The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Method

CGS is a common religious experience involving children and adults in which the religious values of childhood, primarily those values of contemplation and enjoyment of God, are predominant. This experience is shared in a place particularly prepared for the religious life of children called the Atrium.

Fr Matthew was born in 1968 in Milan, Michigan. He is the younger of 2 sons. He graduated from

Michigan State University in 1990 with a BA in Communications. After several years of ministry at

StraightLine Homeless Shelter in Lansing, MI, he began his seminary studies for the Diocese of Lansing

at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit in 1994. In 1997, he joined the Redemptorists and completed his

MDiv at Aquinas Institute of Theology in Saint Louis, MO. Professed in 2000, he was sent to Nigeria as

a missionary in 2001 where he worked in Lagos and Ibadan for three years. In the fall of 2003, he was

ordained a transitional deacon and assigned to Saint Alphonsus “Rock” Church, in Saint Louis, Missouri.

He was ordained a Redemptorist priest in April of 2004 at his home parish of St Josephs in Whittaker,

Michigan. In 2005 he was sent to Chicago, Illinois to join the parish mission team. From 2005 to 2007

he preached over 50 missions and retreats. In 2007 he was sent back to the “Rock” Church in Saint Louis

to serve as pastor. He served the parish after the major fire of 2007 and remained pastor until the end of

2010. In 2011 he was sent to Rome to work in the Congregation for the Cause of Saints, in the Vatican.

After one year of work in Rome, he returned to the US in January of 2012 to work in Baton Rouge,

Louisiana at Saint Gerard’s Parish and doing some help-out work for the priests of the Baton Rouge

diocese and preaching missions and retreats. He was also the host of a local Catholic TV show called,

“Called to Serve”, which promoted priestly and religious vocations. In 2015 he was assigned to serve on

the Evangelization Team in Brooklyn Center, MN. In 2019 he returned to the Diocese of Lansing to

discern incardination in his home diocese. He served at Saint Thomas Aquinas Parish and St John’s

Student Center in East Lansing during his years of discernment. On March 28, 2022, he was officially

incardinated into the diocese. He is now assigned to the Catholic Community of Flint, and resides at Saint

John Vianney Parish in Flint, MI. Bishop Boyea of the Diocese of Lansing has asked him to preach a

Eucharistic Mission in the diocese during the Church’s Year of Eucharistic Revival. He was named pastor

of Saint John Vianney Parish and Saint Mary’s Mission in July of 2024.