One prayer group, 10 vocations: the remarkable story of Bishop Cozzens’ college friends

At a small Catholic college in a small Midwestern town, a small group of students gathered Monday nights for a prayer group that would have a big impact. At the center of the group was a scrawny young man strumming guitar, a student who radiated equal parts levity and piety and would one day be appointed bishop of the Diocese of Crookston.

Drew.

Everyone at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, in the early ’90s knew Drew Cozzens, the Colorado native who was ever-present on campus. He worked for the student newspaper, he served as a resident assistant at St. Joseph Hall, he was a fixture at daily Mass and a linchpin in the homecoming festivities. He was the ideal candidate to ride atop a mattress fitted with bicycle wheels for the annual bed race, a storied inter-dorm competition.

It was a pivotal juncture in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, which was engaging young Catholics through praise and worship music and a focus on personal relationships with Jesus, and would soon receive pontifical recognition. It also marked the advent of the modern era of priestly formation, ushered in by the 1992 release of St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation “I Will Give You Shepherds,” which reshaped seminaries by emphasizing human formation alongside the spiritual and intellectual.

Drew and his friends felt tidal waves from both movements. They treasured their pontiff, Pope John Paul II, and they embraced the charismatic style of prayer, founding The Spirit of St. Benedict Prayer Group to meet every Monday for prayer, Scripture and praise and worship.

The group was reinforced by a priest who served as their spiritual director. A Catholic sister also provided spiritual counsel. Drew led the music.

Combined with their rigorous education and access to sacraments, the young men were spiritually awakened.

“It was the perfect environment to grow up in because you had good intellectual formation — an excellent philosophy department — good spiritual direction and the prayer group and good friends,” said Father Joseph Taphorn, Benedictine Class of 1993, who was two years below Drew and is now rector of The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul. “It’s what you wish every young person could have.”

Father Taphorn met Drew when the future Bishop Andrew Cozzens was a junior, steeped in campus life. “He’d laugh a lot,” Father Taphorn said. “He’d had a significant conversion experience, so he had all that zeal and zest for life but also was serious in growing in his faith.”

That zeal manifested itself in surprising ways, like the time Drew, a skilled rock climber, repelled down the side of St. Joseph Hall.

As an RA, he wasn’t afraid to write up a student who broke visitation rules. Once, he caught a young woman sneaking into his men’s dorm at midnight through the fire escape. Drew was unabashed about the moral guidelines to be drawn from Church teaching, but he wasn’t stern. Joy was visible in his countenance — a young man who loved life and loved the Lord.

“He was a Spirit-filled dynamo,” said Dominican Father Andrew Hofer, Class of 1994, who belonged to their prayer group and now teaches at St. Dominic Priory in Washington, D.C. “I was impressed by the way he led so many students to give clear witness to Christ in the face of hostility and ambiguity.”

Brotherhood

Members of The Spirit of St. Benedict Prayer Group looked forward to Monday evenings. They winnowed down in size a bit, settling at around five to 10 members. They were dubbed “The God Squad.”

Support from the “squad” was a priority, Father Taphorn said. “Drew was growing in his faith and eager for a fraternal brotherhood,” he said.

Everyone in the group experienced that fraternity, which spurred them along their spiritual journeys.

“Having the witness of others trying to grow in holiness was moving,” Father Taphorn said.

When some members — Drew included — began talking about their interest in priesthood, it made the lofty vocation feel more feasible. “When someone steps out, that gives encouragement to others to do the same,” Father Taphorn said. “It creates that energy.”

It animated Father Alphonsus Hermes, Class of 1992, who released his stale notions about what kind of man enters seminary.

“They were openly pursuing the priesthood, and that allowed me to open up to several people who had suggested it to me before that,” said Father Hermes, a Norbertine priest who is now a member of St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California. “Seeing them actually interested — and not ashamed about it — that was very encouraging for me. I would attribute them to opening me up to a priestly vocation.”

He began to imagine priesthood in the context of a robust fraternity, which made the vocation more appealing. He saw how it served a dual purpose: recreation and refinement. “A great aspect was mutual encouragement, which was a euphemism for correcting each other, encouraging others in their weakness.”

The prayer group had the right approach, Father Hermes said. “Andrew Cozzens, he’s an honest guy, and he wants people to be better.”

Delivering honest feedback as a friend made all the difference, Father Hermes said. “Relational evangelization was emphasized, to make connections, reaching out to students you wouldn’t normally sit with in the dining hall or inviting people to Mass.”

A surprising outcome

Monday after Monday, month after month, a miracle was underway. The core members of the prayer group prayed and sang, studied Scripture and discussed religious life. Ultimately, the desire for priesthood seized the heart of everyone.

“It was contagious because there were about 10 of us who entered religious life or the priesthood during the four years I was there,” Father Hermes said.

That fact remains a source of awe.

“It’s a great grace of God to see how many priestly and religious vocations came from a group of friends at Benedictine College in the early 1990s,” said Father Hofer.

In August of 1993, when Pope John Paul II came to Denver for the first World Youth Day held in North America, several members of the prayer group attended, including the future-Bishop Cozzens, who had already graduated from Benedictine College.

“Being in his presence was super encouraging,” Father Taphorn said of the pope. “You just wanted to give your life to the Lord.”

Weeks later, he and Drew entered seminary — one in Columbus, Ohio, one in St. Paul. Their ordinations fell one week apart in 1997. Drew became Father Andrew Cozzens — all but dropping his nickname — and then, in 2013, an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The other members of his prayer group went on to assume leadership positions elsewhere. Abbot James Albers, a Benedictine, stayed close to their alma matter. He is now the abbot of St. Benedict Abbey in Atchison. Father Hermes is in California. Father Hofer teaches in the nation’s capital. Father Taphorn steers The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul, where Auxiliary Bishop Cozzens had been helping to guide the archdiocese. Another friend, Father Joseph Tatro, is a priest of the Diocese of Wichita.

Their friendships endure, along with fond memories of the fraternity they knit together on Monday nights in Atchison.

“Life is hard,” Father Taphorn said. “Life can be lonely, but it doesn’t need to be. We’re called to be in community. We can find support from others and share life, and the most important thing we can share is our faith.”

Father Hermes agrees. “We all need community,” he said. “It is not good for man to be alone. Even when he’s elevated, Bishop Cozzens is still in close contact with the priests he met from college.”

High hopes

Those men expect great things of Crookston’s newest bishop, who occasionally dusts off his guitar.

“Crookston is super blessed,” Father Taphorn said. “We know what kind of a man and priest he is: a deeply faithful, joyful man, with an ability to really teach beautifully and lead by example. He’s very devoted to priestly formation and women religious. That’s going to go a long way. I think he’ll really invest himself. He’ll be rooted there.”

His priest friends have heard bishops commend Bishop Cozzens’ efforts to lead the National Eucharistic Revival initiative as part of his work as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis.

“All of us throughout the nation should pay attention to how Bishop Cozzens envisions a eucharistic renewal,” Father Hofer said. “We would do well to follow his lead.”

That noble example will be undergirded by kindness — just as it was 30 years ago. People, again, will follow.

“He has a servant’s heart,” Father Hermes said. “He cares about people knowing the love of God.”