A New Priestly Calling

Two complementary “Calls” in the life of a Priest who is a member of a Religious Community.

When Saint Francis, in prayer before the crucifix at the ruins of San Damiano, heard Jesus speak to him, “Francis rebuild my church, which, as you see, is in ruins,” he took those words literally and began to repair the chapel. Later, he came to understand that he, and his friars, had been called to not only work with the stones in the Tuscan field where the chapel was located, but, in imitation of Jesus, to work with the “living stones” all around him to help strengthen, empower, and enable those stones-of the universal church-to carry out the mission of Jesus to teach, baptize, and invite to the table of the Lord. And yet, Francis never lost sight of those all around him—whom so many others overlooked; the lowly, the poor, the homeless, the naked, the destitute, the marginalized, the exploited, and the abused. In each of them, he recognized that the poor Jesus, born in a lowly manger, depended on the generosity of others, and had “no place to lay his head.” Like Jesus, Francis had an unshakeable trust in the abundant generosity of God and believed that God would provide all that he needed.

Later, Francis was ordained as a Deacon in the Church--and lived out that call to service through a ministry of feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, caring for the sick, and through numerous other acts of love and care. He also preached the Gospel fearlessly, and sought to do so--as much through what he said as through what he did.

It seems to me that Francis longed to become an icon, like that Cross at San Damiano, a point of connection with Christ. He longed to become transparent, so that others saw through and beyond him personally to the Jesus whom he loved with his whole being and whom he served with every ounce of strength that he had. Francis longed to share the passion and suffering of Jesus, and the gift of the stigmata on Mount La Verna, transformed his physical body—as an outward sign of the inner transformation which also took place. Quite simply, Francis longed to make real, present, and effective, the transforming love of Jesus the Christ in his own time, place, and culture.

The hymn of praise, “The Canticle of the Creatures,” made clear Francis’ own realization that all of creation is bathed in the light and love of God. Even more importantly, this hymn, written when Francis was sick, suffering, and preparing to embrace the reality of death, gave witness to his belief that, through, the Resurrection, Jesus had overcome poverty, illness, suffering, oppression, and even death.

In every generation since, women and men in almost every culture and place imaginable have followed the examples of Francis and of Clare but committing themselves to lives of simplicity, humility, and fidelity.

The Community asks very little of us, in terms of time, and involvement. Each month there is an online “gathering” on a Saturday, a monthly “Cluster” for a small group of Friars, and a “Formation” Session. Altogether this takes up about four hours. In Central Pennsylvania, there is a monthly “Franciscan and Friends” get-together on the first Monday of the month at the Mount Joy Friary (with lunch and prayer). I hope that, as weather allows, I will continue to participate in that time of fellowship. Most importantly, the Community gathers for Chapter for a week each Summer. It is a time in which we celebrate the Rites for those joining the Community and Progressing (Candidate, Postulant, Novice, and Profession of Life Vows). It is also like a family reunion for us—and a time to catch up with each other.

The Community of Francis and Clare is a recognized Religious Community (a dispersed Religious Community--not an Order) under the oversight of the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church. The Rt. Rev. Laura Jean Ahrens, Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, is our Bishop Visitor. We are a member of NAECC (“NAECC is a coalition of Christian Communities recognized under the canons of The Episcopal Church working with communities in formation, dedicated to sharing and communicating the fruits of the Gospel — realized in a community — with the church and the world.”). To learn more about the CFC, here is a link to our Community Webpage—www.cfcfranciscans.org

If the vision of Francis and Clare to “rebuild Christ’s Church” is to be realized in today’s world, it must be rooted in the rich soil of the local ecclesial community. That means that it must be nourished, strengthened, and empowered by Word and Sacrament. That can only be realized through the ministry of those who have been called to Holy Orders in the Church.

In the Episcopal Church, the primary “building block” is the diocese. The Bishop is the chief pastor of the diocese, and of each parish—a community of faith, life, love, and service. Since she or he cannot be physically present in each community, since the earliest days of the Primitive Church, Bishops have called, and ordained persons to serve as their representatives in local communities. In the Episcopal Church, parishes prayerfully discern the person whom God is calling to serve as their Pastor. The Vestry then calls them, and after they answer the Call, the Bishop approves and appoints the Priest to serve in that parish. This process demonstrates the collaborative ways in which the Bishop, Priest, and Parish work together to accomplish the mission of Jeus to “reconcile the world to himself.”

