My parents also made the effort to instill good Catholic moral values in us, to send three (and almost four) of us to Catholic high schools, and to pay a substantial amount of our college tuitions (in my case they generously paid the whole bill). To them a good education was invaluable.

So I had a very ordinary American Catholic middle class childhood that was similar to being an only child because my siblings were much older and moved out early on in my life, but regardless, I had and still have very good relationships with all of them. I suppose another interesting feature of my childhood was that I became an uncle at a young age, which gave me a different life experience than most of my friends.

All of this is relevant to my vocation because a foundational aspect of priestly formation is one's identity as a good Catholic man, which is rooted in the entirety of one's own personal background. But now for the more interesting part of my story-How did I know God was calling?

The short answer to this question is that I had a level of moral certitude (not absolute certainty) based on experiences in life, prayer, and reflection that seemed to lead in this direction, and also that I saw a great potential for personal growth, the possibility of discernment, and ability to leave if I thought and felt this was not where God wanted me to be. I thought before I joined that I was being drawn to the Catholic Priesthood, and so with the help of the formation team in Providence (who are also responsible for admittance), I decided to apply and more intensely discern this particular call in its proper setting.

As I just mentioned, I thought and felt called to the priesthood for my whole life, and so I think it would be important to explain how I drew this conclusion. The first time I had the sense of being called by God was the day I made my first communion. Our pastor invited any of the boys who had just received communion for the first time to become altar boys. However, as a child I had this desire to be well liked and to have many friends. Now although becoming an altar boy would not have affected this much, if at all, I refused for the sake of popularity. God pursued me though.
I remember also that during my childhood I enjoyed being in Church, I liked attending Religious Education, I had an appreciation for nature, and I had the sense that there was something beyond the realm of ordinary experience. I thought images of Buddhists meditating had a particular appeal, and when I stopped praying regularly or with much seriousness in my mid-childhood, exactly when I should have begun to progress, I felt an empty space in my life. About this time was when worldly vanities began to be presented to me as promises of fulfillment. God fought this through Religious Education somewhat, though, because it forced progression in my relationship with Him and substantially tried to counter the world's vanities, but it was not enough for me at the time.

I had an affinity for Religious Education because I had a natural aptitude to understand what we were taught because of my background and abilities as a student, and the directors and secretary were always very loving towards me, I think even unjustly so at times. The sense of ease God gave me there was another indication that helped me determine He might be leading me in this direction. In high school, I needed to complete a certain number of service hours to complete my Religion classes and for the Confirmation program, and so I chose to teach Religious Education when I providentially learned one day that the director for the higher grades was desperate for a replacement. I say providentially because that very day I asked the secretary if I could help her around the office to complete service hours for school, and I was doing office work when I learned of the director's need. I ended up volunteering for a year and a half to complete all my service hours for school, and I remember once arbitrarily telling my mother I thought God was asking me to be a priest, but that I did not want to be. The thought of priesthood followed me and infrequently bothered my conscience though.

I must also mention that I had a few experiences as a child and a young teenager in which I had a strong curiosity about God and things in the spiritual realm like angels and whether my grandmother, who had recently passed away at the time, went to Heaven without going to Purgatory first. I also daydreamed about being a Franciscan Friar and, or, a priest because my mother told me Sts. Francis and Anthony were very holy. This happened once was when we were coming home from La Salette shrine and once when I was a teenager. The latter happened at a time when I believed the worldly lie that true satisfaction only comes from having and using a spouse as a means for gratification on several different levels. Needless to say, I perished the thought of being a religious or a priest quickly, but upon reflection I used it to help me to conclude God wanted me to join the diocesan seminary and study for Providence.

I had this closed view towards the priesthood that remained with me through my first year of college, but God placed some influences in my life that caused me to think about it. The most obvious was that God blessed me in that I had the opportunity to attend St. Anselm College-a small, Catholic, Benedictine college. I made good friends who were still devout even upon living away at college, I made other good friends who were not necessarily devout but did not enjoy the party scene, and then I had friends who were part of that crowd. After a while, I realized that my friendships with the latter had rather poor foundations and I began to want a change. I joined the Knights of Columbus and by giving me rosary beads they reminded me that I should pray besides attending Sunday mass, and about this time my more religious friends told me they wanted to start a prayer meeting. Once we did that, I became more and more interested in theology and I struggled back and forth between the two types of life (living devoutly and living as a purely nominal Catholic) until October of our sophomore year.

Then, one day, two friends convinced me to go to daily mass, and then to go to confession and attend daily mass again. This was the powerful moment when God drew me once and for all into a life of devotion. When I did what my friends suggested, I received a very powerful feeling of spiritual consolation, which provided me with the insight that this would bring the kind of fulfillment I had been seeking. That day I made a resolve to attend mass daily, receive God's forgiveness through the sacrament of Reconciliation at least twice a month, pray the rosary every day, and to inquire about different kinds of religious life. Soon afterwards I also changed my major to Theology to help pursue my interest and desire for God.

Through prayer (especially mass, the rosary, and Eucharistic adoration), some theological and spiritual reading, advice from a large number of different people, and in particular my first two spiritual directors (one of whom was a Benedictine monk), and visiting a variety of different communities about vocational discernment (mostly Franciscan ones), I thought God was asking me to apply to the diocesan seminary. I must also add that after I joined the seminary, and as I go on, I believe and hope more that I made the right decision in joining. At first, it was not the most prudent decision because my determination that God wanted me to join was not reflected upon enough and not logically constructed well enough; however, I am quite happy, I think I did and am doing what God always had in mind for me, and I trust the faculty whose judgment I hope was guided by God in admitting me and continues to be as they help Christ form me into the kind of priest He wants.