My dear fam,

It is good to see you.

In the light of the Resurrection and with great joy in my heart, I want to share a few reflections and an update on this coming chapter.

First: God calls us on an epic journey.

This has been at the forefront of my mind in this last season. Maybe because I can’t stop watching Lord of the Rings, haha. It’s rare to have certainty of where our individual paths will lead us next on that journey. Some of you have just begun epic chapters you’ve always dreamed of, others of you just opened a chapter you never thought you’d open, and still others are in the thick most difficult chapter your life with no sign of the page turning any time soon. I am learning, slowly very slowly, that all these chapters do in fact amount to that epic journey that we hear about in the greatest epics of history. But it takes faith, a genuine faith, to rest in the truth that every twist and every turn which the Creator of the story writes will always be for our good. “To every thing there is a season,” the scriptures in their wisdom remind us, “and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

God has an epic journey indeed for every single one of us, but it has never and will never be a comfortable one. Frodo, Chiara Corbella Petrillo, Othello, Abraham, Lucy Pevensie, Saint Joan of Arc to name a few epic but often very uncomfortable journeys. None of them and none of us were promised ease (and honestly… how boring would that be) but, we were promised an epic story. Be it one of companionship, battle, simplicity, surrender, or all else. I’m not sure what your story will ask of you but I know this: your story is epic, your story is serious, and your story is one in which His grace follows you every single way through.

Second: No darkness has ever been dark enough to extinguish light.

I have loved the Prologue of Saint John’s Gospel. It holds immense power in setting captives free: free through Light, free through Life, free through The King’s victory.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; in Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.”

John 1: 1

It is in the King’s light, and through his light, that peace and joy find us in every corner of the human experience. The same light that has been with you and me since the beginning of time, and since the beginning of each of our individual lives — a light brighter than any other brightness, stronger than any darkness. The light that led the patriarchs, the apostles, the saints, and all who chose to follow Christ faithfully and with integrity in this present age. Wherever this Light has led us, and wherever He continues to lead us, we place the entirety of our hope that in fact “the gates of Hell will not prevail” against the King’s kingdom.

Spoiler alert: light wins the war.

Third:when darkness does come, and it will come, such a time is this to strengthen our trust.

Earlier this year I finished Michael O’Brien’s ‘By the Rivers of Babylon’. In it he imagines the infancy and young years of the Prophet Ezekiel, a prophet who had always been obscure to me but who I have come to adore. Ezekiel knew experienced the darkness of nights in captivity and exile. All had been destroyed. Even what he did not know he had have was taken. And yet, as we see over and over and over again in the history of Israel and of the Church, it was precisely in the darkness that God asks his people to rise with a spirit of repentance, trust, and faith.

“There is no end to hope. The greater the darkness, the more complete our trust should be. In the Most High is our confidence. He is our hope and our salvation.”

By the Rivers of Babylon, Michael O’Brian

The darkness will come, no doubt. Maybe it has already come in your own life. May we see it as an invitation to make our trust more complete in the Kingdom of heaven coming down.

With these truths in my heart I wanted to give you a brief update on this next chapter. I have been grateful for your prayers over the last nine months during this time of quiet and discernment to be docile to God’s grace.

Earlier this year, that docility took the form of attending to an unexpected and serious health concern that arose requiring my attention. This ultimately concluded with the difficult, but very clear decision to bring time in religious formation to a close.

Has it been easy? No. Re: the reflections above.

But, I have seen God’s grace and light, which I spoke of earlier, in different and surprising ways throughout this process. Not without cost, not without feeling poor , and not without struggle (and many Kleenex boxes for my snotty tears haha). Yet, I have seen it, and can attest that even when our lives are thick with mystery — grace and light remain. I am grateful for your reverence and as I continue to learn how to receive the mystery of this chapter.

Okay, so where does that bring us? Well currently it brings me to much, much rest and a pace of life slower than I have ever lived it. But I have come to enjoy it for the most part as it has lent to having much more time than I could ask for to dream, to draw, and to wonder. In fact art, beauty, wonder, and awe have been paramount to this season and to this chapter. Art has always been that for me. A way to wrestle myself out of confusion and chaos. Art and beauty have saved me many times and breathed life back into me. And it has done so yet again in this season.

So, that being said, I’m eager to walk with you again through art and beauty, delve into Scripture with you, talk aloooot more sheep, more Pope Leo, more Dermot Kennedy (NEW ALBUM ALERT, YES I AM LOSING MY MIND), and the occasional Olipop controversy.

For the record: I retried the Cherry Cola, and it was exponentially worse than I remembered. Sorry to my haters.

There are many dreams and art pieces that have been percolating in my heart that I’m eager to love (and wrestle) into life.

In the meantime, know that I carry you in my heart. I am so grateful to God for our stories intertwining even if in this little way.

Okay fam, I can’t wait to see you again soon.

with gratitude for you and with my hope in the kingdom of God,