Brett Fox arrived at Marysville Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Tuesday, May 5, with a backpack and a few dollars to his name. He had no cell phone, no car and no place to sleep that night.
The novice Jesuit seminarian had journeyed from Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he is in formation to become a priest of the Society of Jesus in the U.S. Midwest Province, or region.
Fox, 38, was sent on a pilgrimage with $30 and told to return in 30 days. He was instructed to reach a destination of spiritually significance to him.
With a special devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes, he set out on April 12, Divine Mercy Sunday, hoping to reach the National Shrine Grotto dedicated to her in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
Fox chose Our Lady of Lourdes as patroness of the pilgrimage, stopping at several churches bearing her name along the way. He borrowed phones and visited public libraries on the journey, using computers to search for information about his next destination.
The pilgrimage required that he ask for money, food and shelter.
“It was uncomfortable, uncomfortable for me to ask for help, because I just lived for so many years trying to avoid getting to a place where I would ever need to ask for financial or any other sort of assistance,” he admitted.
“To actually be in that space and to see the generosity of people, … in a way I can tell that giving makes them happy.”
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Fox, a native of the Chicago area, spent years working in finance, accounting and software engineering before seeking to enter the priesthood. He has an identical twin brother, who is also in formation to become a Jesuit priest.
“When he decided to become a priest, I actually hadn’t even been at church for like seven years so I never would have thought that I would have been on this path to the priesthood, especially then,” he reflected.
“I was living in Florida before making this life change. And so, for three years – and it was there, when I was at Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Miami, Florida – I felt the call to be a priest.”
Amidst the challenges of his pilgrimage, he had moments that reaffirmed its goodness.
“I met a woman who, after Mass, she was really kind and gave me money for my bus ticket to Cincinnati from Louisville,” he recounted. “We got to talking, and then, she asked me how old I was, and I told her I was 38.
“She started to cry and told me it was because her son, who had died 14 years ago at the age of 24, would have been 38, and so, it touched her that I was his same age – many just beautiful human moments.”
He recounted the seemingly divine providence of asking for his first dollar. He chose to give away his $30 a begger in need, leaving him without money for a train out of Saint Paul.
At the train station, Fox encountered a man with a mask and hood over his head. “He kind of appeared like he didn’t want to be bothered. And so, a part of me thought, ‘Oh, should I even ask him for money?’” he recalled.
He persisted and requested $2 for the train. The man questioned why the well-dressed seminarian needed money.
Fox explained his 30-day pilgrimage, to which the man retrieved a dollar from his pocket and handed it to him.
Fox, feeling “really good about getting my first dollar,” said he asked the man his name, wanting to pray for him. “He goes, ‘Jesús,’ and then, he took his mask down and he smiled.”
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The seminarian’s first stop was Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Minneapolis. From there, he set out to Our Lady of Lourdes in Davenport, Iowa, with a stop beforehand in Coralville, Iowa.
From the Hawkeye State, he set out east to Chicago. His time in the Windy City included a few hours of sleep at O’Hare International Airport, unable to find housing, and then taken in by the Franciscan order.
He headed to South Bend, Indiana, visiting the grotto dedicated to Our Lady at the University of Notre Dame.
His subsequent destinations took him to Indianapolis, Louisville and Cincinnati. From Cincinnati, he took a Greyhound north to Columbus.
Fox spent several nights in airports, including John Glenn Columbus International during his first evening in Ohio’s capital city.
He visited several diocesan parishes, including Columbus St. Joseph Cathedral, where he attended a daily Mass. Faithful afterward offered donations and purchased him lunch.
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Arriving in Marysville by bus the afternoon of May 5, Fox went to Our Lady of Lourdes Church and asked for a place to stay. Father Kevin Kavanagh, the pastor, invited him to spend the night in the church rectory.
“I just showed up at their doorstep,” Fox recalled. “Part of the spirit of this pilgrimage is to just rely on God’s goodness and to trust fully in God. And so, a part of that trusting is actually trying to avoid planning too much.”
He met Deacon Dave Bezusko, who serves at Our Lady of Lourdes and invited him to dinner. Bezusko offered Fox a ride back to Columbus the next day to catch a train.
Fox planned to travel to Pittsburgh and Frederick, Maryland, before reaching the national shrine grotto.
“It’s lit a fire in me,” he said of the pilgrimage. “I’ve gotten to see how, when you put yourself in the disposition to be helped by God, He always helps you.
“He does it both in prayer and in a way that’s kind of more indescribable but also in a real tangible way through his people.