After spending two years at the United States Naval Academy as a midshipman and finding shipboard life stifling, I resigned from my commission and transferred to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. where Philosophy and Theology were part of the required curriculum at Georgetown, even for an economics major. 

 A Jesuit theologian, a lay Protestant theologian and philosopher from France, and an economics professor, who was an atheist, taught me.  Each of these persons influenced me in different ways. 

The atheist provided me contrast and clear choice to a system of intellectual knowledge versus faith and trust in a divine spirit.  The protestant taught me the discipline and flexibility of thought.  The Jesuit satisfied my intellectual need for a proof of the existence of God, along the lines of the philosophy and theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas.  

During this period, I also became aware of the fundamental truth that all human relationships were in a sense passing and that God was the only absolute truth.  

The moment that faith came to me was not dramatic, for it seemed to be there as I took instruction in the Roman Catholic faith shortly after my graduation from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.  

I do recall a moment of enlightenment when I was no
longer questioning everything intellectually and understood that truths would be revealed to me, as well as God’s will for me, as I grew in faith.  

I learned later that my conversion, similar to St. Paul’s experience, began with a mystical experience, the “blinding light” that filled my soul, and led me to a lifelong faith journey.