Our Book of Common Prayer gives us a powerful insight into the reality of Priesthood in Christ’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. It gives practical guidance into the myriad ways that Priests are ordained to embody the vision of Francis and Clare to empower each “living stone” to fulfill their own vocation (each of the Baptized has an individual “Call” or “Vocation” to participate in the three-fold Ministry of Jesus as “Priest, Prophet, and King.”).  

Two quotes from The Service for The Ordination of a Priest explain how every Priest, but most especially a Priest in a Religious Community is called to live out this complimentary “double call.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             The Examination and the Consecration of the Priest (BCP, pages 531-534

“As a priest, it will be your task to proclaim by word and deed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to fashion your life in accordance with its precepts. You are to love and serve the people among whom you work, caring alike for young and old, strong and weak, rich and poor. You are to preach, to declare God's forgiveness to penitent sinners, to pronounce God's blessing, to share in the administration of Holy Baptism and in the celebration of the mysteries of Christ's Body and Blood, and to perform the other ministrations entrusted to you.”

“May he exalt you, O Lord, in the midst of your people; offer
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to you; boldly proclaim the
gospel of salvation; and rightly administer the sacraments of
the New Covenant. Make him a faithful pastor, a patient
teacher, and a wise councilor. Grant that in all things he may
serve without reproach, so that your people may be
strengthened and your Name glorified in all the world. All
this we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and
the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

I conclude this reflection with a prayer which I composed, after a recent morning of service at a Breakfast Feeding Program in Harrisburg. “Beloved Jesus, you called Francis and Clare to rebuild your Church. Empower us to use the gifts, talents, and abilities which you have entrusted to us to make a positive difference in our world. Enable our eyes to see your presence all around us, and most especially in the poor, the marginalized, the weak, and the oppressed. Enable our hearts to love them as you love them and treasure them. Enable our hands and feet to serve them, and in serving them, to serve you. Amen.”

Saint Francis and Saint Clare, pray for us.

You will be like God

The first promise whispered in Eden was not about pleasure but about power. The “adulterous woman” of Proverbs is not merely the lure of flesh; she is the same ancient voice dressed in new colors—the desire to seize what belongs to God. Her invitation is self-worship disguised as freedom: intimacy without obedience, wisdom without humility. Yet the moment we reach for divinity apart from dependence, the garden empties. Paradise turns to exile; the bed of stolen sweetness becomes a tomb.

Proverbs functions not only as a manual for righteous living but also as instruction in just rule—a father’s legacy to a future king. The adulterous woman’s call echoes the serpent in Eden: “You will be like God,” becomes, “Come, let us take our fill of love until morning.” Both express the same grasping spirit: to take rather than receive.

The image of “another man’s wife” reveals the metaphor’s deeper meaning—lust not merely for flesh but for power, for the throne of God Himself. As Lincoln observed, “If you would test a man’s character, give him power.” And indeed, “power corrupts,” for the heart easily disguises ambition as virtue.

The Fall, at its core, is the story of human arrogance. Much of the Old Testament transmits truths through ancient oral traditions—the long apprenticeship of a people learning how to hear God. Across civilizations, kingship and divinity intertwined; even the papacy bears traces of humanity’s impulse to sanctify authority. Perhaps God, knowing the peril of this, sought to teach us early that only Love can rightly rule.

To love power is to commit spiritual adultery—to betray our covenant with God, with neighbor, and with Creation itself. God is God because God is Love, and only Love governs justly. History leaves no doubt that we cannot rule ourselves by pride.

Yet in Christ, God has given us the means to unlearn our arrogance and recover Eden—not by seizing, but by surrendering; not by becoming like God, but by belonging to God. The path home is not mysterious. It has already been walked. In Jesus of Nazareth—the Word made flesh—we are shown exactly how humanity was meant to live: humble, merciful, undefended, fully open to the Father’s will. Nothing in His way of life is beyond our reach, for He was as fully human as He was divine. His perfection was not flawlessness but wholeness—a life ordered by love, in right relationship with God, neighbor, and Creation.

