Extension magazine - Spring 2024

20 INSPIRE
Feature Story
Extension | Spring 2024 21
ASSOCIATE
PASTOR
DEVELOPS A
SPIRITUALITY
STEEPED IN
A RANCHER’S
LIFE
It is a basic tenant of Catholic
belief that “grace
builds upon nature,”
meaning that we don’t
need to change who we
are as people to give glory
to God. After all, God created
us in His image and
likeness. Therefore, we need only
to perfect or build upon the foundation
that God already created.
At his core, Father Bryce Lungren
is a cowboy by nature, having
grown up on a ranch in Wyoming
as the descendant
of homesteaders.
WYOMING’S
Throughout his life he
has remained close to
this spectacularly gorgeous
western land.
cowboy
He felt that when
he was called to be a priest, God
was not asking him to abandon the
“cowboy way” that grounded his
identity, but rather to bring those
PRIEST
inherited values of his parents and
grandparents and his closeness
to the land with him as he serves
God’s people.
Ordained in 2018, Father Lungren
is based at St. Matthew’s
Parish in Gillette, Wyoming. As
associate pastor, his primary responsibility
is to serve the parish’s
surrounding missions in the small
towns of the northeast corner of
the state. On Sundays, he travels
220 miles in his pickup truck,
dubbed his “white horse,” to say
Mass at three missions.
The iconic “praying cowboy”
image from the cover of Extension
magazine in 1961.
PHOTO RON WU
Father Bryce Lungren
definitely feels “home on the
range” as he poses in front
of the refrigerated trailer that
stores the beef he personally
raises, butchers and packages.
All of the churches have been
built with Catholic Extension Society
support, and all of the miles
Father Lungren travels are fueled
with support from Catholic Extension
Society donors.
While in seminary, Father Lungren
discovered that the way to
be a happy priest would be to live
an authentic life—true to the Gospel
and true to who he is as a person:
a cowboy. His grandfather, on
whose ranch Father Lungren grew
up roping and branding cattle,
would say these words: “Always
wear your hat.” He interpreted
this to mean, “Never stop being
the man God created you to be.”
And so, along with the Roman
collar, he wears his cowboy
hat, a big metal belt buckle and,
on occasion, cowboy boots with
spurs. His cowboy persona is not a
“shtick” or public relations stunt.
He described his grandparents’
and his parents’ influences
of faith, family and hard work as
“an endless school of virtue that
motivated me to be the best man
I can be.”
This compelled him to take his
cowboy values and convert them
into a Catholic spirituality. Last
year he published a book titled
The Catholic Cowboy Way: Finding
Peace and Purpose on the
Bronc Called Life.
The book links the virtues and
ideals of the iconic American
cowboy with that of the Catholic
spiritual journey.