First Bulletin Column at the new parish

Here's a bulletin column I wrote for Holy Cross -- St. Stan's parish, introducing myself and thanking them for their welcome.

Dear parishioners,

Firstly, thank you for the wonderful welcome I’ve received!  For those I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet, I’m part of the new clergy team serving these two parishes.  I just finished my seminary studies back in May and over the coming year you will see me go from seminarian to deacon (in September) and then priest (in April).  I’m very excited to be beginning my ordained life in these parishes, becoming part of life here and gradually helping more and more to animate that life.  Some churches have signs up during construction saying “Please pardon our mess while we refurbish” – I think such a sign should probably be hung around my neck for at least a year!  As grateful as I am for my seminary formation, it is with, for and from you – the People of God in this place – that I will learn to be a priest.

Some background is probably in order.  Born and raised in England, I went to California for graduate school and thought that I’d found my vocation in teaching.  The highlight of my classroom career was two amazing years teaching community college math inside San Quentin prison.  It was there that God started to tug at me.  I was surrounded by men doing so much to transform their lives – what might I be being called to do with mine?  At the same time, my students asked so much of me on a personal level that I felt a call to be responding not just from but with my faith.  The call started to articulate itself as a call to be able to offer the sacraments and preach, to have my service be a witness to the self-emptying service of Christ.  I had to start discerning priesthood and religious life.

I met the Congregation of Holy Cross, and our charism to be “educators in the faith” caught my eye, as my sense of call to teach remained strong.  The common life we live together as a community was what grabbed me and has now sustained me in this life.  Responding to that call brought me to Moreau Seminary for a year, to our Novitiate in Colorado, to enter into temporary religious vows with Holy Cross three years ago and return to Moreau for more studies.  In that time I’ve experienced a variety of parish and university ministries in South Bend, Colorado, Arizona, Mexico and Haiti.  These experiences and many more have led me to the conviction that this is the band of men with whom I am to cast my lot and so I will profess perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the Congregation at 10am on September 7^th in the Basilica – it would be wonderful to welcome any of you to celebrate with us!  If you can’t make it, I’ll look forward to you welcoming me back the next weekend as your new parish deacon, and I can’t imagine what it will be like to receive your welcome as your newest priest in April!