Faith, then football: Seahawk Abraham Lucas loves the game, but lives his life for God

In his second year as an offensive tackle for the Seattle Seahawks, Abraham “Abe” Lucas is living his childhood dream. Even so, it’s faith, not football, that’s the most important thing for this self-described “hard-core Catholic.”

“It’s my focal point, it drives everything that I do — my faith and my relationship with Jesus Christ,” said Lucas, who grew up near Everett. “It’s my purpose.”

At 6 feet, 6 inches tall and 322 pounds, Lucas is someone you wouldn’t want to tangle with on the football field. Off the field, he’s been described as a “gentle giant,” considerate and loyal. Lucas, who turns 25 in October, is approachable, open and honest — willing to share his struggles in life and eager to talk about being Catholic.

“He’s experienced his own crosses, his own sufferings, but Christ has always been at the center of his life and how he tries to live his life,” Father Paul Heric, Lucas’ pastor at the St. Thomas More Catholic Student Center at Washington State University, said in a video.

‘Great evangelist’ for the Catholic faith 

Lucas said he considers his whole life a ministry, and believes football is what he’s “called to do at this moment.”

He never misses weekend Mass, and he tries to pray the rosary daily (sometimes on the team plane), go to confession weekly and attend weekday Mass as often as he can. In July, he began the spiritual exercises of St. Louis de Montfort’s “Total Consecration to Jesus Through Mary.” (His mom has always encouraged him to pray to Mary more.)

He is inspired by St. Padre Pio — “the immense spiritual warfare that he went through” and “his life being a testament to God’s love.”

He doesn’t shy away from sharing his faith in the locker room. Lucas recalled a great conversation in the sauna with a teammate — a strong nondenominational Christian — about the differences in their beliefs. “To hear him talk about his faith, I love it, it’s fantastic,” he said.

Lucas feels called “to spread the Word of God as much as possible” — never pushing, “but if the conversation gets opened up and someone is curious about it, I’ll absolutely share what it is that I know.”

Lucas is “so grounded in his faith that he can bravely walk into conversations and say exactly what we’re all about” without offending anyone, said Deacon Dennis Kelly, who was campus minister at Archbishop Murphy High School in Everett during part of Lucas’ time there. “He’s just a great evangelist.”

And Lucas speaks volumes about being Catholic through the images tattooed on his arms. They include Christ crowned with thorns, the Virgin Mary, St. Michael the Archangel fighting the devil, a skull representing human mortality and Christ’s victory over death, and the Native St. Kateri Tekakwitha. (His paternal great-grandmother was part Native, and he admires St. Kateri’s commitment to God.)

When teams interviewed Lucas before the 2022 NFL draft, some asked where football falls on his list of priorities. Probably third, he told them, after his faith and his family.

“This is my job now … and I love what I do and I’m thankful for it,” Lucas told Northwest Catholic. “But if I had to pick between God and football, I would pick God 10 times out of 10. It’s not that hard of a decision to make. Some people don’t understand that because not everybody has faith.”

Family provides his faith foundation

The seeds of Lucas’ faith were planted and nurtured by his parents, Kelly and Julie, longtime members of St. Thomas More Parish in Lynnwood.

The second oldest, Lucas grew up with four sisters and two brothers. (Another sibling, Joseph Michael, was lost to miscarriage at 18 weeks, Julie said.) Lucas was baptized on All Saints Day and attended Catholic schools — St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Bothell for Montessori, then St. Thomas More and on to Archbishop Murphy.

“I vividly remember sitting with my mom and her explaining biblical stories to me as early as preschool and kindergarten,” Lucas said.

One of his first Communion gifts from his mother was a thick book of saints. Proficient in memorization, “I knew the saint, the years they lived and what they were canonized for,” he said, adding, “I don’t remember them for the life of me now.”

Attending school as a youngster was a mixed bag of experiences. Lucas said he was not only “a squirmer,” but he also was a bigger kid and felt a lot of people “didn’t really get me.” But attending St. Thomas More “was instrumental in building the faith,” he said.

At home, the family prayed the rosary every night. For many years (until the pandemic), Julie and Kelly alternated the 8 p.m. Saturday adoration slot at St. Pius X Church in nearby Mountlake Terrace, bringing some of the kids along each week. Lucas said he didn’t want to go all the time, but “I always did pray and I always did get something out of it, as much as I could.”

His parents also emphasized “receiving the sacraments as much as possible, especially the Eucharist,” Lucas said. The family went to confession at least once a month; today Lucas tries to go to confession before receiving Communion.

