"This is exactly what I was made for."
This is what Father Benjamin Lehnertz of the Diocese of Orlando, Florida, said about his vocation to the priesthood in an inspiring viral video.
Father Lehnertz provided this testimony for National Vocation Awareness Week, which took place Nov. 2-8, 2025:
“If anybody came to me and said, ‘Hey, we can rewind and we can go back and you can be a Major League all-star and win World Series championships and MVP trophies and millions of dollars and all the things. Hard pass. Not interested in the least. This is exactly what I was made for,” Father Lehnertz says in the video.
“People asked me, ‘Do you have any regrets?' Zero regret. I'm so at peace and excited about what we do, getting a front-row seat into people's lives this way and getting to see the impact that the Lord can have on them. Anything that would have happened in athletics pales in comparison, I'm certain.”
Father Lehnertz threw the opening pitch for the Atlanta Braves vs. Detroit Tigers ballgame in March of 2019.
Here are some of those pictures below:
Father Lehnertz was ordained in the Diocese of Orlando in June 2013.
He told the Florida Catholic of Orlando that his ordination was “one of the most intimate and beautiful and extraordinary moments of my life.”
"I am not ashamed to say that the entire time that the priests were laying hands on my head, I cried,” Father Lehnertz said. “It was one of the most intimate and beautiful and extraordinary moments of my life. I felt the warm acceptance of being welcomed into a brotherhood, and like I was being given the gifts of all of these men.”