Every priest carries certain saints with them through life. Some are chosen consciously. Others seem to choose us.
For me, two saints have stood quietly at the edges of my ministry for many years: Saint Melangell and Saint Kevin of Glendalough. I was ordained to the priesthood on the Feast of Saint Melangell, May 27, 2005. A year later, I was consecrated to the episcopacy on the Feast of Saint Kevin, June 3, 2006.
At first, I thought these were simply beautiful coincidences of the liturgical calendar. As the years have passed, however, I have come to suspect there may have been something more at work. Looking back over the winding path of my life and ministry, I find myself returning again and again to the stories of these two Celtic saints. In their lives I recognize something of my own calling. More importantly, I recognize something of the Christ whom I have spent my life trying, often imperfectly, to follow.
The legends of Saint Melangell and Saint Kevin are, at their heart, stories of sanctuary. Melangell’s most beloved story tells of a hare fleeing from a prince and his hunting dogs. Terrified and exhausted, the creature sought refuge beneath her cloak. When the prince demanded the hare be surrendered, Melangell refused. She stood between power and vulnerability, between violence and mercy, between the hunter and the hunted. The story is not really about a hare. It is about sanctuary. It is about creating a place where fear gives way to safety and where the vulnerable are protected simply because they are vulnerable.
Saint Kevin’s most famous legend is equally simple. While standing in prayer with his arms outstretched, a blackbird settled into his hand and built a nest there. Kevin remained motionless until the eggs hatched rather than disturb the fragile life entrusted to him. Whether these stories happened exactly as they are told is beside the point. Legends survive because they reveal a deeper truth. People remembered Melangell as one who protected the hunted. People remembered Kevin as one who protected the fragile. Both became living sanctuaries.
As I look back over the years, I realize that creating sanctuary has been the defining thread of my ministry as well.
I did not set out to build institutions. I did not set out to collect titles. I certainly did not set out to become a bishop. If anything, I spent a considerable amount of energy trying to avoid that particular outcome. What I wanted was much simpler. I wanted people to know they were loved by God. I wanted the lonely to find companionship, the wounded to find healing, and the rejected to discover that they still belonged. I wanted to create spaces where people could breathe.
Over the years those spaces have taken many forms. Sometimes they were chapels. Sometimes they were storefront ministries. Sometimes they were soup kitchens and drop-in centers. Sometimes they were monasteries without walls. Sometimes they were conversations over coffee. Sometimes they were online communities. Sometimes they were nothing more than a listening ear and a willingness to sit quietly with someone in their pain. The shape changed, but the purpose remained the same.
Again and again, the people who found their way into my life were not the powerful, the polished, or the successful. They were the throwaways, the misfits, the doubters, the spiritual refugees. They were the people who had been told they were too poor, too broken, too queer, too strange, too wounded, too angry, too skeptical, or simply too much trouble to belong. I recognized them because, in many ways, I was one of them.
The truth is that I have never felt entirely comfortable among the religious elite. I have always felt more at home among artists, laborers, wanderers, seekers, and holy troublemakers. Give me a church basement full of recovering addicts, struggling single parents, aging hippies, curious agnostics, and eccentric mystics over a banquet hall full of ecclesiastical dignitaries any day of the week.
Perhaps that is why the stories of Melangell and Kevin resonate so deeply with me. Neither built their legacy through power. Neither became famous for conquering anything. Neither sought influence for its own sake. Instead, they created places where life could flourish. Melangell spread her cloak. Kevin held still. Both made room for grace.
That is what I have tried to do.
Not perfectly. Not consistently. Not without failures and regrets. God knows I have made my share of mistakes. I have wounded people I intended to help. I have misjudged situations. I have spoken when I should have listened and remained silent when I should have spoken. There are chapters of my ministry that still bring me gratitude and others that still require repentance. Yet beneath all those successes and failures runs a single desire. I want people to know that they matter. I want the frightened hare to find shelter. I want the fragile bird to find safety. I want those who have been pushed to the edges of society, religion, and respectability to discover that Christ is already waiting for them there.
The older I become, the less interested I am in winning arguments, building institutions, or defending turf. More and more, I find myself drawn toward the simple work of sanctuary. The world has enough hunters. The world has enough critics. The world has enough gatekeepers. What it desperately needs are more guardians of holy ground, people willing to stand between the vulnerable and whatever threatens them, people willing to say, “You are safe here,” people willing to create a little space in which grace can do its quiet work.
Perhaps that is why I was ordained on the Feast of Saint Melangell and consecrated on the Feast of Saint Kevin. Perhaps the calendar knew something before I did. Or perhaps God simply has a sense of humor. Either way, I remain grateful. Grateful for Melangell and her cloak. Grateful for Kevin and his valley. Grateful for the countless souls who have crossed my path over the years. And grateful for the Christ who continues to meet us all in places of refuge.
After all these years, if there is any legacy I hope to leave behind, it is not a title, an office, or an institution. It is sanctuary. A place where the least, the lost, and the helpless discover that they are neither forgotten nor alone. A place where the throwaways and misfits of the world can rest beneath the sheltering mercy of God. A place where everyone, no matter who they are or where they have been, can hear the Gospel’s most beautiful promise:
“You belong.”