Fr. Jared Cooke

Associate Director

frjaredutcatholic.org

Fr. Jared Cooke was born in Denver, Colorado, but moved to North Austin at the age of 11, spending his most formative years thereafter growing up here in Central Texas. He is a proud 3rd generation Texas A&M Aggie who finds being assigned here at the UCC to be an example of God's divine sense of humor, but he's also quite thrilled to be ministering here in "Longhorn Land," as his Aggie family always referred to it growing up. In addition to serving as the Associate Director here at the University Catholic Center, he also serves as the Chaplain of the “Mercy of God Prayer Center” in North Austin which focuses on guiding people through their individual woundedness and brokenness, towards true inner healing and even occasional deliverance. Fr. Jared has a great passion for preaching, teaching and evangelization and loves finding new and exciting ways to make faith relevant for people in our fast-paced and increasingly secular society. As a result, Fr. Jared has had the opportunity to work extensively and especially with youth, young adults and men’s ministries throughout the country. Over the past four years, he has also traveled around the world speaking and preaching at numerous retreats, conferences, camps, missions and workshops, in addition to serving as Parochial Vicar at St. Joseph in Bryan and most recently, St. Thomas More in North Austin. He also continues to be very active with Catholic evangelization ministry across several social media platforms. Fr. Jared also loves soccer, music, film, hole-in-the-wall food joints to fine dining cuisine and everything in between, the great outdoors, traveling to new places around the world (his bucket list will forever be a mile long) and is a self-described “coffee snob!” When he finds downtime, you will likely find him spending time with friends or relaxing out in the Texas country at his family’s Vineyard and Winery just outside of Houston.