Frater Charles Burris is a new theology teacher this year at Notre Dame and is in the process of becoming a priest.

Frater Burris was raised Catholic. However, his family doesn’t really practice the faith, so he didn’t go to church often when he was young.

He did go to religious ed classes on Wednesday nights and also had confirmation classes that “really ignited my faith and brought me into the Church.”

Frater Burris went to a public school throughout his youth, then went to St. Norbert College, a Catholic school, and studied biology with a concentration in bio-medical science. 

“The call to be a priest is like a call to be married. It is part of who a person is and how they are just meant to be. God made us to be ourselves, and being a priest is how I can best live that out,” said Frater Burris.

While he was halfway through college, he finally knew for sure that he was meant to become a priest. He then changed his paths from biology to pursue the priesthood. Frater Burris said that he didn’t have one thing that made him realize he should be a priest, but he knew that God was calling him towards this path. 

Frater Burris thinks that Notre Dame as a Catholic school helps students be their best self by having them grow closer to God. 

“I like being at Notre Dame very much and am really enjoying being here,” he said.

He was interested in teaching for ministry and when he was asked to teach, he accepted and ended up at Notre Dame as there was a need for a teacher. 

Frater Burris exclaimed, “I love it! My favorite thing about teaching is working with students to get them excited about the content and to see how important it is in their lives.”

Frater Burris feels the universality of the Church and that people before him have done great work to understand the church, meaning that we are one body in Christ and we do the same things that unite us with Christ. 

We understand the Church, he explained, because the people before us have studied the Church and know that it is true, and we are able to continue to teach the people after us. 

Frater Burris thinks that love is the most important thing to know about, that it is the foundation of the Chrisian life and that Jesus says that our faith depends on love. 

He stated, “It is also important to remember that God loves us even when we do not love Him or when we do not love ourselves.”

He went on to quote Matthew 22:34-40, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”