. That started me looking up answers to the questions that I had on the internet or asking priests.”

It wasn’t long before one of those priests invited Father Charles to a men’s discernment retreat, but he still wasn’t giving God his yes. He called his dad to let him know how that worked out.

Deacon Rick remembered the call.

“He said, ‘No – priesthood isn’t for me, Dad.’ I said, ‘That’s fine; it doesn’t have to be for you.’ But Deacon Rick encouraged his son to continue to explore and keep his options open.

For Father Charles, the option was to go back to work for the FDA and close that door permanently. “I pretty much cut God out of my life again. I stopped praying. I stopped reading Scripture, and I was just going to Sunday Mass and receiving the sacraments, and that was it.”

God didn’t take no for an answer, though. “That was the loneliest, saddest period in my life. God was missing, and I knew that,” Father Charles said. “I didn’t want to admit what God was asking of me, and so I was kind of living in sadness.”

Feeling that loss was more than he could bear, and it resulted in the awareness of God’s call. “Eventually, I had enough of feeling that way. I wanted God back in my life, so then I said yes.”

His ‘yes’ was more like a simple prayer, and still a little tentative, but the result was profound. “I was like, okay, God, if you’re asking me to be a priest, I will consider it.” That was enough.

“After that, it was like instant peace. The tears stopped at Mass, and I just felt the joy again.”

Road to Ordination

Even though his yes to God meant six more years of education, Father Charles agreed to more. “I got a master’s in biomedical engineering, then I said after that I was done at school,” but God’s plan prevailed. Father Charles completed two years of a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, and then three years of a Bachelor’s degree in Theology, and the first of two years of a Licentiate in Liturgical Theology  in Rome. “Now I’ve done six more years of school.”

His yes to God also meant leaving behind the life he’d lived in Washington, DC: friends, colleagues, and the business of the city. He returned to Michigan. “What was good about saying yes to the priesthood was, I knew what I was leaving behind. And that I still said yes. It’s like I know in some ways what could have been, and I said no, I want something else.”

That something was a life in Christ, serving as a diocesan priest. At his first assignment at Our Lady of Czestochowa in Bay City, Father Charles knows he’s on the right path today. “It was that peace that I had when I said yes. It has remained, and so I know that since I have that peace, this is what I'm supposed to be doing.”

While in Rome, Fr. Charles was there for the death of Pope Francis, and also for the conclave and election of Pope Leo XIV. He was able to serve a Mass for both Popes before being ordained a transitional deacon.

The Lord “has shaped your heart through your many experiences of life,” said Bishop Robert Gruss In his homily during Father Charles’ Ordination Mass. The Bishop summed up the journey, but also said, “formation doesn’t end today. In fact, it continues for your lifetime.”

Before he said yes, his life was comfortable, but since heading to Rome and toward the priesthood, he found that God had much more in store.

From a trip to Kathmandu, Nepal, where he volunteered at a nursing home for elderly women, to his ordination to the transitional diaconate at

St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, and finally his ordination to the priesthood, Father Charles learned more about the path God had for him.

He knows the journey has only just begun, and as he was reminded by Bishop Gruss: “So know and believe in your heart as you embark upon this lifelong ministry that God has begun this good work in you, and He will bring it to fulfillment.”

Father Charles knows he’s in the right place and right where God wants him, because he has not lost the peace he felt the day he said yes to God. “It’s because I know what I’ve received in my life. I know Jesus is my friend, and I’m striving to do what he wants from me.”