Welcome Father Willard
November 18, 2019 News
Fr. Jordan Willard, born August 15th, 1989, in Lansing, Michigan, grew up in rural Hillsboro, Virginia as the third in a family of twelve brothers and sisters, attending the Parish of St. Francis de Sales in Purcellville. Originally an evangelical in the Episcopal Church, he and the rest of his family converted to Catholicism in December 1, 1996, and began his Catholic, and progressive discernment towards the priesthood, as an altar boy. As a young lad, he also cultivated interests in military services and joined the Civil Air Patrol Cadet program. He attended high school at the Opus Dei institute, the Heights School, in Potomac, Maryland, and graduated in the Spring of 2009.
Thereafter, captivated by his years of service at the Lord’s Altar, and for developing love for the sciences, Fr. Willard pursued interests for a military career in the NROTC program for the Marine Corps at the military school of Virginia Polytechnic Institute while studying chemical engineering. Then, renewed with desire for the call of priestly ministry, he transferred from Virginia Tech into the seminary for the Diocese of Arlington in the fall of 2010.
Fr. Willard was sent to the Pontifical College Josephinum, where he completed his undergraduate studies with a B.A. in Philosophy in the spring 2013. He continued theology studies at the Josephinum, and was ordained by Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore to the Diaconate, June 4th, 2016. For his diaconate year, Fr. Willard worked at St. Charles Borromeo Parish. The following year, he completed studies at the PCJ seminary with a Masters of Divinity in a class of 19 other priests.
On June 10th, 2017, Fr. Willard was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, and was first assigned as parochial vicar to St. Theresa Parish in Ashburn, Virginia. After two and a half years, November 14, 2019, he has concluded his first assignment and transferred to St. Raymond’s Parish.