Oliver Coughlin didn’t arrive at Servite thinking about the priesthood. “Growing up, even before high school,” he says, “the thought of the priesthood not only did not occur to me, but if it did occur to me, it would have been something unappealing.”

He was a younger brother following in the footsteps of an older brother (Dylan ‘07), part of a large Catholic family whose parents made sacrifices to send their children to Catholic schools. Servite was the natural next step after La Purísima School in Orange. He remembers being glad simply to attend the same high school as his brother, more interested in getting good grades than in immersing himself in sports or campus life.

What he did not realize at the time was that two Servite classes would quietly pave the way for his trajectory to a vocation.

The first was his sophomore literature course with Mr. Ellis Hunt. In that classroom, ancient texts became something more than assignments. Through authors like Aristotle and Plato and the “big questions” they asked, he discovered that learning could be a joyful pursuit rather than a mere obligation. It was the first time a teacher awakened in him a desire to seek truth for its own sake. That desire would later prove crucial when faith and vocation came into focus.

The second experience came senior year, in a theology course that assigned Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli’s Handbook of Christian Apologetics as the textbook. Even though his personal prayer life was minimal and he would not have described himself as walking with Christ, the book made a deep impression. Page by page, it presented clear, rational arguments for God’s existence, the reliability of the Gospels, the divinity of Christ, the Resurrection, and more. By the time he graduated in 2009, he was, as he describes it, deeply convinced of the truth of the Christian faith.

After Servite, he went to UCLA to study philosophy, drawn to the same kinds of questions that had first fascinated him in Mr. Hunt’s class. It was there, on a secular campus, that the intellectual foundation laid in high school was tested and then transformed. He met joyful, committed Catholic students who invited him to daily Mass and regular confession. “My encounter with Christ happened at a moment where I wasn't even given to prayer yet. It was simply approaching the sacraments, especially Confession and the Eucharist, with faith.” 

Law school at Notre Dame followed, then a period of practicing law in Chicago. On paper, everything aligned with the plan he had imagined for himself: a respected degree, a promising legal career, and the hope of marriage and family. Internally, though, he began to feel a growing restlessness. The more he asked, “What does God want for my life?” the less peace he found in the path he had mapped out. 

Discernment for him unfolded slowly, not through dramatic moments but through steady, deliberate practices that grounded him in listening to God’s call. To make sense of what he was experiencing, he turned to habits that became the framework of his discernment: daily, intentional prayer and regular spiritual direction. “Those two for me were the pillars—regular prayer and a good spiritual guide,” he says. Over time, those practices clarified his desires and helped him recognize that the pull toward priesthood was not a passing thought but a persistent invitation. The habits that shaped his own discernment are the ones he now recommends to young men, inviting them to “bring the same level of discipline to their spiritual life that they bring to their sports, exercise, and study.”

Now serving as a newly ordained parochial vicar at St. Bonaventure in Huntington Beach, California, Fr. Oliver calls his first months of being a priest “everything that I hoped it would be and more.” He speaks of this season with a quiet gratitude: for the people who guided him, the friendships that deepened his faith, and the peace that followed once he stepped into the life God prepared for him.