BRIGHTON -- Like many seniors in college, Father Jeremy Wagner was figuring out his future.

Father Wagner attended Brown University, studying classics and material science. He grew up in a devout Baptist family in rural Connecticut, but when he went to college, he became a Presbyterian.

"I was a committed Christian," Father Wagner, 32, said, "but I didn't have a strong denominational self-identity."

During college, he worked odd jobs and was unsure what he wanted to do after he graduated. It was his senior year when a friend asked him: "Jeremy, what do you want to do with your life?"

"I want to worship God," Father Wagner replied.

It was around that time that he became "drawn to" the Catholic Mass.

"I loved it so much that I just went every day," he said. "I just loved being there."

In 2015, when he was 24, he officially became Catholic. When he was received into the church, "it felt like everything happened at once."

"It felt like it was coming in many different ways at the same time," he said. "From different sources, different parts of my life."

He entered St. John's Seminary in 2017.

"I've really enjoyed the experience," he said. "It's a good community. The priests here are very good to us, and it's a beautiful place."

Father Wagner currently serves as a transitional deacon at St. Agnes and St. Rose of Lima Parishes, serving the towns of Boxford, Middleton, and Topsfield. In his spare time, he enjoys literature, studying German language and culture, and horseback riding. He discovered the latter while on assignment at a parish on the South Shore and believes that it has helped him grow closer to God.

"They're actually very sensitive animals," he said. "They're less intelligent than dogs, but they're extremely sensitive, and so I think you do learn a kind of respect and almost a courtesy, like a noblesse oblige, working with a horse. A kind of reverence, almost, because it is such a sensitive animal."



This article originally appeared in the May 10 issue of The Pilot.



Father Jeremy Royale Wagner



The only son of the four children of Darryl and Karen (Bergonzi) Wagner, he was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on July 1, 1991. His siblings are two older sisters: Sarah Hunter and Acacia Tortora; and a younger sister: Shaina.

Prior to college, his education was in the public schools of Simsbury, Connecticut: Central Elementary School; Henry James Memorial, for middle school; and Simsbury High School.

A 2013 alumnus of Brown University, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in classics and material science.

An alumnus of St. John Seminary, he has been serving as a deacon at St. Rose of Lima Parish, Topsfield, and St. Agnes, Middleton.

He will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Mark Church, Dorchester, on May 26, 2024, at 10:00 a.m.; he will also be the homilist of the Mass.