Category Archives: Ministry

08 July 2026

…but what do *I* have to offer?

By rabbitrunriot

Some Backstory

I posted a few days ago about a… let’s call it a vision… that I’ve been slowly piecing together over the better part of two decades. I’m learning to be as direct as I can about things, but it’s difficult because I don’t want anything to be understood as being about me. I’m a dangerously selfless person: I get taken advantage of a lot, and I never seem to be able to know when to stop being so nice. And my fear of people mistaking my frankness about things I think, know, experience as being self-righteousness or egoism often keeps me from asking for help when I need it, or advocating for myself because I don’t understand quite how to read people and discern ulterior motives.

When I was in middle school, one of the few friends I had — a girl who lived a few streets over from me — told me I was “conceited” when she overheard a conversation I was having with one of the “popular kids” on the bus one morning. I don’t remember the details about the conversation (that was 26 years ago) but I remember telling this kid I was good at some subject or another so I could help him study. I was often continuously ostracized through elementary and middle school for my academic prowess, so I was overjoyed with the prospect that it finally seemed to have enough value to my peers that I wouldn’t be so… well, alone. At the time, nobody knew that I was on the spectrum because I wasn’t violent and didn’t seem “slow” — I was actually in the “gifted” program.

I never felt very “gifted.” I felt like I didn’t fit anywhere and like there was something wrong with me because of it. All the intellect in the world did me no good to understand why people couldn’t just hear the words I would say, exactly as I said them, and receive the message exactly as I was trying to communicate it; they always read superfluous intentions into things I would say and make assumptions that I was doing something because I had a motive or agenda. And this was exactly the case that day on the bus when my friend told me, point blank, “you’re so conceited.” I did not realize it, at the time, but that accusation would haunt me for the rest of my life. I would go to great pains, every day, to make minimize myself and my presence in everything. Maybe that’s why monasticism appeals so much to me.

I’m not mad about the situation and I wasn’t mad at her, then, either. I was hurt, and I didn’t understand the context; I took a literal vow of silence for the rest of the school year and didn’t speak a word from the time I boarded the school bus at 6:57am until I stepped off at 3:15pm, with the exception of private appointments with my guidance counselor (who, in hindsight, I’m quite certain didn’t even remember my name when I left her office). That girl, who was once one of the few childhood friends I had, took her own life in the early 2010s. When I found out, the memories that surfaced weren’t of us bouncing on a trampoline or practicing for the karate class we were both in. It was that day on the bus. But I didn’t feel vindicated. I was sad. I was sad because I never told her it was okay, and that she didn’t have to feel bad for it, because I know she did. I know she knew, no sooner than the words left her lips and reached my ears, that she cut deep.

I still pray for her, sometimes. And I still struggle to pray for myself; even when its God I’m asking, I struggle to center myself enough to ask for help. “Am I being selfish?” “What about the people who have so much less than me?” “I don’t want to be a burden.” Of course, God seems to know and understand this, and has found other ways of guiding me, even when I don’t know how to ask for help, by communicating things directly to me through wisdom and faith… but then I struggle with wondering whether those “messages” are genuinely from God, or if it’s just my ego wanting to think it has the answer.

I wrote about that struggle last week. After weeks of carrying anxiety over a work situation, which has slowly been building for two years, my only choice was to listen. The message was clear: trust God, He’s got this; let go. So I did. And it immediately helped me feel better. The worry and anxiety are still there, but they don’t reach me, now. Not the way they did. So I trusted more, and wrote about the vision — an idea for a community of misfits not unlike myself who, after “flunking out” of life in the world, are ready to surrender and give our lives to God, inspired by the Apostolic Church, the Benedictine monasteries of the “Dark Ages,” and the work of Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day. I have no idea how this will materialize, but I know I need to put it out there if I ever want it to.

And, oh, do I hope it will.

So What Do I Have to Offer?

I first felt a calling to the monastic life ten years ago. In an e-mail to the priest of the parish I’m slowly grounding myself in, I even lamented my stupidity of walking away all those years ago. Not only did the world “chew me up and spit me out,” it missed the spittoon and I landed in a pile of rubbish. But since writing that, I’ve been granted a little bit of clarity on why that experience was necessary. I touched on it a little in those things I’ve written, over the last couple weeks. But now I have to address the hardest thing in all of this: my role. What am I able to offer such a community?

