Abe Manley

Propaedeutic Year (College I)
St. Pius X Seminary, Loras College, Dubuque IA
Basilica of St. John, Des Moines

My name is Abe (short for Abraham) Manley. I grew up in Ankeny, and my family now lives just outside of Colfax. I was homeschooled all the way from kindergarten through my recent high school graduation, and I am the oldest of twelve total siblings.

Vocation discernment has been a part of my personal faith for as long as I can remember. Around the time I was in first grade, I met seminarians for the first time. Now, I am blessed to call them both Father, but at the time they were simply Max Carson and James Downey.

I thought (and still  think) that they were some of the coolest people I had ever met, and I prayed for them throughout their seminary formation. I wanted to know everything I could about them and their discernment journeys, and I cut out articles featuring them from The Catholic Mirror and taped them to my wall. I have been an altar server at the Basilica of St. John for ten years. God only knows how much of an impact this has had upon me. To this day, serving Mass is still one of my most favorite things to do. I went through the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd religious education program from ages 6-12, and the deep liturgical fluency and love of scripture it imparted upon me has been an immense gift.

However, the Lord still surprised me in His call for me. Throughout my first few years of high school I was convinced that I was called to join a religious order. At the time, I had a false perception of the diocesan priesthood as lonely and boring. I had an order in mind and had even been speaking with them towards the beginning of my junior year.

But in December of 2024, everything changed when I went on a discernment pilgrimage to Iceland led by Fr. Reed Flood and Fr. James Downey. There were thirteen of us high school guys and four chaperones, and we spent ten days living a communal life of prayer and adventure in the beautiful wilderness that Iceland has to offer. The pilgrimage was preceded by the diocesan bishop’s discernment retreat, where I experienced but did not yet fully recognize a desire for the priesthood. This desire quietly grew throughout our time in Iceland.

The Lord re-presented the diocesan priesthood to me throughout our time there, showing me how much of an adventure it is and how beautiful the fellowship shared by priests can be. In Iceland, we prayed together, ate together, traveled together, and did dumb things together. It was truly a transcendent experience. I remember telling Fr. Flood while we were there that I would be sad to leave that life, to which he responded that this was basically what seminary was like.

So by the very end, in the chapel of the Icelandic parish we had been staying at, when the Lord told me “I want you to come and follow me to seminary”, it made perfect sense to me, because that was what I wanted too.

Since then, my relationship with God has grown, and I’ve experienced a lot of highs and lows, but the Lord keeps on confirming that this is His will for me. I am so very excited to embark upon this adventure and to discover what it is Christ has to show me going forward.