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Patrick Peyton grew up in a small cottage in a small village.  His family had a small farm, where they grew crops and tried to scratch out a humble living.  His father, the head of the family, had one “inflexible rule,’ that all must participate in the communal prayer, the family Rosary. Later, Patrick would say, “As I look back over the nineteen years spent in that poor little home, I cannot recall an unpleasant moment.  There were times when we had little or nothing to eat, but there were never times when we did not have our strong spirit of faith to face all the difficulties and hardships of life.”

As a small boy, Patrick was blessed with the opportunity to become an altar boy at the small church in the small parish of Attymass.  He loved this duty and was often not content to serve just one Mass on Sunday, returning to serve the second when he was able.  It was then that the idea of a vocation first emerged, as he went about the small tasks that made up his position as an altar server: lighting the candles, the Latin responses, swinging the censer at the Benediction.  But his petitions to orders were rejected due to his grades or went unanswered altogether.  Patrick was devastated and resolved that he “wasn’t going to indulge (his) foolish dream of the priesthood anymore.”

Thus, when Patrick Peyton came to the United States in 1928, his intention was to gain material wealth, not promote spiritual well-being.  But after unsuccessful attempts at other jobs, he resorted to accepting a job from which he initially shied away: that of a sexton at the cathedral.  If the Monsignor offering the job had mentioned the priesthood, Patrick may have fled again.  But the small, modest employment as sexton was something that he accepted.  As he performed the humble duties of a janitor, he felt all the joy of his youth come back to him.  He later stated, “As I swept or dusted or polished, I would turn toward the tabernacle on the altar and greet our dear Lord hidden sacramentally behind the veils. When I passed the statue of Our Blessed Mother, I would stop to talk to her and thank her for the delicacy with which she had treated me by bringing me so gently against my will to this place of happiness.” Though he said that the job title of sexton was simply “a fancy word for janitor,” living and working constantly in the presence of God soon made Patrick realize that it was not too late for him to answer the call to the priesthood.  He enrolled in high school with children of thirteen or fourteen who were all academically ahead of him, and on the way home from school he would help his brother Tom with the sexton duties at the cathedral.  Eventually, he graduated from Notre Dame and became Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C., who we now call Venerable Patrick Peyton.