I was born and raised in a Catholic family by my father Tom, mother Mary, and sister Christine in Oak Lawn, IL. I received all the sacraments through Confirmation as a child, but then slowly fell away from the faith during high school. I received a scholarship and played Div. II tennis for Lewis University in Romeoville, IL graduating with a bachelor’s degree in finance. While in school and following graduation, I was a teaching tennis pro in the Chicago suburbs before moving to Rockford for a total of about 13 years, and I finally had a chance to use the finance degree from college by working for a small automation engineering distributor as its finance director for five years.  
 
It sounds like a familiar story now, but when I was 25, I started feeling like life didn’t have purpose. Fortunately, one of my co-worker tennis pros was a former youth pastor and challenged me to bring that to God. After researching atheism, Protestantism, and Catholicism for about 6 months, the Lord in His mercy showed me the light. He showed me that He was real. From then on, my life started to change bit by bit.  
 
About 5 years after my reconversion, I felt like the Lord was asking me to do more for the Kingdom with my life. I thought about trying to use my finance degree for the Church. I applied for a couple of Catholic financial positions, but they never worked out. Then during a surprise medical event, the Lord showed me a picture of myself wearing all black like a priest would wear. I didn’t know what it meant at the time. I had absolutely no desire to be a priest, and I tried to shove the thought away. Then Fr. Barch, who was the pastor at St. Mary’s in Byron, had a number of Sunday homilies about how our parish had a couple of women who had joined a convent in his term, but the parish still hadn’t had any men discern religious life or priesthood.  
 
As I felt a bit of pressure nudging me towards joining the priesthood, I finally decided to reach out to Fr. John McNamara who was the associate vocation director at the time and who I lived closest to in proximity. I figured we’d meet, he would tell me that I am too old, that I am not holy enough to be a priest, and I could move on with my life and figure out what God wanted. Instead, he thought there was a good chance God was calling me to be a priest and gave me a book to read To Save a Thousand Souls by Fr. Brett Brannen. At the time I wasn’t a good reader, I hadn’t read a book in full in years, but I managed to get through the nearly 400 page book in 3 days.  
 
I was hooked. I wanted to do what the book was talking about, and I started the process of selling my home, leaving my senior level finance position, and applying to seminary. For sure, there have been ups and downs since then and through seminary, but the Lord never ceases to amaze me in how He always provides! God may not always give us what we want, but He will always make us strong enough to endure and persevere. I cannot wait to see what He does through priesthood. My prayer is that the Lord would use my story, my experience to help bring others back to the faith or to encounter it even for the first time.