Catholicism wasn’t on his mind the day a bizarre experience happened to Deacon Mike Sampson in 2012. The Washington lawyer had been exploring Christianity, but that amounted to visiting Protestant churches.
“One day, I was coming back from work in Arlington and was just walking up the stairs and I began to pray,” said Deacon Sampson. “Then I just made the sign of the cross, which was for me a very striking moment because it was not something I had done before. I think I had only been to two Masses in my whole life.”
Deacon Sampson knew that something spiritual had just occurred. “I immediately looked up at the sky, like at the Lord, and I just laughed,” he said. “I understood at that moment what I needed to do, and that was I needed to contact the Catholic Church. At night, I contacted St. Charles Borromeo Church and a couple weeks later I started RCIA.”
He knows now that it was the Holy Spirit that jolted him.
“I liken it to St. Paul’s moment,” said Deacon Sampson. “It’s tradition that he was knocked off his horse and I was sort of knocked off my horse at that moment. I received it as a grace, like a nudge from the Lord — ‘this is where you need to go’ — and it wasn’t something I had been thinking about.”
Closing the case to accept the truth of Catholicism came quickly for Deacon Sampson, who was ordained a transitional deacon April 6, 2024. “I am a lawyer and looking at the catechism and seeing the citations and the tradition, going back to the beginning, it all just kind of came together and made sense,” he said.
“There’s a story about St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, who was also a convert, that I relate to,” said Deacon Sampson. “She was in New York and looked out the window and saw the sanctuary lamp in the Catholic church nearby and at that moment, she just believed what the church taught. I understood that.”
Being open to the Holy Spirit led Deacon Sampson to break up with a girlfriend he had been seriously dating to pursue the priestly path in 2018. Father J.D. Jaffe, former diocesan vocations director, offered sage advice.
“Father Jaffe said, ‘You need to wait a little bit longer. This can’t be a rebound with the church,’ ” said Deacon Sampson. “I understood that, so after a period of discernment, I entered seminary in 2019.”
Deacon Sampson, 42, will serve as a parochial vicar in the diocese for three years before a five-year assignment as a U.S. Navy chaplain. The California native who attended Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md., remains awestruck about that moment on the stairs in 2012, and what is about to happen. Deacon Sampson will serve as parochial vicar at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Falls Church.
“It is most definitely mind-blowing,” he said. “I continuously say I just never expected this. So, part of my message when I’m talking to kids is that you really have to be open to the Lord and you just don’t really know what he’s going to bring your way.”
Hale can be reached at [email protected].