“We’re not perfect, of course, but it’s my opinion that you want to be as clean as you can … when you are literally consuming the body of Christ,” he said. “We need that intimate relationship with God through Communion. So I gotta get to confession so that I can receive Communion.”

Sports don’t win out over Mass

Sports were also big in the Lucas household, whether it was the kids participating in athletics or Kelly watching lots of football. But sports never won out over going to Mass on Sundays, Julie said.

Lucas’ first sport was soccer, then came baseball, football and basketball, which became his favorite sport, she said. He played both basketball and football at Archbishop Murphy, where Lucas said he had “a great experience.”

“The good thing about Catholic schools is that they require you to do service,” he said. “I didn’t get it at first, and it was annoying sometimes because it was on a Saturday and I didn’t want to do it.”

But doing acts of service “was a big teaching point for me,” Lucas said. The other was learning the what and why of church teaching on subjects such as abortion and capital punishment. He enjoyed history (his college major) and theology classes, especially the junior-year class that explored church history, and the senior-year class focused on discussion, “bringing different views to light and what does God say about these things,” he said.

Lucas also was an active participant in campus ministry. “Whenever I would do adoration or the rosary, he would be there,” Deacon Kelly said. And when he arrived to pray with the football team before their games, it was Lucas who settled the players “into a prayerful space.”

When time for confirmation rolled around, Lucas’ parents let him make the decision. “I remember my mom saying to me, ‘If you’re not going to take it serious, don’t do it.’ She actually said the church doesn’t need lukewarm Catholics, it needs people who are going to try as much as they can to keep the sacraments and commandments and such.”

Lucas was all in; he was confirmed at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church.

Achieving personal, spiritual growth at WSU

When his family dropped him off for his first year at WSU, that’s when Lucas realized that keeping his faith strong was now up to him.

It was something his parents had emphasized to their kids as they grew up: “When you get out into the real world, don’t lose (the faith) because there’s a lot of distractions,” Lucas said.

He finally understood what they were talking about as he dealt with all the distractions and temptations that come with college life. He decided to preserve his faith, picking up where he left off at home by going to Mass every weekend.

His first collegiate strength coach imparted lessons about “being a man, doing your job and doing it without really complaints,” Lucas said, wisdom he carried over to his faith life. It changed his perspective. When he returned home from WSU the first time, he was different, Lucas said, a more respectful son and brother.

Sometimes things were going great with his faith life, but when they weren’t, Lucas said it was hard to admit he couldn’t handle it alone and needed to seek spiritual guidance. After Father Heric was assigned to the Newman Center, Lucas began spending more time there, going to adoration, confession and daily Mass, something Father Heric suggested. “I did a lot of spiritual growth with him through confession,” Lucas said.

At one of his first meetings with Father Heric, Lucas arrived prepared for a “deep, soul-scrubbing type of confession,” with “two or three notebook pages just full of stuff that I did.” Lucas said Father Heric encouraged him to continue holding himself accountable, but also to realize “you’re not a bad or dirty person because you sin. That just means that you’re more human than anything else.”

Understanding that is “still tough because you want to be the best you can be,” Lucas added.

In the busy, difficult months leading up to the 2022 NFL draft, Lucas experienced a lot of anxiety and uncertainty, but “attacked it relentlessly and got through it,” he said in a WSU Newman Center video with Father Heric. “It also was an opportunity for me to deepen my faith even more and to just trust in God.”

Lucas held his draft day party at the Newman Center; he was drafted 72nd overall — which happened to be his jersey number in high school and college (and is the one he now wears as a Seahawk).

Giving back, striving for a faithful life

Beyond faith, family and football, Lucas enjoys playing guitar and listening to all kinds of “complex” music, from heavy metal (favored for his pregame playlist) to jazz to classical.

And he’s finding ways to give back. In June, he hosted a youth football camp at Archbishop Murphy. In July, he traveled with some of the Seahawks staff to Anchorage, where he visited patients at a children’s hospital, gave donated shoes to kids and helped put on a flag football camp.

Lucas wants to keep giving back to those less fortunate, mentioning St. Vincent de Paul as “a great organization for things like that.” And St. Vincent de Paul himself “was an incredible saint who really dedicated his life to that concept and gave people hope.”

He also likes the idea “of journeying with young men as they try to navigate their lives and become stronger in the faith.”

Lucas pursues excellence not just in football, but also in faith.

Living a Catholic life isn’t always easy, he said, and he may not always feel motivated or succeed in his efforts. But serving God by living his faith “is nothing more than my duty to God on this earth.”

“The beauty of it,” Lucas added, “is that I only get closer and closer to God and his heavenly kingdom when I live in the way I’ve been called.”