On one hand, in the world, I’ve been both a tech worker and a carpenter, and those are very real skills I can bring to such a community. Marketable skills, that could be used to raise money to fund the “monastery” (if you could call it that; I’m not sure what it would be called — Peter Maurin called them “rural communes” but I feel like this needs to have a much stronger spiritual element than “rural commune” suggests, more akin to the Benedictine Rule). That’s all good, great, and fine, but it’s not what God is calling me to do for Him.

And here I am, a twelve-year old on the bus, telling the world what my intellect can do to serve others.

If you know me, you probably know that I’m a philosophy nerd. I don’t just appreciate reading forgotten tomes of archaic wisdom; I do philosophy every day. It’s how I write code (logical philosophy), how I analyze the world (metaphysics), how I decide how to interact with people (ethics), and how I discern what information I should assimilate as knowledge (epistemology). I still haven’t finished my degree (it’s a slow going process; part time study means I should be done sometime in the next 3-5 years) but I already excel in practical philosophy, and I can hold my own in philosophical discussion. I recent had a course review following an ethics class, and I successfully argued that Kant’s categorical imperative needs to be understood in the context of his theological disposition; that his conception of a metaphysical dimension of objective ethics necessitates theological presumptions, but providing that makes it workable (for the record, I couldn’t stand Kant when I started my studies!)

But let’s take this a step further. For the past five years, I’ve also been a pedagogue for two kids (well, one of them is grown, now) in a home school situation. Both of them, like me, are on the high-functioning end of the spectrum. During the first year of this experience, I discovered the classical education model, rooted in the liberal arts tradition. The oldest, now twenty, is building his own career-ready portfolio in computer science; the youngest, seven, reads better than most middle school children and will be exploring computer programming and introductory Latin, and knows more about black holes and quantum physics than I do. The best part about this experience is that it has never required me to be “smart:” I get to learn with them, cooperatively, and fill in the gaps I missed in my own conception of the seven liberal arts (grammar, logic, and rhetoric, comprising the trivium, and arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, comprising the quadrivium), which I have come to understand as a lifelong process of learning and enrichment.

I believe this is what God intended for academics and the continuity of human knowledge. A fluid experience, for those whom He so gifts, that becomes a lifetime process of assimilating knowledge about ourselves and the world, through which we can come to know Him better, and that we may pass on to the next generation to bend and shape according to their needs, so that they, too, can know Him in their own way, according to their own needs.

The icing on the cake? Their mother1 has started listening to me talk about theology. When I read Bible stories and tales of the Saints to the little one before bed, she asks questions about God and Jesus, and wants to understand. She used to hate it when I made sounds that even remotely resembled the Gospel. I have long-since accepted that we cannot have the happy-ever-after husband-and-wife story I used to imagine; but I’m starting to understand that maybe God didn’t bring us together for that in the first place. I think it was for something better.

Just like the liberal arts with the next generation, talking with her about theology is a cooperative learning exercise. I realize that I understand the Catholic Faith much better than I ever thought; but it also grounds me the understand that I don’t have to know all the answers. I’m not afraid to say “let me get the Catechism…” — and that tells me that I’ve internalized and am acting on the lesson God gave me as a caution against Gnosticism and hubris. And I’d like to think that, in spite of all that has transpired, I might have succeeded in giving her the greatest gift I can imagine giving anyone: faith.

Last week, when I was exploring the website of the parish I’m attaching myself to, I found a useful tool they shared: a spiritual gifts assessment. It’s about fifty questions, and the score helps you identify what gifts God has endowed you with. It suggests selecting the three highest scores, but I seem to had 4, all tied with a score of “12” (the highest possible score): Faith, Prophecy, Teaching, and Wisdom.

To me, Faith makes perfect sense. At the times in my life when I’ve been “lowest,” when Faith was all I had, it was enough. And even when I’ve been in grave error about the nature of God and His work, even when I’ve been over-burdened by anxiety and unable to think clearly enough to express it, I have never had less than an overflowing glass of Faith.

But the other three? Wisdom? Uh… I’m a moron. Look at my life! Would a wise person be in this mess? Prophecy? No, no, no. I can’t even trust myself to know what to make for dinner; how can I trust myself to discern and relay God’s advice? These are gifts that great men and women through the ages have been given. Me, on the other hand: I’m competing for gold in the “train wreck” event.

And Teaching? My mother used to tell me I should never be a teacher, under any circumstances. “You’re just not a teacher; you have no patience.”

The point is, never, in a million years, would I have pegged myself in this kind of role; in any of these roles. I’m a nobody, a disaster of a person, and about as hopeless as it gets. I still shy away from the prospect of expressing that I possess any “talents” or “gifts,” and I don’t believe I have much to offer, even if my predilections suggest otherwise.

