I began this website and blog over 8 years ago, shortly after my ordination as an independent catholic priest on September 29, 2012. 

This past week marked the 9th anniversary of my ordination as a priest.  It came and went with only perhaps myself, my mother, and my current bishop remembering the occasion.  It was a bittersweet day, for you see, my active ministry I was engaged in at the time of my ordination was short lived.  I take responsibility for the decisions I made, perhaps more my ego, when disenchantment arose within me as I saw for the first time after over three years of worshiping in this community and assisting the two ministers — one a priest and founding member of the inclusive  community, the other a bishop who was pastor of the community — the tension and conflict that was stirring between these two ministers whom I loved as brothers and respected greatly as mentors and for rekindling within me that desire to serve God and all of God’s children as a priest.

On the day I was ordained, I took very seriously my commitment before God and before the Church when the bishop who ordained me “examined” me with these questions:

• Do you believe you are truly called by God and the Church to this priesthood?
• Do you now in the presence of the Church commit yourself to this trust and responsibility?
• Will you respect and be guided by the pastoral direction and leadership of your bishop?
• Will you be diligent in the reading and study of the Holy Scriptures, and in seeking the knowledge of such things as may make you a stronger and more able minister of Christ?
• Will you endeavor to so minister the Word of God and the sacraments of the New Covenant, that the reconciling love of Christ may be known and received?
• Will you undertake to be a faithful pastor to all whom you are called to serve, laboring together with them and with your fellow ministers to build up the family of God?
• Will you do your best to pattern your life in accordance with the teachings of Christ, so that you may be a wholesome example to God’s people?
• Will you persevere in prayer, both in public and in private, asking God’s grace, both for yourself and for others, offering all your labors to God, through the mediation of Jesus Christ, and in the sanctification of the Holy Spirit?
• Are you resolved to consecrate you life to God for the salvation of God’s people, and to unit yourself more closely every day to Christ the High Priest, who offered himself for us as a perfect sacrifice?

On that Saturday, September 29, 2012, there was a fire in me that burned, a fire from the Holy Spirit, a fire that energized my soul, maybe that fire was even my soul itself I just didn’t know my soul in that way at that time.  That fire motivated and drove me to affirmatively confirm, without a doubt, each of those questions and to wholeheartedly proclaim my final affirmation to the last question, “I am, with the help of God.“

The fire of my soul fully embodied me, empowered me, animated me on that day as I knew I was on my life’s purpose.  I had studied to be a priest with the Roman Catholic Church many “lifetimes” before, right after I graduated from college.  Finding this community, the independent catholic movement, these two brother priests who were and are still on fire with bringing that “reconciling love of Christ” and making it known to all, renewed my vocation I heard God calling me to as a young man in college.

Within 6 months of that happy day of my ordination, for myself, the community, the Church, things changed.  I don’t blame anyone involved.  I take responsibility that I allowed my ego to shape my perception so as to only see the conflict, the misleading actions each of the ministers I assisted in ministry with had towards each other.  So I left the community, with the goal, the desire, feeling called to start one closer to the rural area where I live.

My active ministry was short lived, what wasn’t short lived is my heartfelt commitment to each of the affirmative responses I gave to the examination by the bishop who ordained me a priest that day.

A few days before September 11th of this year, I was having a rare heart felt conversation with my two family members, both husband and wife.  We were talking about faith and the current environment we live in.  

I find it’s rare that men are able to share their thoughts honestly and openly with each other about faith, spirituality, their perception of the Divine and how it shapes their world view.  I was humbled that he was confident enough to be vulnerable and say, “I’ve just about lost my religious faith.  I see so-called good ‘Christians’ and their hateful and mean actions, their lack of love, and it makes me so angry.  I’ve just about lost any faith I once had.”

That statement was a gut punch to me.  It resonated with my own feeling about my ministry and experience.  The fire within him was about to go out.  The fire within his soul, the fire of his soul, was languishing as he looked around in his journey for examples from those claiming to share the same religious faith and sees only spite, hate, judgment, meanness and little to no love.

I had no answers for him.  My commitments that day on September 29, 2012, echoed through my psyche.  My affirmations rang through my mind like billows blowing on the fire of my soul re-inflaming that commitment to make known the reconciling love of Christ, of God. 

This wayfaring wonderer, like my family member seeking to rekindle the fire of his faith, feels like there is a need to reach out and gather and encourage and support similar men like myself wayfaring and wondering along our journey of faith and spirit.  What that will entail and is, remains to be seen.

For now, I believe the beginning of what it entails is to change the focus of this blog from pro anima – for the soul or pro-anima mundi – for the soul of the world, to one of marking observations of men like myself, wayfaring along their journey and wondering how we can restore, rekindle, reignite the flame of our soul, the flame of faith, the flame of knowing the Divine in our life in a world that seems so hell bent on shaming, blaming, accusing, judging, stirring anger, stirring discension, stirring fear, stirring animosity.  

The Wayfaring Wonderer — seeking the fire, tending the fire, igniting the fire of the soul, the fire of love, reflecting the fire.

“May God who has begun the good work in you bring it to fulfillment.”