To follow Him, then, is not to mimic the impossible, but to rediscover what we were always capable of. Eden is not behind us—it waits wherever love rules without pride.

Reflection by Leo Baird, CFC Candidate

A Spiritual Experience at Scala Santa

Since the first of September, Halloween decorations have been appearing everywhere in my neighborhood. It seems like more and more of my neighbors are following trends from their favorite retailers rather than adhering to the week of Halloween or actual month of October. The local Methodist church’s pumpkin patch just opened and their pumpkins are cooking in the Florida sun. The sign should read, “Get them now before they rot!” I’ve seen plenty of soft, moldy, blacken jack-o’-lanterns  in early October.

One of the joys of traveling to Italy is not having marketing and advertising rush me into the next season. There was no mention of Halloween or Christmas anywhere in Italy. It was September and the Italians were holding onto the last remnants of summer as much as possible. There was no rush for autumn or winter. 

My ghost story starts earlier this year in the Spring, around Easter. A local injury attorney firm in the area, I shall call them SG&F have dozens of digital billboards up around town along our highways. On any give week I pass several billboards with the faces of clients saying SG&F won them $30,000 or $100,000 after their accidents. But then there is the ghost who says SG&F won him $500,000. The first time I say him I thought it was the trick of my eyes. But as days and weeks progressed, I couldn’t deny it, the man on the bill board was the dead ringer for my late father. The wispy barely there dark blond hair, the glasses, the half-smile. 

Intellectually I know it wasn’t my father but the man looks enough like him to make me feel uncomfortable and at times resentful. Here is the imagine of a man who never had time for me. Ironically, I only saw him at funerals, the last one being his. All summer I’d talk about it with God. Why does God want me to see this face every day while I sit in traffic. Does he want me to forgive my father? But how do I forgive someone I don’t really have any sense of hurt from? Am I to manufacture sadness or anger or hurt just so I can forgive him for not being my father? Because of his absence I was blessed by my maternal grandparents and uncle filling in for him. Instead of a nuclear family of two parents, I had four adults who raised me and cared for me. 

On one of my mornings in Rome, I visited the Scala Santa. According to tradition, Emperor Constantine’s mother, Helen, brought these stairs from Pontius Pilate’s palace in Jerusalem. It is believed that Jesus was led up these stairs to his trial. Roman Catholic tradition holds that climbing the entire staircase on one knee leads to a plenary indulgence, a full remission of temporal punishment for sin for oneself or for someone in purgatory. As a former seminarian and a reader of Luther’s works, I recognize the complexity of the concept of indulgences. Nevertheless, I sought to engage in a meditative practice that would enable me to accompany Jesus on the very stairs tradition says he climbed during a time of his profound anxiety.

I soon learned it was not so easy as I thought. I was soon crying as I slowly and painfully climbed those stairs. My knees sank into the bones of my legs and into the wood and grit of the stairs. The acrid smell of my own pain filled the air, mingling with the body odor of others. The dirty soles of shoes inches from my face made me gag and claw my way out from the claustrophobia, and I felt dizzy, yearning to lie down and weep.

But I kept going. By the halfway mark, I really wanted that full remission of temporal punishment! I wanted to make sure I didn’t have to suffer this kind of pain again. I never knew so much discomfort, even after surgery! Just then, my father’s face came to my mind’s eye. I prayed out loud then on the stair that I offer up any remission of temporal punishment for my father, and I cried. I cried for the remaining steps and in the chapel at the top. 

Since returning to Miami, I rarely catch a glimpse of the man's face on the digital billboard. I believe God allowed me to see this face so that I could pray for my father and endure the emotional turmoil of climbing those stairs, offering up its spiritual benefits for his soul and finding emotional closure. ​​

Pace e Bene,

Br. Carlos Roberto Fernández, CFC

The Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall and its personal significance

This small chapel is the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall. It is located on an isolated bit of coastline in the southeast of England. In 653 St Cedd sailed down the east coast of England from Lindisfarne and landed at Bradwell. Here he found the ruins of a deserted Roman fort and constructed the chapel that is still standing today. It is still an active place of worship and is the home chapel to the nearby Orthona Community. There is an annual pilgrimage and gathering at the chapel which includes a walk from the nearby St Thomas church, music, prayer, talks, nature and fellowship. Our Bishop, the Bishop of Bradwell had this to say of the pilgrimage...many of us know the value of a purposeful journey, one taken for a reason greater than simply another transaction. Our forbears have good things to teach us, not least about becoming attuned to the rhythms of grace as we move across the landscape to connect with it and with our creator.’ I became aware of the chapel long before I showed any interest in Christianity. I am a keen cyclist and I rode out to the chapel many times. It was always a pleasant ride through the countryside, with an interesting end point and unlike most churches and chapels in the UK, it is always open. It is one of the few places I have visited where there is absolute silence. The chapel has no electricity or running water so that silence is only ever broken by birdsong and the occasional visitor.