However. The one thing I’m absolutely certain of is that God blew up my life — again — in all the right ways, at the same time, to put me in a position to evaluate what I’m supposed to be doing. And I don’t know what that particular thing is supposed to be, but I know that the reward is beautiful, peaceful, and fulfilling. And whatever it is, I will do whatever He wants me to, to get it.

Endnotes

  1. This is an interesting situation. One of my first clues that God was doing something with/through me, over a year before my conversion experience (and largely responsible for my ultimate surrender to God’s will), was discovering my wife was having an affair. This wasn’t just someone I married because I was going through the motions; I was head-over-heals in love with her and I had poured my heart and soul into this relationship. I was a born romantic, and it was one of the things that largely defined who I was. When I found out, I was deeply hurt, and to say I wasn’t angry would be a lie, but I kept my temper well (I learned to rely on God for temperance many, many years ago, even if I didn’t wholly get my conception of God right), and I found that I was not nearly as devastated as I had been. Our romance had long since faded. Months later, she confessed to me that her feelings evolved into a more sibling-ish format years before. The more I think about it, the more this made sense. When I decided to come “Home to Rome” (as I often say), one of my first questions was “what do I do with this?” The doctrine of “like brother-and-sister,” even though it wasn’t exactly garnered to our situation, fit well, and it has allowed us to provide two boys with a stable, normal home life, and remain the closest of friends in the wake of a perilous relationship. I think it was good for both of us, to be honest. Since giving in and surrendering, and having my conversation experience, I have largely lost any interest or inclination for romance, anyway; it seems that God has other plans. 🙂

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06 July 2026

A Community of Lost Sheep and Prodigal Children

By rabbitrunriot

Create a monastic-type community – inclusive of daily prayer and liturgy, the Sacramental life, and an orientation towards service, based on Catholic social teaching. Follow Jesus’ example to serve and lift up “the least of these” – those who are lost, having been rejected and abandoned by the world. Welcome all, but they must be willing to begin with obedience, to grow in faith, hope, and charity, if the community is to be successful. Let them be guided in the faith, their needs met, and given jobs and educated according to their desires, but ever under the guidance of God and embodying the obedience of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In part, this represents the type of community I wish would have been available to me when I was at my worst. The rehabilitative approach is based on the two decades-long experience that has slowly brought me closer to God and a realization that the liberation and social justice I have long sought to realize in the world has always been a reality with God in the Church since Christ came in the flesh. However, both the personal and social rehabilitation God offers is not as easy as “joining the collective;” it demands genuine faith and conviction.

I have always wanted to have that kind of faith but it’s not as easy as just saying, “yes, I believe.” It took me years to come to terms with it, then years of apostasy to end up right back where I was, then a few more months of discernment and contemplative prayer to put the pieces together, before I reached my “St. Thomas the Apostle moment,” wherein I could say, “my Lord and my God! I believe!” A great deal of my struggle was facilitated by the world’s penchant for presenting “counter offers” to the faith that sustained me through many periods when I was forced to be wholly dependent on God’s providence. It came in cycles: I would spend months or years with nothing, wholly dependent on God; I was, at different times, a folk-punk “train kid” and anarcho-activist, the bearer of the burden of failed careers and wasted tuition, and a homeless griever of lost time and failed relationships. God would intervene, things would get better, and I would get a small bit of stability.

But when the time came to commit my life to God, I would get nervous and the world would miraculously offer some temptation – wealth, knowledge, adventure, influence, whatever was appealing in the moment – and I would get pulled away from the very real faith I had survived on for months or years. Recently, I beat myself up for months over my impetuosity and inability to commit when I had every opportunity. It was a mistake. But perhaps it was also a lesson – a final experience I needed to hear the call clear enough to understand the request. I believe that to be the case, but I will not “lighten up” on myself, lest I be led astray again by worldly comforts.

A large part of this is an intentional immersion into that holistic dependence on God, rather than the typical quest to eventually replace or augment it with “worldly stability.” While traditional paths of social support, recovery communities, and mutual aid collectives focus on guiding the afflicted through their struggle just until they regain enough stability to be “released” back into the world, this goes in a different direction: providing a permanent (or semi-permanent) “home base” for those who are the right fit, based on the faith and lifestyles of the first century Apostolic Church and drawing inspiration from the Monastic scholars of the “Dark Ages” and the Catholic Worker movement begun by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the 20th century.

