Deacon Craig’s ‘one-year shot’ for God turns into vocation to the priesthood

Meet Deacon Anthony Craig, newly ordained on July 15:

You could say Deacon Anthony Craig had everything going for a priestly vocation...

Yet Deacon Anthony, who was ordained to the priesthood July 15 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary, said he entered high school and “rarely gave the priesthood half a thought.” And at the end of high school, the captain of his high school football team, recruited by several universities, he decided on joining the Division II football team at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minn.

So he went and talked to his dad.

“He agreeably responded, ‘If that’s what you want to do with your college years, that’s fine,’” he said.

“That phrase, ‘if that’s what you want,’ struck me for some reason. I reconsidered my decision and discovered that I did not want to play football anymore.”

More than that, at the end of three days of praying and reconsidering things, his surprising first thought was of that weekend at St. John Vianney, something he knows now was the Holy Spirit’s inspiration.

“It was a delightful surprise in the end,” he said. “I gave the Lord, basically, a shot.”