In 2015 I lost my wife to a traffic accident. Three months before that I had lost my mother suddenly to cancer. The loss of my wife led to what I can only describe as a mental breakdown. I would go days without sleep and experience auditory hallucinations. I became hyper sensitive to sound and cut off all human contact. The only relief I could find would be rides out to the chapel and the silence it offered. There was never for any religious reason for my visits given days without sleep and being susceptible to hallucinations what I remember happening next may be subject to distortion but it is how I remember it. Like many other times I had cycled out to the chapel. It was an overcast and very grey day. Thick dark cloud and threatening rain. I took my usual place at the back, closed my eyes and tried to rest and loose myself in the silence. I had not noticed at first but a bible and been left behind right next to me. I had never taken the Bible seriously before, having been raised by atheist parents. I picked it up and started reading at a random point. I don’t really know how long I had been reading, 15 minutes maybe when from inside the chapel it looked like weather had drastically improved. The windows of the chapel are extremely high up and sunlight seemed to be streaming down at a 45 degree angle. I went outside expecting to see a break in the clouds but it was still dark grey and overcast. I went back inside and continued to read and after a minute or two, sunlight began streaming through the windows again. This repeated a few times, inside sunny but outside dark overcast. I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing and stayed there for hours. I don’t remember the journey home but the next day I started to look into Christianity for the first time. Regardless of what really happened, I felt I had a religious experience but wasn’t really sure what to do about it. Not knowing where to start, I contacted the biggest local church. It happened to be a Catholic Church but after a month or so I started looking elsewhere. I took the scenic route to Anglicanism,spending time with Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Quakers, just about every denomination that had a local presence. The bizarre thing is that the is an Anglican Church at the bottom of my garden and I never considered going there until after experiencing all of the alternatives. That is now the church I call home, where I was Baptized and Confirmed and where I now serve at churchwarden, parish safeguarding officer and now we have entered interregnum, I lead a morning and evening prayer service twice a week. This church is also called St Peter’s and although it has very much become my church, since joining the congregation I have always had a feeling of being nudged towards something more. It has taken much prayer and searching but I believe that something more is the Community of Francis and Clare.

Paul Dicker (CFC Candidate)

Monthly Gatherings of "Franciscans and Friends"

by Br David

Since 2023, Franciscans and Friends have gathered at the Mount Joy Friary (Mount Joy, Pennsylvania) for food, prayer, and fellowship. With a good number of CFC members in Central Pennsylvania, it was decided that a monthly gathering would be possible and healthy for community building. There are several members of other religious communities (Benedictines and Gregorians) and those discerning a religious vocation in the area who have been looking for a place for fellowship. So, in response, the monthly “Franciscans and Friends” group was born! The Franciscans and Friends have done some service projects, like collecting items for a homeless shelter and supporting the community meal in nearby Lancaster City. At the September 2025 meeting, 14 folks came out to the Friary for a Labor Day-style picnic. Great food and lots of sharing of stories and fellowship. Such is the beauty of Community!

Answering the call to become a Verger

Br Carlos writes, “Here’s a photo from Sunday, August 17th, when I and other members of my parish were installed as vergers. Starting from the left, we have Father Gregory Mansfield, me, Dr. Nichole Castater, head verger Kelson Roberts, Mario Vargas, Pam Smith, and our trainer from the cathedral and local guild, Alexander Paulmer. Initially, I wasn’t interested in being a verger, but I happily accepted the call because I’m open to different ways of serving the church and its people. Since I’ve been serving as an Eucharist minister since 2021, this seems like a logical next step in my ministry at St Bernard de Clairvuax.”