The “vision” is of a community led by monks, nuns, oblates, and third ordinaries, assisted by clergy and laity willing to donate their time and talents as they are able. It is a community for those who are capable yet would be matriculated into the system, institutionalized, or abandoned by secular society: the “traveling kids” and anarcho-activists, the unemployed college graduates saddled with thousands in student loan debt, those called to vocations yet trapped by desperation and fear. They are not beyond grace; though the world has rejected them, God has and will not. Modern individualism and neoliberal capitalism have led astray many who might otherwise be willing to come, penitent and contrite, to find God and obey him; it keeps them desperate and fills them full of false hope: if they could only “get it right,” they, too, could have all the world has to offer. Therefore, let us be the instruments through which God reaches them in their time of need to welcome them and, like the Apostolic Church, devote our time to prayer and the breaking of bread, in anticipation of Christ’s return.

He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. […] whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. (Douay-Rheims Bible, Matt. 10:40, 42)

Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day worked tirelessly to establish the Catholic Worker movement, and envisioned houses and communities where the faithful might go to live in community, serve those in need, and build the foundations of a new society based on Catholic social teaching and the Benedictine initiatives that preserved western civilization after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Their vision was largely and essentially a recreation of the earliest Church as described in Acts of the Apostles (2: 44-47, 4: 32-35) and they proved its efficacy in their time. Yet, as the world has shifted since their departure to the Heavenly kingdom, the Catholic Worker movement has been forced to make concessions to secular demands that have diluted the movement’s efficacy, and largely stripped it of its spiritual component.

This isn’t to say that all Catholic Worker houses should (re-)adopt a more monastic and Church-oriented approach to their missions and ministries. On the contrary; those collectives are already doing a great deal of the necessary work… but I believe God is now urging us to focus our efforts on the next step: the establishment of what Peter Maurin called “rural communes”, complementing the Catholic Worker houses that fulfill his definition of “urban hospitality houses,” and “agronomic universities” – these three elements comprising the foundations of his vision for the “Green Revolution” (Holland, 2015).

Providing education in the darkest of times is a long-held monastic tradition, going back to the Benedictine monks who preserved culture, community, and the artes liberales through the Dark Ages after the collapse of the Roman Empire. For the younger residents, we would provide education based on a classical curriculum (much like the monastery schooling of the Middle Ages; coincidentally, this is something I have recently discovered I have an innate talent for), while older youths and adults could find and take advantage of vocationally-oriented training that prepares them for a Godly life, whether permanently in the community or beyond its walls.

Just as St. Benedict demanded of his monks a balance of work and prayer, members of the community would be required to negotiate and commit to a bare minimum of spiritual immersion that suits them. The religious element – while not necessarily suitable for all as a vocation – is the basis of this way of life, and the key to the personal transformation it offers and it must be accepted willingly and cheerfully (not with reluctance, or by compulsion). The community at large must remain focused on its role to support and guide those already willing whom God leads to us, not to force those who are as yet not willingly obedient to capitulate and submit. This shouldn’t be misunderstood as advocating hard-line discipline, so that fear of punishment becomes a motivator, but rather that we are seeking those who are already broken, willing to surrender and accept correction, and make their best efforts to be obedient to God as He works through the community.

The community mustn’t be a public spectacle. Referrals must come through the Church. Because a spiritual element is necessary, and our role is not to force these people to come to God, they must already be seeking Him and believe the Church can help. We cannot afford to entertain the half-hearted efforts of those who believe it is simply an “easy” or “convenient” option – not because they are “less than,” but because their lackluster threatens both the stability of the community and the welfare of its members. When they have been beaten down enough by the world to finally surrender – just as I had been – they will be welcomed with open arms. Until then, we must allow them the same freedom God has given to each of us to choose, or reject, His way, and entrust them to His care while they are “in the world.” This dynamic, expressed so beautifully in Jesus’ “Parable of the Prodigal Son”, is so critical that it has provided the working title for this little project (another parable – “Parable of the Lost Sheep” – has also been considered; I leave the final choice to the community at large; perhaps they will have even more creative ideas)1.

The Boys Town ministry founded by Msgr. Edward Flannigan might be an excellent example to learn and draw inspiration from. I would not have known about this particular ministry had it not been for a well-timed post on Reddit months ago (and I would be lying if I said I didn’t believe God guided me to that information).

