(LifeSiteNews) — CityTV published a positive profile on a Toronto priest who was interviewed 20 years ago as a teenage basketball coach.
On October 31, CityNews ran an interview with Father Brandon Gordon, who the mainstream media outlet had spoken to 20 years ago when he coached a teenage basketball team at his local high school.
“We are taking you back 20 years in time now when CityNews did a story on a gifted Toronto student with a big future ahead,” reporter Cynthia Mulligan said. “We decided to check in on him two decades later and you just may be surprised to see what he is doing now.”
Twenty years earlier, when Gordon was a 17-year-old high schooler, CityNews highlighted his work as a student basketball coach. At the time, Gordon was an aspiring author and an excellent student who had been named athlete of the year.
Now, at age 37, Gordon serves as a priest at St. Benedict Catholic Church in Etobicoke, the same neighborhood where he grew up.
“If you told me I would be a priest, and I’d be standing here with you in the church at which I’m serving 20 years later, I probably wouldn’t have believed it,” Gordon said.
Mulligan questioned how Gordan discovered his call to the priesthood instead of following his athletic or literary career.
“In relation to God, how did you end up being a priest? What took you down that road instead?” she asked.
Gordon explained that while his younger self would have been surprised by the decision, he can see signs from his youth that he was called to the priesthood.
“As you can see from my writing from 20 years ago, there’s a lot of spiritual themes and I was seeking God. I was seeking meaning,” he revealed. “I found what I was looking for here.”
As a priest, Gordon has fulfilled his teenage aspiration of being an author, having recently finished a children’s book that he is hoping to publish. Mulligan also noted that “the 17-year-old aspiring writer still exists; now he writes homilies.”
Additionally, through his priesthood, Gordon is fulfilling the ministry he began as a teenager when he mentored his fellow troubled students.
“Do you see other kids going on the wrong path?” Mulligan had asked 17-year-old Gordon.
“Yeah, there’s some in this school and hopefully with my coaching, I’ll be able to influence them,” he replied at the time. “I just try and lead by example.”
Now, in his vocation as a priest, Gordon continues to serve the community he grew up in, as it faces many challenges, including gang violence.
“I think that’s what’s lacking in a lot of young people is this sense of forgiveness and love for one’s enemies,” Gordon explained.
“We have these generational, internal neighborhood conflicts that just continue to happen because they feel the need to get back at a rival group because of something that happened and then it just continues and snowballs,” he continued.