A Shameful Anniversary

By Br Walt

On August 6, 2025, it will have been eighty years since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Back then, there wasn’t a nuclear threat from Japan. There was a long war. And a decision to unleash a weapon capable of erasing entire cities in a single flash. Tens of thousands were incinerated instantly. Mothers. Children. Elders. Civilians. Entire neighborhoods vanished. Survivors faced radiation, cancers, disfigurement. And a grief that has spanned generations. The horror was immediate. And unspeakable. In the decades since, we’ve lived under the shadow of that decision. And out of that shadow, a doctrine emerged—Mutual Assured Destruction. The idea that if one nuclear power launched, the others would respond in kind. Everyone would be vaporized. A kind of madness. But it kept the missiles in their silos. And somehow, the nightmare has been held at bay. Not because we found a better way. But because the fear of total annihilation is a myth that kind of works.

In the Intervening Years

But in the eighty years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world has not rid itself of nuclear weapons. Instead, they’ve multiplied. The Cold War saw an arms race. Treaties were signed, but trust was thin. The United States and Russia amassed thousands of warheads. Other nations followed. India. Pakistan. North Korea. China. Israel. The United Kingdom. France. Today, nine nations hold the power to end the world. And the doctrine of deterrence—Mutual Assured Destruction—still hangs over us like a fraying thread. This isn’t a new crisis. It’s the same one we’ve never resolved.

Operation Midnight Hammer

Then on June 13, 2025, a new war erupted between Iran and Israel.  Nine days later, the United States entered the fray.  In the dead of night—between 2:10 and 2:35 a.m. Iranian time on June 22—Operation Midnight Hammer began. B-2 bombers launched from long-range air bases. Submarines in the Persian Gulf fired Tomahawk missiles. Three major nuclear sites in Iran—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan—were struck in a coordinated assault.  President Donald Trump took full credit, boasting that the mission had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. The goal, he claimed, was peace through strength.  But the strike was a breach of international law—a bombing of sovereign territory without a declaration of war, without Congressional approval, and without international consensus.  And the claims of obliteration? False.  Intelligence now confirms that while some facilities were damaged, Iran retains nuclear material and enrichment capabilities. The attack has become a rallying cry, galvanizing anti-American sentiment and hardline resolve.  It didn’t eliminate the threat. It escalated it. This wasn’t just a tactical assault.  It was a planetary risk multiplier.

The Most Dangerous Hour

We are closer to the brink than we’ve been in generations.  Not because of one bomb or one war, but because of the slow corrosion of restraint.  The lines are blurring. The norms are collapsing. The weapons are still armed.  And the myth of redemptive violence—the belief that force can bring peace—still drives our decisions.This is the midnight hour.  Security analysts call this moment precarious. The Doomsday Clock sits at 90 seconds to midnight. And yet, we don’t talk about it. Nuclear weapons have become white noise. We rage about pronouns and book bans. But we avert our eyes from the real fire—the one that could end everything. In under an hour. By accident. Or ego. Or algorithm.

The Gospel of Peace

Every great tradition affirms the sacredness of life.  The Quran teaches, “If anyone kills a person…it is as if he had killed all mankind.”  The Talmud says, “Whoever saves a single life is considered to have saved the whole world.”  Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”  This is not weakness. This is not naïveté.  This is the fierce moral clarity at the heart of the world’s wisdom traditions.  This is the path we must reclaim.  Not obliteration, but reconciliation.  Not domination, but compassion.  Not fear, but courage.  Not war, but peace.  Because we are not gods.  We do not get to decide who lives and who dies. We do not get to rain fire on cities and call it righteous.  What we do get—what we are called to—is to choose again.  To disarm our hearts. To lay down our bombs.  To build the world we were meant for.  The hour is late.  But there is still time.  To choose life.

A Fraternal Letter from Wimbledon

A Fraternal Letter from Wimbledon,

Over a week ago, I saw myself running through the underground’s platform (metro transport) to try to get the train to attend my fraternal weekly meeting, but no luck. Behind me, there were a young girl with her mum and when she saw me she said “look mummy a medieval monk” the mother blinked an eye to me and said: “he is not a medieval monk, he is a Franciscan friar” “franchise what?” replied the girl “a Franciscan friar”.