Our community must be as self-sufficient as possible — community farming; essential skills to maintain operations (education, nursing, carpenters and plumbers and electricians, etc.) being handled “internally” whenever possible; etc. — with economics only being adopted inasmuch as it is unavoidable (i.e. utilities, sourcing supplies, taxes, etc.), to be shared collectively by the residents by offering their various skills as they are able and most or all of their earnings being paid to the community2. Even if we must start with nothing, we should promote and/or endeavor to facilitate:

  • a chapel with ordained ministry and duly commissioned laity; some trained and able to provide counseling and spiritual direction
  • farms and livestock for food production, with a goal of total subsistence (perhaps even with overflow to send to other ministries like urban CW houses and food banks); all participate in maintaining farms inasmuch as they are able
  • animal-friendly and eco-centric lifestyle welcoming companion animals and advocating recycling, renewable energy, environmentally-sound lifestyles, etc.
  • educational resources — classical liberal arts education as per the Benedictine tradition; on-site libraries; mentoring/apprenticeship in job skills; strong cooperation with Catholic universities to facilitate higher education if possible
  • liaisons and trained support for services “of the world,” like medical care and counseling; not to replace the need for such services but to help facilitate them as individuals have need (i.e., nursing assistants who can provide support to someone recovering from a surgical procedure; someone with paralegal experience who can guide newcomers through handling any outstanding legal issues before they commit to a long-term or permanent stay; counselling for younger residents who have come from a troubled past)

The spiritual life of the community can be modeled on the prayer rules, commitments, liturgical traditions, etc., of avowed monastic communities to provide structure, orientation, and spiritual continuity with the Church at large. The Benedictine, Franciscan, and Discalced Carmelite traditions have all been very influential in my own devotional life and I have always endeavored to embody a commitment to service and poverty as spiritual virtues; more recently I have included chastity and obedience, recognizing their necessity in my own spiritual growth. This has been an essential component of my own experience of conversion, and the ongoing experience of being formed by God to serve His will in the world. Community members should be willing to forego wealth (owning land, businesses, etc. – those things which are generally considered private property; this is to say nothing of personal belongings, which comprise a different matter) for distributism or communalism, and romantic relationships for charity, and should be committed to obedience to God inasmuch as his will is made known through the community.

In secular terminology, this could be considered an anarchist community in the mutualist (Proudhon) and communist (Kropotkin) tradition, but with the crucial influence of Catholic social teaching and spirituality. The religious element is essential. If we must make a non-religious justification for this, let it be that the Catholic Faith establishes, at the very least, a basic spiritual-ethical framework that ensures the community need not debate political philosophies (as the Church has already proven this over centuries of success with this exact framework). Such debate, considering the demographic of people we are aiming to help, this would easily become more a hindrance than a help. A more philosophically-inclined discussion of the cohesion of Catholicism with anarchist philosophy is provided in the essay, Catholic Anarcho-mutualism.

It has only been very recently that I have understood that this vision is one that God has been inspiring and pulling me to commit to for, give or take, two decades. At one time or another, I have been one of millions around the world who could have benefited from such a community. Since my conversion experience, I have longed for nothing more than a life that is filled with God’s presence in every way, and building such a community feels like an unshakable need. At the peak of my apostasy, even, I still longed for a community like the Church of the Apostolic era, and at the times I have been closest to God, I have wanted nothing less than to fully immerse myself in the sacramental life of prayer and service. As the world spirals further out of control every moment, and thousands are left struggling every day, then I pray that the right people may be brought together to manifest this idea in accordance with His will.

You may notice that I have intentionally avoiding giving my name or any identifying details of myself anywhere on this website; that’s intentional. I don’t want credit for this concept, or for any of the things I achieve in this life. All the good that I have wrought has been by His grace, and the credit is due to God, not to me, and this project is no different.

Endnotes

  1. I have recently been made aware that both “Community of the Prodigal Sons” and “Lost Sheep Koinonia” (koinonia being a synonym for community) are in use by other groups in the global Catholic community, so whether either of these is suitable and acceptable is beyond my scope of understanding. I leave the final decision on a name, along with its patrons and other emblems, to those to whom the community will belong long after my passing.
  2. The suggestion to receive payment for services rendered through the community must also not be a hard-line and non-negotiable mandate. It is meant to reduce the stress and burden on individuals, by sharing the economic burden (just as the Church in Acts did) inasmuch as members are willing. However, in keeping with the principles of voluntaryism, it must be the choice of the individual, not a compulsory demands of the community, that determines each individual’s degree of economic communalism. Members who do not wish to participate in this way should be permitted to work out their own arrangements for contributing a fair and manageable amount off their earnings and/or labor to the community.

Sources

Holland, Joe. Peter Maurin’s Ecological Lay Monasticism. 2015. Pacem in Terris Press. Washington, DC.

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