fr. jacob’s seemingly impossible dream

Fr. Jacob Meyer has been a priest since 2012. He is my nephew and was commissioned into the Navy during the summer of 2022. This had been a distant and impossible dream of his since he was young.

Impossible because at the beginning of his priesthood he reached his highest weight of 400 pounds.

He made some very tough decisions about his health in both body and soul. He used both medical means and spiritual fasting to lose the weight and enter into the Navy at a fit 200 pounds. He graduated from Bootcamp in September 2022 and will soon be stationed off the coast of Japan as a Navy Chaplain of the United States Navy. It took him 10 years to realize his dream, but he never gave up and failed his way to success one year at a time.

God was with him at every turn. He needed every experience that he went through in those years to prepare him for this journey. God knew the exact timing and the way it would happen. Fr. Jacob trusted God. He worked hard, believed hard, prayed hard, and trusted the process and the timing.

Before he left his parish, he was even given a key to the City of Mishawaka, IN by the Mayor, declaring June 12th as Father Jacob Meyer Day. He was that influential for his parish, the Diocese, and the city–serving Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

How patient are you with your dreams? Are you willing to suffer well through the long haul to get to those dreams? Fr. Jacob did.

I hope you are inspired by his journey.