While I was waiting for the next train I started to check my “look alike smartphone” which is not smart at all, I was trying to send a message to my Franciscan brother saying that probably I will be a little late for the zoom meeting with the Guardian of our Community, but luckily enough it was not necessary because the train just arrived and I jumped into it.

When I arrived to my meeting, my brother was online in the evening parish prayer group waiting for me and then we went to connect into our zoom meeting, by internet, with our Guardian Brother who was located 6.349 kilometres from us. On my way home I was thinking about the way how the girl in the platform, earlier on, described myself “a medieval monk or as her mum tried to clarify that I was not a medieval monk but a Franciscan friar”. Actually, I was a man dressing his brown friar habit, checking through his mobile phone, by Wi-Fi, on the way to a zoom meeting. Maybe I am dressing like a medieval friar but making use of modern technology to move around, contact people, work, meeting people located far away and so on that makes me a friar living in a modern world.

I have to confess that I am not clever enough regarding to all this technology terms and gadgets that surrounds my life like – internet, zoom meeting, online, smartphones, Big Data, Chatbot, software, Fine-Tuning, Generative A.I., Natural Language Processing L.N.P., etc. etc. So by curiosity I started to read about something related to Artificial Intelligence and how deep all these new technologies are in our daily life without noticing the impact in positive and negative ways. One of the member of my parish is blind and once he asked me to send some information related to Saint Francis by email, I was intrigued how to send the information and he explained to me that he uses “Chatbot”… and what is that? I asked him and he taught me that Chatbot is a software application designed to conduct online conversations either through text or text-to-speech, simulating human-like interaction. The first notable example was “Eliza,” created in 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum. Eliza functioned by analysing sentence patterns from user inputs and employing keyword substitution and word order rearrangement to craft responses, creating an illusion of understanding. In simple’s words “a machine can say, what I am writing to a “friend”. It is really a good and positive thing. We’ve all seen the headlines about Artificial Intelligence - A.I. - , both the good and bad. Regardless of what you think of risk of using A.I., no one can dispute that it’s here to stay.

Businesses of all sizes have found great benefits from utilizing A.I., and consumers across the globe use it in their daily lives. But even people who are excited about A.I. can ask the question: What, exactly, are the advantages and disadvantages of using it?

The advantages range from stream lining, saving time, eliminating biases, in medicine,

education and automating repetitive tasks, just to name a few. The disadvantages are thing like costly implementation, potential human job loss, and lack of emotion and creativity. Reduced jobs for humans. This is a serious disadvantage that many people know immediately, thanks to many headlines over the years. As A.I. becomes more common place at companies, it may decrease available jobs, since A.I. can easily handle repetitive tasks that were previously done by workers. The President of Italy’s Government Commission for Artificial Intelligence is Franciscan friar - Paolo Benanti – an expert in A.I. who, during a colloquium organized by the Paul VI Foundation in Madrid, warned of its ethical risks, point out that “the people who control this type of technology can control reality”, “We have to have an ethical approach to technology”.

And also the Franciscan friar noted: “if we do not regulate the impact that A.I. can have on the labour market, we could destroy society as we now know it”.

Dear brothers and sisters, something for you to think, learn and pray.

Pax et bonum.

Fraternally yours,

Fray Cristian Alexis

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

by Br Walt

As December unfolds and the days grow shorter, darkness settles over the Northern Hemisphere. It’s not just a shift in light but something that seems to seep into our bones.

I feel it deeply, personally. Living with Seasonal Affective Disorder, I know well the weight of the long, dark winter nights and the effect of losing sunlight’s simple warmth. The recent election, too, has cast a shadow over our collective spirit, leaving a lingering sense of division, uncertainty, and weariness.

Darkness has become an unwelcome yet familiar companion, always present, always hovering.

And yet, here we are entering Advent, a season that beckons us to hold on, to look for light precisely in the darkness. Advent doesn’t deny the shadows that surround us; it acknowledges them. We are, after all, preparing to welcome Christ, the Light of the World, born into a world that was—and still is—full of darkness.

The Prophet Isaiah speaks to this very tension. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined” (Isaiah 9:2).

These words were spoken to a people familiar with hardship and uncertainty, not so different from us. They knew what it meant to wait, to yearn, to hope. Isaiah’s words are a reminder that in every generation, no matter how long the night may seem, light has and will find us.

