Jason Brown has always occupied two worlds at the same time.

At Gorham High School, where Brown ran track and cross country until he graduated in 2001, the young man worked hard at being the consummate student-athlete.

In college, he’s studied philosophy, most interested in how the theoretical side of the subject coincides with real-world experiences.

Now, nearing his graduation from Villanova, Brown is applying to the Augustinian order to become a priest, where he hopes to match his spiritual side with his desire to be of service to the people around him.

The 22-year-old may be on a path that will bring him to different places and in contact with different people, but he credits the experiences he had growing up in Gorham with making him who he is.

“It’s a very supportive community. Every time I come back I see people I know who want to know how I am and what I’m doing now. That’s the way it always was,” Brown says. “The community is small enough that everyone knows you and they care about you. It’s a great place to live.”

The Browns moved to Gorham from South Portland when Jason was two years old. His parents, Harry and Maureen, are both math teachers, so the boy – and his siblings: older brother Christopher and younger fraternal twins Sarah and Emily – “never had an excuse to get a bad grade in math, because if I did, I wasn’t trying hard enough.”

Because his dad had been a track coach, Brown grew up around the sport and started running competitively for his middle school cross country team.

“I enjoy the kind of sport it is,” he says. “It’s an individual sport as well as a team sport. It teaches you the realities of depending on a team.”

Brown continued to run at Gorham High School as a member of the cross country team as well as the indoor and outdoor track squads, where he most often competed in the longer races. He calls Rams coach John Wilkinson “a great guy.”

“I couldn’t thank him enough,” says Brown, “not only in the realm of track and field, but he was an adult who I could count on.”

Brown qualified for the state championship meet in all three seasons during his junior and senior years and was all-conference as a senior. Wilkinson remembers him as a consistently hard worker with strong values.

“He was just a great kid and a great role model,” the coach says. “His name still comes up among the students. They look up to him.”

Brown also succeeded in the classroom, as he attempted to demonstrate that good athletes could be good students and vice versa.

“My academic and athletic careers at Gorham High School really intertwined. I think in both instances I was trying to be a representative of the other.”

During those years Brown also became progressively more involved with the youth group at St. Anne’s Church. In his senior year he was part of the diocesan board.

When it was time to choose a college he wanted to go somewhere that had strong ministry and outreach programs.

“That’s what brought me to Villanova,” he says. “They are strong in the community. That’s reflective of my academic approach. It’s important to be strong academically, but it’s also important to be present in the world, using what we’ve learned to better things.”

Though Brown had been intrigued with the possibility of becoming a priest since he was a youngster, by the time he left Maine to attend school in suburban Philadelphia he had just about given up on the idea. He didn’t feel like he was cut out for life in a parish.

But Villanova exposed him to the Augustinians, who run the school, and he saw in that order a “different manifestation of the priesthood.” He joined a program for those interested in a religious life.

“I think that priests have a position where they can provide a special ministry, and as I grow as a Christian I want to be in constant service,” Brown says. “Looking at the lives of priests and how they have the opportunity to give their whole person and have the ability to devote their entire lives to that ministry, I think that kind of pouring out of the self in some way has always been attractive to me.”

Brown ran intramurals in his first year at Villanova and was part of a running club through his sophomore year, but he swims now to keep in shape. Still, the time he spent training and competing has contributed a great deal to the person he’s become.

“I always found it a very spiritual experience to run,” he says. “Running is a total release. You get to a point where you hit a wall, but there’s something inside you that makes you keep going. You’re constantly sustained by the people around you, and I think it’s the same thing with any religious life.”

If accepted by the Augustinians, Brown would start work on his master’s degree in divinity at the Washington Theological Union in the nation’s capital. If all goes according to plan, he would be ordained in five to six years.

He believes the Catholic Church is in crisis, that it is “flawed is some pretty fundamental ways” and that it “needs healing.”

“My criticism of the Church comes from a place of deep love for the Church. The groundwork and tradition and teaching are there to put the Church on the side of people,” he says. “I see a lot of hope in the Church. I see a lot of life in the Church.”

As an Augustinian, Brown sees himself contributing to the healing process – as a missionary, a campus minister or in whatever role he is called to fill.

Whatever realm he finds himself in, Brown can’t help but reflect the values that he absorbed growing up in Gorham.

“I was raised in various ways by different levels of my community,” he says, “to lead the life that I want to lead and that the community has raised me to lead.”

Copy the Story Link