At the request of the bishop, I want to share with you the story of how the Lord led me to this altar—not because my story is the pattern for everyone, but because it is one example of how patiently God can pursue a heart.
I was not born Catholic. In my earliest years, my family raised me in the Episcopal Church, and that is where I was baptized. Later, as the Episcopal Church continued along its present trajectory, we left. We went to a Southern Baptist church, and I spent more years as a Baptist than anything else.
A turning point arrived in high school in a place I did not expect: a Latin classroom. Latin was simply my foreign language requirement. Yet my teacher believed in teaching by classical methods in a classical language course. That meant reading not only ancient texts, but contemporary Latin as well. And if you want contemporary Latin, you quickly find yourself in the life of the Church—because one of the most consistent places Latin is still used is in ecclesial documents.
My teacher was Catholic. So he began putting Church documents in front of us. That led to conversations. Those conversations led to more reading: the Fathers of the Church, and other texts that belong to Christianity’s earliest centuries.
Over time, a single contrast kept pressing on my mind. The church I attended did not look like the early Church. It was not structured the same. It did not worship the same. In some ways, it did not even seem to believe the same. That tension became a kind of holy restlessness. I began looking into the Catholic Church—not as an idea, but as a living body with memory, continuity, and worship that had been carried forward through centuries.
By the time I reached college, that search had grown serious. In my first year, I entered what was then called the RCIA and came into the Church. And I can say honestly: from the first moments of my conversion, the thought followed me that God might be calling me to the priesthood.
Anyone who has known a convert knows that zeal can burn hot—especially early on. Zeal is a gift, but it can also blur the line between enthusiasm and vocation. So I spoke with others. I stayed in college. I prayed, and I watched my own heart carefully, trying to discern what was real and what was passing.
One lesson became clear as the years went on: vocation is not a hobby, and it is not a phase. It is a commitment of an entire life. God calls each of us to consecrate our lives to him through a particular path—most often in marriage, religious life, or the priesthood. Each is a real offering. Each is demanding. Each is meant to make a life fruitful in love.
For me, during those years—finishing my degree, imagining adulthood in concrete terms—one realization kept returning. I could not see myself being fully happy and satisfied moving into my field of study, getting married, and raising a family. That was not a judgment against any of those goods. They are holy goods. It was simply an interior recognition: that road was not the road the Lord had carved for me.
When I looked ahead, the place where I saw a deeper happiness was in serving God more directly, in the priesthood, in the Church. That conviction did not fade. It lingered. It followed me into semesters and finals and plans and distractions. I could set it down for a while, but it would be waiting for me when things quieted.
It was not easy. I had worked hard for my degree. Letting go of the straightforward next step meant choosing six more years of study. It meant delaying work, delaying stability, delaying what many people call “getting on with life.” That was difficult. I prayed again and again, and even then I still found myself unable to decide.
Then a night when sleep would not come. The struggle had become too loud to ignore. I spent much of that night in prayer, torn and tired, asking for clarity. Eventually, exhaustion took over and I fell asleep.
In a dream, the Lord came to me. He did not speak. He simply reached over and placed his hand on my heart. I woke in that moment, and my heart was burning. I felt the heat—his love—and I knew the answer.
I do not say that lightly. I am not someone who leans easily on signs and wonders. I have always been rather skeptical, quite frankly. Yet that dream was real in the way that matters: it was God’s way of steadying me, giving me the confidence I needed to take the next step.
After that, I spoke with my pastor at the time, Fr. Gilbert. I contacted the diocese. I entered the process. What followed was a six-year journey that ended in ordination.
The most important thing to say about vocation, though, is not my story. The most important thing is that everyone has one. No one is overlooked. No one is an accident. Every life has a path along which God intends that person to become holy and to become a gift.
Discerning that path takes prayer, honesty, and patience. It does not reduce to simply doing what feels easiest, because there is so much we cannot see from the inside of our own fears and hopes. When we open ourselves to the Lord—when we give him the right to lead—he draws us toward the place we need to be, even if the route is slower than we planned.
Wherever you find yourself in life, turn to prayer. Ask for the grace to embrace the vocation already given, or for the grace to recognize where he is leading next. When the Lord makes his call clear, the task becomes very simple and very hard at the same time: to choose that path and follow it, because that is the road that leads to real joy and, ultimately, to eternal life. May the Lord grant us attentive hearts, steady courage, and the grace to say yes when he places his hand upon us.