Though I felt the call to the priesthood throughout high school, I was anxious about it because I thought the natural expectation for my life was to marry and have children. I carried this conflict throughout high school. Finally, the summer before starting college, I found myself in Adoration and I prayed that if God wanted me to be a priest, I would follow Him to the seminary. This seemed to be His desire.

Before entering the Seminary, though, I decided to accept a running scholarship. Seminary could surely wait a year. While at college, I met a Catholic woman and began a relationship with her that would last two years. Again, I was trying to convince myself that marriage was for me.

Yet the Holy Spirit refused to give up on me. As the relationship progressed, I felt the Spirit tugging at my heart to return to my true calling. I ended the relationship, and despite the heartbreak, I knew where I belonged.

I consecrated myself to the Blessed Virgin and began serving at Mass. Every time I stepped onto the altar, I felt a great sense of purpose, meaning, and joy that I had never felt before. I knew that God had not taken fatherhood away from me in this calling, but instead, had given me an opportunity for an even greater version of fatherly love.

Every desire I have ever pursued in my life will be fulfilled by the priesthood. Leading an organization, teaching others, fatherhood, and talking to people every day: all of these and so much more make up the daily life of a diocesan priest.

I deeply desire to serve my home state as a parish priest. Leading a parish strikes me as the most fun possible to have on Earth! As a parish priest, I’ll be blessed to bring ordinary people in an ordinary way to Christ, even though there is nothing more extraordinary in the world. I’ll be able to offer the sacraments to all people, while living as closely as possible to the Eucharist at all times.

I am called to encounter people where they are, and to love them in a way that only a priest can. Only by the grace of God and through the help of The Labouré Society will I  be able to answer this call.