A lifelong vow. A Catholic priest with questions. A penitent woman with a secret past. A jealous friend. The fourth in this lover's knot? God.

Robert Souza, a blue-collar Portuguese boy raised by a poor widowed mother, gave up on marriage when he sat at his kitchen table and signed the application papers for the seminary. For a brief time, before his ordination, he strayed and considered marrying Shannon. But he strongly desired the union with God.

Now, six years later, a priest at St. Justin Martyr, Rob once again faces the forbidden desire of his own heart when Jessica, a victim of a brutal assault, comes for counseling. Along with Rob's best friend, Lawrence—a priest with an artistic temperament and trials of his own—Rob and Jessica are forced to make choices they don't intend against the backdrop of a Greek chorus of gossiping priests and church politics riddled with suspicion and engaged in the battle for souls.