LAKELAND | John Quirk III is the youngest of six children and the only boy. His brother-in-law was Catholic and the only exposure to the faith he had. His parents were Protestant and over time went to a few different churches. In those sanctuaries, he built a strong faith rooted in Christ, but also in guilt and shame.
When Quirk was born in Lakeland, his father was a deacon of a local Baptist church, and his parents were very involved in ministry. Disagreements with the leadership led the family to another church that remained the family’s spiritual home for at least a decade. Quirk participated in youth group in his teen years and was baptized during a youth retreat.
“I liked doing stuff at the church,” he recalled. “I was looking for where to fit in. Even though at the church my parents were super popular, I never felt like I belonged. I felt like I was trying to avoid punishment.”
He remembered often feeling like he was failing. After every Sunday service there was an “altar call” where people desiring to be saved would come forward.
“I don’t know how many times I went forward to ask to be saved,” he recalled. “I didn’t feel like I was doing the right stuff.”
In junior high school he switched churches and joined one of his sisters at Southside Baptist. He loved being part of the choir and even gathered with friends to pray before school.
“I still felt like I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t cool,” he said. A self-professed nerd, when his friends graduated, he stopped praying and “got kind of dark.” Although he was still a straight-A student, he began isolating.
Then the summer before senior year, a blowout with his mom led him to stay with his youngest sister and her boyfriend. That’s when it happened.
“I thought he was just cool as could be. I mean, he kind of looked like John Cougar Mellencamp. He had the leather jacket. He had the cool car, and I thought he was cool. And he introduced me to drugs for the first time.”
Quirk was 16 and recalled, “I fell in love — from the first time with drugs, the feeling, the escape.”
“There were tons of times when I was fairly certain that I should be dead, could be dead, and thought I was going to die,” he continued. “And there are times where I was trying to die.”
He said it was at those moments he would see how many drugs he could take, while he buried increasing feelings of shame.
Despite the heavy use, he graduated in the top 10% of his class, blacking out twice in the graduation line.
Recognizing his situation and eager to get away from it all, he joined the Navy hoping it would “fix” him. He graduated second in his class and was deployed to Desert Storm and was still using, until he was caught and court martialed. It was 1993. He ended up back home, falling into old habits while living in his van.
“The first stage of addiction is denial. And I don’t deny it. I must not be an addict because I don’t deny it. I don’t care what happens to me.”
The turning point came when he was at a friend’s house raided by the Lakeland Narcotics Enforcement Team. At the time, the county was starting an 18-month drug court program in the hopes of reformation. If he could stay off drugs, go to Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings and test clean weekly, he would be a free man. He was to go home and wait for them to contact him. Because of an error, months passed and the paperwork never arrived. When he was stopped for possession, it was considered violation of probation, and he faced 25 years in jail.
“I just felt nothing but shame. And I didn’t think that I was worthy of anything,” Quirk said. He prayed, “God, I’m not going to bargain with you anymore because I don’t deserve it. I know I deserve whatever’s coming to me. It’s like, if it’s your will that I go to prison, so be it. If I’m supposed to die here in this jail or in prison, so be it… Please don’t let me use anymore. Please forgive me.”
“I immediately felt like the weight of the world was lifted off my back and it was going to be okay. I had this feeling that He was holding me in His arms like a baby and it was going to be alright. I was still pretty certain that I was going to prison. And I didn’t know if I was going to die or survive. I spent my 24th birthday in jail, but that’s where I started trying to seek Him.”
When staff from the court program arrived they informed him, because his paperwork had gotten lost, he got another chance. He stood before the judge and said, “Your Honor, I don’t know if there’s anything that I can say that will be any good for me. I don’t know what to do or how to do it. I just know I can’t keep using or I’m going to die. And I don’t want to use anymore, but I don’t know how to survive outside of here with no drugs.”
The judge released him into the custody of his parents telling him, “You are to cut all ties. You are to stay away from everyone that you ever had contact with that is in that world. And you are going to be in recovery and if you’re not, you’re going to prison. There’s a Narcotics Anonymous meeting tonight at 8 p.m. You will be there or you will be going to prison tomorrow.”
Quirk recalled the warm reception he and his father received at the meeting. He went to a meeting every day for the first 10 years of his recovery — sometimes twice a day. And he returned to church with his dad.
“I knew that God had saved my life and given me an opportunity, and I wanted to find a way to give back to Him. My prayer is always, ‘Help me be the man that you want me to be. There’s a prayer they say at the end of the Narcotics Anonymous meetings sometimes. It says, ‘Take my will and my life. Guide me in my recovery. Show me how to live.’ And that was my mantra,” he said.
He attended another Protestant church that focused on grace. It was what he needed at the time. “I had a lot of guilt and shame I was carrying for years and years after I was clean,” he said. He continued searching for the God he had encountered in jail, who was loving and wanted him to be with Him.
Over the years his involvement in NA grew. He took meetings to jails and youth (reformation) boot camps. At 24, he was the youngest person attending meetings, so he started a Youth and Recovery meeting in Polk County.
He completed the program and all criminal charges were dropped. He got a job as a social worker for a Level 6 detention center for teenage boys ages 14 to 18 struggling with drugs. There were still ups and downs. He married, then divorced. But he kept asking God how he could help people. It led him to different jobs and churches throughout the United States and eventually, when his mother died, he returned to Lakeland to help his dad.
He met Enidza while working at a local retirement community. Enidza was Catholic. The two often had deep discussions about faith and they would attend each other’s churches every Sunday. By now he was 37. They dated for a year and got engaged. He applied for annulment of his first marriage and he and Enidza married on February 11, 2012.
“Nine and a half months later John IV was born. Quirk had what he described as a “spiritual awakening in the hospital room.” “When I was able to hold him, I was just struck by how much God loves us. It just hit me, there is nothing that (John) can do to make me stop loving him. And I just remember I had flashes that God loves me that much and no matter what I do, no matter what I’ve done, no matter how far I ran, He still loves me.” Quirk asked God what He wanted of him again. He “told Him, “Please guide me. Help me to be what you want me to be.”
“He felt a call to convert. He recalled, “I wasn’t planning on changing, but I knew that God had led me here for a reason.” He felt God was leading him on a specific path, and he could see God working. He pursued the faith through the Order of Catholic Initiation of Adults (OCIA). “I’ve always been amazed by the beauty and the reverence (of the Catholic Church) and I started seeing it more and more. It was evident that Jesus was there,” he said.
He continued seeking out God’s plan for another five years leading him to beautiful places of service to the homeless, veterans, and addicts and serving in ministry at St. Joseph’s in Lakeland and with the Knights of Columbus.
Still feeling something was missing, Father Tim LaBo, then pastor, suggested he attend a diaconate information night. He and Enidza filled out the long application, fully expecting to be rejected because of his sordid past. But he was accepted into formation and each year at his review, he was invited to continue.
John Quirk III was ordained a deacon for the Diocese of Orlando June 6, 2026. Those feelings unworthiness and shame are in the past.
“If He can love me, He can love anybody.”
His daily prayer: “Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for the opportunity to be what you want me to be today. Help me to be the man that you want me to be, a light in the darkness and be your love in this world.”
By Glenda Meekins of the Florida Catholic staff, August 19, 2026