I am now home and fairly prepared to meet the day tomorrow. My back hurts, my knee huts, and that along with the storms moving through led to the decision for Father PT and I to return to Indiana early from the Synod. We left Father Robert and his family there in Akron and picked up their hotel for one more night. They were having such a great time, we thought they would enjoy a bit of a vacation…..and they were elated to accept.
But I come back with some mixed feelings. We really have a great ministry here, and we are reaching out all over. But it has been A LOT of work, and it continues to be. And although we have a good reputation and such, when you start out (we as an Order are still under a year old, though we have been living like this for well over 5 years) people tend to take you as a bit faddish. And as Anglicanism reforms, reorganizes, and revives, I see so much coming together in ways that seem to be thrown together, and I worry, not that these things just will not last, but that they water down the meaning of what we are called to do.
When we formed the Order of St. Michael the Archangel, we were really putting a name on something we had been living. In addition to that, we are far more than an association or some sort of fraternity…..we are vowed to the Order no less than we are vowed as priests, and it is for life. We worked hard to distinguish ourselves from our brothers and sisters who live cloistered and celibate lives, yet we have much in common with them all (most of our wives even voted for celibacy) but we are technically not monks and nuns, yet we, like them, are among the Church’s Religious. Canons Regular live differently, work differently, and ultimately ARE different. And in the Anglican Church, we very well may be the first expression of them.
But we are in this for life. AND, we are looking for people to join us. Send me a note, give me a call, pray about what God may be calling you to do……even if you do not join us, let us help get you to where you need to be.
But above all, please know that to us this is not a novel thing. Anybody can write OSM or anything they want behind their name, wear a habit or a ring, or anything else for all that matters……but to us the mark of our Order is not about that at all.
The mark of our Order is quite simply found in the way you live your life…….
Come on now and get in touch with me. Let’s get you to where God is calling you to be!
Goodnight (from my own home) and God Bless!
Tommy+