BY KATHI STEARNS

Staff Writer

LILBURN--Father Craig David believes the seeds of his vocation were planted by a Philadelphia nun who made it her mission to take him to his first Mass when he was 5.

"I can remember it as if it were yesterday," he said. "We were new to the area and hadn't been going to Mass, and the nuns from our neighborhood were walking around the block to see who was Catholic. My mom told them that we were Catholic, so one Sunday Sister Theresa came by and took my brother and myself to a Latin Mass.

"I can still remember the priest. But what really caught my eye was a stained glass window of the resurrection. There was something incredible about that image. It touched my soul in a way that is indescribable. I just couldn't keep my eyes off that window."

Father David says his family was always "spiritually full" because both his mother and grandmother recognized the importance of a strong Catholic foundation. Father David attended St. Columba grade school and Roman Catholic High School for Boys prior to attending a Jesuit university.

"My mother wouldn't have it any other way," Father David said. "She still wants all her grandchildren to have a Catholic education because she realizes how important it was to us and how important it will be to them."

Sister Theresa's example moved Father David, 35, to serve the Lord as a missionary of sorts for much of his life, both before and after he realized he had a vocation to the priesthood.

From 1980 to 1983 Father David studied at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia where he earned degrees in international relations and Latin American studies. In 1982, as part of a college class, he was sent to Haiti because he had both a working knowledge of French and exceptional carpentry skills.

"I only lasted over there four months because I got so sick," Father David said. "Even though I had malaria, was allergic to mosquitoes and was severely malnourished, I refused to go home because I wanted to complete my mission work. It was incredibly hard work, but it was so rewarding. I knew I was there for a reason and nothing was going to take me away. Because of my desire to complete my mission assignment, I was next sent to the Dominican Republic where I learned Spanish. These missions were trips that I'll never forget because they changed the course of my life. They increased my awareness of the necessity of mission work as well as the strong need within myself to serve. I really believe they were my first steps in recognizing my calling."

His senior year in college he returned to the Dominican Republic where he spent seven months assisting a Jesuit priest.

In 1984 he returned to the U.S., first teaching at St. Raymond's Catholic school in Philadelphia and later that year moving to Los Angeles and working for the Internal Revenue Service. In 1987 he began work in a hospital personnel department.

"One day I was sitting at my desk, and I said, 'There has to be something better than this,'" he said. "I'm a person who likes to help people honestly and sincerely with no strings attached. Every job I had tried involved politics and games that I couldn't deal with. I knew there had to be some place where I could make a difference. I went to Mass that day and outside the door of the church I spotted a vocations poster. I had always thought about being a priest, but this was one of the first times that I remember really reacting to my feelings and responding to his call."

Father David began his seminary studies in California for the Society of Jesus in 1990. While at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, where he studied until 1994, he completed apostolates with prisoners and high school vocations work.

"I was attracted to the society because of the Jesuit priests whom I had encountered in college and during my mission trips," Father David said. "They are men of both contemplation and action."

Father David said that he was delighted when he learned that Georgia and Alabama were considered mission country. "I knew that because of my previous illnesses I could never return to a Third World country and do the type of work that I wanted to do," he said. "So I decided that God was calling me to serve in the South. It was at this time that I made contact with the Archdiocese of Atlanta."

In 1995 as a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Atlanta he enrolled at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., where he earned his master of divinity degree this year.

Father David completed a pastoral internship at St. Bernadette's Church, Cedartown, during the summer of 1995. He spent a month as a pastoral assistant at St. John Neumann Church before he was sent to Puerto Rico for nearly three months to refresh his Spanish skills prior to his ordination.

Father David was ordained a transitional deacon March 10 at Sts. Peter and Paul Church, Decatur, by Archbishop John F. Donoghue.

Father David credits Father James Kelly, a priest in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, with nurturing his call to the priesthood as a boy.

To be an effective priest, Father David says that he "must be faithful to the word of God and faithful to the Catholic Church. I'm the kind of person who believes that you have to believe what you preach and preach what you believe."

Father David's mother, Dorothy Williams, his uncles Samuel and David Williams, his brother, Randall Cunningham, BHS, who is a brother of the Holy Spirit in Philadelphia, his brother, Ike Elzey, and other family members attended his ordination and first Mass.

Father David celebrated his first Mass Sunday, June 30, at St. John Neumann Church in Lilburn where he has been appointed a parochial vicar.