The Catholic Accent Podcast

BONUS 23 - Answering the Call: Father Andrew Hamilton & Father Christopher Pujol

• Diocese of Greensburg • Season 2 • Episode 13

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Bonus Episode — Answering the Call: Father Andrew Hamilton & Father Chris Pujol

Have you ever wondered why a perfect God would create anything at all? In this conversation, we explore how the logic of love—revealed in the Trinity—turns that question from a puzzle into a personal invitation. One of us shares the journey from seeing liturgy as “just a show” to discovering how Scripture, reason, and prayer reveal our true identity: made in the image and likeness of God. That realization reshapes our desires, redeems suffering, and makes real transformation possible.

The other reflects on a quieter call to priesthood—set aside for years while life offered other paths—until grace and freedom met in a wholehearted yes. Together, we talk about the slow work of discernment: why readiness matters, how seminary life nurtures vocations, and how faith and reason work hand in hand to open us to truth, goodness, and beauty.

This conversation isn’t just for those discerning priesthood—it’s for anyone searching for purpose, rebuilding faith, or trying to understand how love and meaning fit into the story of their life. We offer reflections, practical steps, and encouragement to trust where the seeds of your own calling might be taking root.

If this episode resonates with you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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Jordan Whiteko, Father Andrew Hamilton, Father Christopher Pujol, Vincent Reilly, Cliff Gorski, John Zylka, Sarah Hartner

SPEAKER_01:

You're listening to the Catholic Active Podcast. We discussed the act that Jesus performed that stunned his disciples. Great to be back, Jordan.

SPEAKER_00:

You don't know us by now, you're never gonna know.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm Jordan Waco here with Father Hamilton and Father Poojo. You guys mentioned telling your story of conversion uh many times. But for our listeners who may not have heard that yet, why don't why don't you guys tell us the story?

SPEAKER_00:

It's always said that you should have a vocation story that's like a 45-minute talk, a 15-minute talk, and then an elevator speech. So I'll give you something. Yeah, give us the elevator. Give us the elevator speech, please. Because we're running out of time for our beautiful listeners. Certainly. So in in my own life, I was raised Catholic. I didn't understand why the church did what it did. To me, kind of the liturgy, everything else just seemed like a show. I didn't have the understanding beneath the church. There was no real interior conversion. We talk about in other episodes, circumcision of heart transformation. So I started to believe in what the world believes in, which is more of the world fixes, the more of our problems. And so as I kind of went then off to college and I started really to just contemplate the big questions of life, what am I made for? Does suffering mean anything? Can it be redeemed? Is this world just all for naught? Then I started looking into big philosophical questions and started studying more and more and went from really being at that time an agnostic, not knowing if I believed in God or not, but living as if God were not real, no bearing upon my life, to then saying, okay, why am I created? And the only thing that made sense to me across all of the religions was because I made it in the image and likeness of God, which is from early Genesis, which made sense of everything for me. I was always told as a kid about God. God is love, about the Trinity, right? Which is a unique teaching that comes to us through Christianity, that God is not just one in one person, but one being in three persons, which shows forth creation. Because the question really that was posed in my own mind is why would we have anything around us? If God's perfect in and of himself, why would he create? The only way God creates is that if he loves and that his essence is love and wants to give to the other for the goodness of the other. And so when I understood that as the basic principle of Christianity, now I could start to look into Christianity. I could start to pray again. I could start to live a moral life that was changed. So once I understood the true, I was able then to start living the good, which then set me up to try to then live the beautiful. And I said to myself, after praying for a while, what's the most beautiful thing I could do with my life? It's to get other people that were in my position who don't understand anything, who are looking more to the world and to the false gods of this world to turn back to the one true God, to know him, to love him, and to serve him. And so that's what I've decided to do as a priest. I think the best way to get that message out there and to serve the needs of the church today. How many floors does this elevator reach? That was like probably the Empire State Building. Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_02:

No, only halfway.

SPEAKER_01:

Does anyone else wondering that? Now yours. Your turn.

SPEAKER_02:

So for me, I think that I always had an inclination of being drawn to the church and being a priest. But it was something that I never really talked about. And so Father and I entered the seminary the same year, but in different, different levels, different years. And I remember early on in some of those vocation promotional dinners and things we'd go to, I would always, there would be group pictures and they would always want to promote vocation events. And I'd be like, I'm not in these pictures, I'm not here, don't tell anybody that I'm here. And it was really in college then that I came to an understanding that when the Lord calls, if we don't respond, then that there's a problem there. And so as I continued throughout college, you know, I had different internships, job opportunities that I really enjoyed. But it wasn't the fulfillment that when I thought about the priesthood or went to prayer or talked to priest friends that I knew I could have in life when if I would respond to the call. And so I think it took a long time of maturity really to be able to say yes in freedom to the to the choice of entering the seminary and ultimately being called by the church to be ordained a deacon and a priest. Um I think that uh if we look at Saint Paul, if the Lord called him earlier in his life, he probably would not have been able to respond. But it took a period of time. And so vocations take time to mature, take time to take root within us. And so that's why when we enter the seminary, then it takes so long before you're ordained a priest. And we have to remember that the word seminary comes from that Latin word for seed bed, where those seeds are planted. And so those seeds were planted in me by my family, by great priests. Um and it just took time for them to grow and to come to fruition.

SPEAKER_01:

We are now at the top of the Empire State Building. Now we gotta go back down. That's a good view. Thanks for listening to the Catholic Accent podcast. Don't forget to follow, like, and subscribe to our show.