the Catholicism of my childhood seemed less and less relevant to me. When I was 17 years old, God came crashing back into my life through the work of a great mentor I had in high school who, through many conversations and book recommendations, helped me to rediscover in a powerful way the faith that had up until then seemed so distant to me. When, around the same time, I encountered the Focolare Movement and witnessed the radical way its members lived the Gospel’s call to ‘love one another,’ my conversion – or ‘reversion’ – was complete.

From the very beginning, the priesthood was an option I considered seriously, especially as I connected this vocation with the Eucharist and the sacrament of Confession, two sacraments which provided me with joy and consolation like I had never before experienced.  During a year I took off from college to tour in the Broadway show 42nd Street, something happened that made a deep impression on me: my hero, Pope John Paul II, died.  As the story of his life was retold in every magazine and newspaper and on every television station, I became intrigued by the struggle the Pope had faced as a young actor trying to choose between a life on the stage and a priestly vocation.  As I watched his funeral and reflected on the profound impact he made on the world by the path he ultimately chose, I felt well up within me a deep desire to emulate him in his decision to leave all things to follow Christ. 

If there is one thing that the many thrills and highs of my years in show business taught me, I’d say it’s the truth about the human person most eloquently expressed by the great St. Augustine centuries ago: ‘You have created us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’ God is not faraway, unreachable, or removed from us; quite to the contrary, he desires to lead each one of us to holiness and happiness through an intimate relationship with himself. I want to be a Catholic priest so that I can help people discover anew that God can be known and loved, and that he alone has the power to satisfy the infinite longings of the human heart."