Episode #103: Fr. Branden Gordon on Mercy, Masculinity, and What Surprised Him Most About Priesthood

In this conversation with Fr. Branden Gordon—a newly ordained Salesian priest serving at Saint Benedict Parish in Toronto—we're exploring something I rarely discuss on this show: what daily life looks like for a young priest navigating youth ministry, personal holiness, and the weight of representing Christ to everyone who walks through his door.

Fr. Branden doesn't romanticize the priesthood. After ten years of formation, he's clear-eyed about the struggles—the loneliness, the humility of asking for spending money, the challenge of living charity when it's the virtue he struggles with most. But he's also honest about the gifts: the trust people place in him simply because he wears the collar, the unreal experience of consecrating his first host, and the grace God gives to live out demands he never thought he could meet.

What struck me most about our conversation wasn't just his love for fitness or his ability to write a homily in three hours. It was his deep awareness of God's mercy—and his conviction that this is the message every struggling person needs to hear.

I'll walk you through:

✅ How Fr. Branden went from substitute teacher to ten years of formation for the priesthood

✅ What it's like to grow up culturally Catholic but not practicing—and how grade 8 confirmation planted a seed

✅ The false versions of masculinity young men are being sold online—and what Jesus offers instead

✅ Why he struggles most with charity (the most important virtue) and how the Holy Spirit helps

✅ The image of the Sacred Heart that changed everything: our sins are droplets of water thrown into a burning furnace of God's love

✅ What surprised him most about priesthood: the level of trust people place in him before they even know him well

✅ How he uses AI as a research assistant but never a ghostwriter for homilies

✅ Why he makes physical fitness non-negotiable—and how running up hills grounds him in reality