Fr. J.D. Jaffe is a Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Arlington, and currently serves at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Alexandria, VA. He also serves as the Spiritual Director to the Office of Youth Ministry for the Diocese of Arlington. He was born and raised in Northern Virginia. He grew up across the street from St. Michael Catholic Church in Annandale, Virginia. St. Michael Church has a Perpetual Adoration chapel where the Most Blessed Sacrament is exposed in a monstrance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is this chapel, including the many adorers who go there to pray for vocations, that Fr. Jaffe says was the greatest help in discerning the call to the priesthood.

Fr. Jaffe Copyright © 2005 Bert V. Goulait / The Washington Times. Reprinted with the kind permission of the Washington Times.

He grew up in very interesting religious household. His mother is a practicing Roman Catholic and his father is a practicing Jew. He and his sister were both baptized and reared as Catholics, but with a great appreciation for their father’s faith. Having a father, who is a practicing Jew, helped Fr. Jaffe to grow up with a great understanding of Judaism and because of that an even greater understanding of his own Catholic Faith by comparison. “There was no doubt that we all placed God at the center of our family, and that it was God who brought balance and peace to our daily lives. It is through my family that I learned that God must be the factor of our lives, rather than a factor in the midst of our lives.”

He attended Annandale High School, where after trying football for one year and not finding it to his liking; he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and try Track and Field. It was there that he found his true passion in the world of sports, mainly throwing things. Fr. Jaffe competed in shot-put for his four years in high school. He attended the College of William and Mary and competed as a shot-putter at the NCAA Div. 1 Level. In college he found a great love for the balance between prayer, study and athletics that comes from being a college athlete; and found that it helped him later when he entered seminary to balance prayer, apostolic work and study. He got his Bachelors degree in Biology and a second major in Religion. Upon graduating he went directly into seminary and attended St. Charles Borromeo in Philadelphia, PA for his first year of pre-theology. After that initial year in seminary, Bishop Paul Loverde, the bishop of Arlington, sent him to the North American College in Rome, Italy for his four years of major seminary. He was ordained a deacon in St. Peter Basilica at the Vatican on October 10, 2002, and was ordained a priest on June 7, 2003 in the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington, Virginia.

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