I’m an unlikely candidate for the priesthood. Growing up I never thought about being a priest — it wasn’t even on my radar screen. I went to Mass on Sundays, but was never involved in the life of the parish. It seemed that as soon as I got out of Mass, I’d be fighting with my brothers over who got the front seat in the car on the way home!

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Everything changed when I went to the College of William and Mary in the fall of 1994. I experienced a real conversion, and there I began to practice my Catholic faith. It’s amazing how our lives can change when God finds a way to touch our hearts.

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I had the immense fortune of meeting the late Msgr. Charles Kelly, who served as the campus minister when I was a freshman. To this day he remains a great source of inspiration to me. It was about this time I began to think that God might be calling me to be a priest. The next four years of college became something of a roller-coaster ride — some days I wanted to be a priest more than anything, and other days it was the last thing I wanted to do.

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After graduating from college, I decided to volunteer as a missionary in the Dominican Republic. I worked in the mission parishes sponsored by the Diocese of Arlington along the border of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The time I spent there helped me to understand what it was like to be a priest day-in and day-out. I continually witnessed the power of the sacraments in people’s lives, and that had a great draw on me. The more I thought about the possibility of becoming a priest, the stronger the call felt.

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It was in the Dominican Republic that I met another priest who made a big impact on me. One day I told the pastor of the mission, Father Pat Posey, that I was thinking about becoming a priest. He gave me the best practical advice I’ve ever received: “Tony, go and get your dream job. If after a while, you’re still not satisfied, take a hard look at the priesthood.”

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I returned to the United States a year later and began working my dream job: a legislative assistant to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. I loved the work, and greatly admired my boss (Congressman Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey), but ultimately I felt unsatisfied. The calling from God to be a priest seemed to get louder and louder.

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Then came the point when two things finally lined up: I felt that God was calling me to be a priest, and I wanted to be a priest more than anything in the world. The next step was to decide what kind of priest I wanted to be, diocesan or religious. This took time for me to sort out, as I had lived most of my life overseas, and didn’t feel that I had a geographic home.

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In the end, God made it clear to me that I was meant to be a priest in the Diocese of Richmond. I considered the Diocese of Arlington, where I knew some great priests, but I felt drawn to the more missionary terrain of the Diocese of Richmond than I did to the suburban, metropolitan feel of northern Virginia.

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Furthermore, it was in the Diocese of Richmond that my vocation had begun to flourish, there that I had met wonderful priests, and there that I sensed a need for more priests. God used all of that to bring me to the Richmond Diocese.

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I entered the seminary, at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., in the fall of 2000. The seminary has been a great experience. In addition to studies in philosophy and theology, I’ve benefited from the spiritual direction and advice of great priests and classmates. Another important part of my formation has been the rewarding summer assignments I’ve had in parishes throughout the Diocese of Richmond (St. Bede in Williamsburg, St. Augustine in Richmond, St. Gerard in Roanoke, and St. Anne in Bristol).

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I was ordained a transitional deacon on May 28, 2005. It was a dream come true, and I have absolutely no regrets. Receiving the sacrament of Holy Orders has brought more grace, joy, and excitement to my life than I could have prepared for or even imagined! I absolutely love being a deacon.

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I am now in my final year of seminary studies, and will be ordained a priest in June of 2006. I look forward to that day with great joy and excitement. In my life, I’ve found that as unworthy as one is to become a priest, the generosity of God calling is too good to ignore.

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