The Community of the Mother of Jesus

Ministries: Br. Jason volunteers with the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, working in the diversity effort and to help increase safety on our waterways.

Parish: The Episcopal Church of the Ascension, Knoxville, Tennessee

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Patron Saint: St. Kunigunde

Marian Title: Our Lady of the Snows

(he/him/his)

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When I was in college, I felt God calling me to a vocation.  I spoke with the priest at the chapel on campus and he gave me probably the wisest advice anyone has ever gave me: “If you feel God is calling you to the priesthood, RUN!  If it catches up with you, you know it’s the right thing to do.”  It never caught up with me, but there was always this nagging in my mind that God had a plan for me.  Years later at an Education for Ministry group, our lesson was about contemplation in which many modern monastics were in the world instead of cloistered.  I looked up Episcopal Orders and I had my biggest "a-ha" moment ever.  This was that nagging voice!  After some thoughtful investigation, I found the Community of the Mother of Jesus. Having spent years in the Roman Catholic Church, this community with its devotion to Mary and the Rosary was so much more what I was called to.  And each day as a Brother of the CMJ has been more fulfilling than the next.  Sometimes God’s paths are circuitous, but we always get where we’re meant to be.