About Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM, L.Th. Expertise I am a Catholic apologist, catechist, spiritual director, and spiritual warfare/deliverance counselor holding a degree of Licentiate in Theology. Questions dealing with the Catholic Faith will be answered according to official Church teachings, where such official teachings exist, and according to solid principles taught by the Church and the saints on areas where there is no specific Church teaching. I am a one-hundred-percent loyal and obedient to the Pope and Magisterium of the Church. If you want to know the TRUE SCOOP of Church teaching, here is the place to get it.
2) Apologetics and Catechesis primarily offered through a Catholic Q&A (plus volunteering on expert.com); and
3) Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare: involving many things ranging from investigating "haunted houses," to counseling with demonized people, to dealing with spiritual warfare issues in our society.
Experience I was a Baptist preacher, Bible teacher, and evangelist for 15 years before converting to the Catholic Church in 1992.
As a Catholic I have been teaching Bible, Catechetics, apologetics, and evangelism for 14 years. I also have 24 years of pastoral counseling experience and 14 years experience as a Catholic Spiritual Director.
I have been in deliverance ministry since 1986 as a Baptist. After converting to the Catholic Church I continued the spiritual warfare work including counseling, writing, consulting, and teaching workshops, and training Deliverance Counsellors.
In 2002 we began a new apostolate called the St. Padre Pio Center for Deliverance Counseling. This agency offers counseling to those persons who are demonized, and offers training for people who feel called by God to become Deliverance Counsellors. As director of the St. Padre Pio Center I was featured in a series of interviews on Spirtual Warfare on Ave Maria Radio.
Award: Recipient of the prestigious Kaltenborn Foundation Grant.
Organizations In Religion: Catholic Society of Evangelists, Institute on Religious Life, Adoremus: Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Coming Home Network, The Blue Army of our Lady of Fatima, Apostleship of Prayer, Confraternity of Mary, Queen of All Hearts (Montfort Fathers), Confraternity of the Brown Scapular
BR> In Counseling: American Counseling Association, Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling, the International Society for Mental Health Online, and the former National Psychiatric Association. Brother is also currently working with two other counselors to form a new association called the American Nouthethic Association of Catholic Counselors. This association is not yet operational.
In Website Design: HTML Writers Guild, the International Webmasters Association, and the Good News Web Designers Association.
In Creative Writing: Academy of American Poets, the Association of Authors and Publishers, and is listed as Editor and Publisher of St. Michael House Press and Writers House Press in the International Directory of Small Presses and Little Magazines and the WritersNet Online Directory
Publications Religious Book Publications include: +"Regula Sanctus Michaelis" (The Rule of St. Michael) +"Three Secret Strategies of Satan and Other Essays" +"St. Michael's Spiritual Warfare Prayer Catalog" +"Hope, Help, Victory: A Spiritual Warfare Workshop" +"St. Michael’s Deliverance Counseling Manual" +If God Wants This of Me: The Story of a Baptist Minister Turn Catholic Friar" (forthcoming)
Poetry Publications and Credits: Book: "Only Silence is Shame" Magazines & Readings: published in various magazines and conducted numerous readings
Listed: "Who's Who is U.S. Editors, Writers, and Poets" and the "International Authors and Poets Who's Who" out of London in the 1980s
Other Publications: Book: "The Wilder Letters" (book of essays)
Book: "The Falling Torch: Our Democracy in Crisis"
Why did u become a Brother instead of a Father(a priest)? Am sure u know the glory of priesthood-I mean is there anything greater than holding the King of Kings in your hands and the consecration. I feel that u can bring more souls to Christ as Diocesan priest than being brother enclosed inside the 4 walls of a monastery. Just give it a thought.
Answer Dear Johnny:
Why be a priest when one can be a brother?
No one has a right to be a priest. One does not become a priest just because they want to. One must be called by God and that calling must be confirmed by the Church. Even if one feels called by God, unless one qualifies for the priesthood, and his calling confirmed by the Church, a man will not become a priest.
There is nothing greater than living in accord with the will of God. That is greater than being a priest, per se.
You are deeply wrong about the idea that one can bring more souls to Christ as a Diocesan priest. In that statement you have offended all the Saints who were not priests. Have they not brought many souls to Christ. St. Francis of Assisi, one of the saints that has brought more people to Christ than any other, was not a priest.
You also offend all the men who are called to the brotherhood rather than to the priesthood. Do you suggest they should disobey God, ignore their calling, and thus become priests?
And then you offend the entire religious vocation saying that being outside the monastic walls is somehow better. Then why does God call men to monastic life? Why does God erect monastic communities? if their are so inferior to bring people to Christ.
Son, without the monks and nuns praying for us in their cloisters, priests outside those walls would not be able to withstand the pressures, dangers, and duties of priesthood. Without the prayers of the monks and nuns, our society may not even exist now.
The greatest thing one may do is not necessarily to be a priest, but to be a person of love according to St. Paul (1 Cor. 12:31 and chapter 13). Also it is greater to pray. Without that prayer the priests cannot do what they do. The greatest thing of all is to join oneself to the will of God. If doing that means that one becomes a garbage collector instead of a priest then that is the greatest thing that person can do.
Perhaps you need to open your Bible. St. Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 12:12-30...
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single organ, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, 25 that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?
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We each have are place in the body, Johnny. Wherever God places us in that body, that is the best place to be and there is no other place greater.
I am sorry if I speak abruptly on this. But there are many who seem to almost worship the priesthood and think it is the best thing possible. That false idea needs to be slapped out of people. The best thing possible is to be wherever God places you. We all contribute to the Great Commission wherever we are at, and no matter what part of the body we may be.
By the way, there are many laymen who have brought more souls to Christ than priests.
