{"id":5189,"date":"2010-11-06T18:01:19","date_gmt":"2010-11-06T18:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/fore-golfer-headed-to-the-priesthood.html"},"modified":"2010-11-06T18:01:19","modified_gmt":"2010-11-06T18:01:19","slug":"fore-golfer-headed-to-the-priesthood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/fore-golfer-headed-to-the-priesthood.html","title":{"rendered":"Fore! Golfer headed to the priesthood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Check out this great vocation story<\/a>, from Alaska: <\/p>\n

\nIt’s easy to imagine a six-foot, tanned, 32-year-old Peter Hannah on the golf greens of Monterey, California, in textbook form, languidly driving balls 300 yards.<\/p>\n

\"Bro.-Hannah-4.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>But instead of an Izod shirt and khaki pants, he’s wearing the long, white habit of a medieval Dominican friar — and he’s heading into winter in Alaska. He arrived in August from St. Albert’s Priory in Oakland for a year’s work at Holy Family Cathedral, as part of seminary training.<\/p>\n

“My first reaction to being assigned to Anchorage was, ‘Wow, that’s a long ways away from California,” Brother Peter Junipero Hannah told the Catholic Anchor.<\/p>\n

But the would-be professional golfer, former college fraternity brother and convert to Catholicism already has traveled a long distance — through even the spiritual “desert” of the so-called “good life” — on the surprising path to freedom.<\/p>\n

By most accounts, Brother Hannah was living the American Dream.<\/p>\n

Born in Temple, Texas at 10 pounds, 13 ounces, he looked like a nascent Texas Cowboys linebacker. But a family move to the West Coast and a “generally slender frame,” he said, turned hopes of football stardom into a chance at PGA fame. Like his up-and-coming school-mate Tiger Woods, as a teen, Brother Hannah was perfecting his strokes on California’s sunny golf courses.<\/p>\n

Still, life was well-rounded.<\/p>\n

Brother Hannah’s parents weren’t “PhDs or anything,” he said, but they instilled in him and his sister a “love for learning.”<\/p>\n

And they owned a set of World Book of Encyclopedias, whose volumes six-year-old Brother Hannah would pick up on his own and “just start reading.” That intellectual curiosity continues to this day. “I’m interested in everything!” exclaimed the religious brother.<\/p>\n

Growing up, his Presbyterian family attended church every Sunday. But by high school – and though he never “explicitly” disbelieved or rebelled against God – Brother Hannah was “so interested in golf, I didn’t really want to do anything else.”<\/p>\n

In 1995, the “naturally ambitious” and determined Brother Hannah entered the University of California at San Diego, where he majored in American history and played on the golf team – aiming for a lucrative, professional sports career.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to have a good life, I wanted to be successful,” Brother Hannah said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read on<\/a> to find out what happened, and how he ended up a Catholic seminarian. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Check out this great vocation story, from Alaska: It’s easy to imagine a six-foot, tanned, 32-year-old Peter Hannah on the golf greens of Monterey, California, in textbook form, languidly driving balls 300 yards. But instead of an Izod shirt and khaki pants, he’s wearing the long, white habit of a medieval Dominican friar — and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\nFore! Golfer headed to the priesthood - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/11\/fore-golfer-headed-to-the-priesthood.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fore! Golfer headed to the priesthood - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Check out this great vocation story, from Alaska: It’s easy to imagine a six-foot, tanned, 32-year-old Peter Hannah on the golf greens of Monterey, California, in textbook form, languidly driving balls 300 yards. 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