A brief self-introduction by Ezekiel Hangan

"My name is Ezekiel Edward Hangan. I am the third child of six children. I was born on 1 December 1993, in Kew and grew up in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne. My father spent his adolescent years in Bright, in the Victorian high country.  Although he left for tertiary study in Bendigo and Caulfield, he always treasured the township of Bright. He brought his wife and children there for many holidays and to visit my beloved grandparents, Elizabeth and Donald. It was from this experience that I made Sandhurst my second spiritual home, after the Archdiocese of Melbourne.

Before I entered Corpus Christi College, I studied a Bachelor of Arts and Education at Australian Catholic University in Fitzroy. My time at ACU brought me to a number of surprising places including World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, which kick-started my discernment to priesthood or religious life and Krakow, which continued it. But it also led me to Galen Catholic College in Wangaratta for a four-week pre-service teaching placement in 2015. It was there I learnt of the role dioceses play in the education of their students and the similarities between Melbourne and Sandhurst religious education. Towards the end of my education degree, I felt that God may be calling me, indeed challenging me, to a life of dedicated service and self-sacrifice to the Church.

I have in my time at Corpus Christi College discerned not only what God might be calling me to, but where? In prayerful reflection of who I am, my experiences and my gifts and interests, I felt God was calling me to be a priest of the Diocese of Sandhurst. Testing this discernment, with help from family, friends, staff of Corpus Christi and Sandhurst, has brought me to this Diocese and to the point where I can repeat the words of the psalmist, “Here I am Lord ... I come to do your will” (Ps. 40: 7- 8).