But we don’t rush to that light; we meet it by embracing the darkness as part of our journey.

So how do we, in these dark days, embrace the shadows? One way might be to shift how we think about darkness itself. Too often, we see it as something to fear or avoid. But darkness has its own sacred purpose. Just as seeds take root in the dark soil and new life stirs in the womb's quiet, hidden spaces, so, too, our souls are nurtured in darkness.

Advent is a season that whispers, “There is no shame in the night; there is no need to rush to morning. Sit a while. Linger here. There is something for you to learn.”

In the dark, we encounter our vulnerability, our limits. We are reminded that, as much as we’d like to, we cannot control or predict everything. This acknowledgment of our smallness, our dependence, is one of Advent’s gifts. We are, as the Psalmist writes, “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14), but we are also fragile, in need of care, connection, and rest.

In embracing the darkness, we also learn something about hope.

Hope is not about denying reality or pretending everything is fine. True hope is forged in the fires of reality. It’s the kind of hope Isaiah spoke of—hope that emerges not in spite of the darkness, but because of it. The kind of hope that grows in the awareness that this world, with all its turmoil and tension, is still God’s world, and we are not abandoned.

As I look around in this season, I see many who are weary and hurting, longing for something more. Perhaps you are one of them. If you are, I want you to know this: you are not alone.

In the quiet of these winter nights, the God who is Love is drawing near. In the words of Isaiah, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given” (Isaiah 9:6). This child, this Emmanuel, comes not just to the light but to the shadows, to the places of grief, uncertainty, and weariness. In those places, a holy invitation waits for us—to let Love find us where we are, not where we wish we were.

The Advent season invites us to light candles not to erase the darkness but to mark it, to remember that light shines brightest when all around is dim. Each flickering flame represents a different part of the Advent journey—hope, peace, joy, love. These are not fleeting emotions or quick fixes; they are practices, ways of being that draw us deeper into the mystery of this season.

So as the nights grow longer, I invite you to sit with the darkness. Light a candle if you can, but let it remind you not only of the coming light but of the beauty found in the shadows. Let it remind you that in this quiet season, God is at work, preparing something new. Just as the earth rests in winter to ready itself for spring, so too our spirits find renewal in this waiting, in this darkness.

May we be brave enough to lean into this season, to embrace the darkness and the lessons it has for us. And may we be reminded that even here, perhaps especially here, we are not alone.

Darkness may be a familiar companion, but it is not our final one. For unto us a Child is born, a light in the night, a promise that even the deepest shadows cannot overcome.

This Advent, let us walk together through the darkness, holding our candles of hope, peace, joy, and love.

May we carry these lights, not only for ourselves but for each other, knowing that even in the longest night, the dawn is promised. And as we move toward Christmas, may we find ourselves, like those shepherds long ago, awestruck at the gift of Love born into our world—into our lives, our waiting, and yes, even our darkness.

May it be so.

A Visit with Danny “The Marine”

I had a delightful visit with a few of the young children at St Paul’s Episcopal Church last night to chat about our siblings who are homeless here in New Orleans and we also prepared blessing bags for those individuals. Our discussion initially centered on how St Francis of Assisi was drawn with deep compassion to serve the poor. Our little group was asked to pray for our siblings who are homeless and pray that their hearts would be filled with compassion to serve those who are less fortunate in this world. 

Early this morning I met several new people who are homeless on Rampart Street. I explained that children prepared the blessing bags for them last night. One particular man who was so grateful for the blessing bag shared his story with me. He told me his name is Danny and he is known on the streets as “The Marine”.  Danny explained that he worked hard for over thirty years or so and also served in the Marine Corps. All of sudden his life changed and he ended up homeless. Danny was so excited to explain that the most important thing that happened since he became homeless is that he has never been so close God as he is now. His new life of simplicity has drawn him closer to God. He said he has been transformed into a better person. 

I thanked Danny for all that he shared with me as tears welled up in my eyes. Today once again I encountered the face of Jesus not only in Danny but also with the children I met last night at St Paul’s. They all listened intently about what I sharing with them.

I pray that all who read this little accounting of transformation would consider praying not only for Danny “The Marine” but for all the Children who are our future. 

Br Donald

(photo of packing blessing bags)