Please Join Us for an Evening
of Food, Fellowship, and Festivity
on Saturday, April 26 2025 at Gregory the Great Academy
135 St. Gregory’s Pl, Elmhurst Twp, PA 18444
Vespers 4:00 p.m. Event 5:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
$125 per person. $200 per couple. Semi-formal attire. Please RSVP by April 21st.
Joining us for the evening is Special Guest, Fr. Andrew DeSilva (’97).
Fr. Andrew DeSilva had always been drawn to the Armed Forces. So, when he graduated from St. Gregory’s Academy in 1997, he headed to Lexington VA to meet the challenge of his first year at the Virginia Military Institute, “one of the toughest military experiences you could have.” But having met and conquered that challenge, he found himself longing again for the kind of challenges of faith and intellect that he had met at St. Gregory’s, so he left VMI and enrolled at Thomas Aquinas College in California.
After graduating from TAC in 2003, Fr. DeSilva spent the next three years as a manager for a large-scale wine retailer in Virginia. He had become lackadaisical in the practice of his faith, he admits, until two college friends independently surprised him with the same question: “Have you ever considered becoming a priest?”
With the help of a friendly deacon, he began a 30-day Lenten Ignatian retreat that included three hours of prayer squeezed between shifts in his fulltime work schedule. “At the end of those 30 days of listening to God, I was ready to say back, ‘Yes, I’m going to give my life to You.’”
He left the wine business and became a brother with the Community of St. John in Princeville, Illinois. The community sent him, first, to study theology in France, and then to serve as a campus minister at Seton Hall University, where he earned a master’s degree in Pastoral Ministry and Biblical Studies. He was also commissioned, while still a brother, as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve Chaplain Corps — and began to discern a vocation to the diocesan priesthood. In 2016 he became a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Newark.
In 2019, Fr. DeSilva was ordained for the diocese of Newark, N.J. where he now serves as Pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Church. He is also a chaplain in the US Army Reserves at Fort Bragg, NC.
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Featuring
- Cocktails and Heavy Hors d’oeuvres throughout the Evening
- Performances by the Students of Gregory the Great Academy
- Silent and Live Auctions
If you have questions or comments, please contact Christopher Smith: csmith@gregorythegreatacademy.com or 703-901-5415.