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Welcome to Magdalene House
An introduction to who we are, why we chose Mary Magdalene as our patron, and what it means to be an Open and Affirming Independent Eastern Catholic community in Phoenix, Arizona.
You Are An Icon Of the Love Of God
2nd Sunday of Lent - Cycle A (West) & Sunday of Orthodoxy (East) This Sunday offers us a breathtaking convergence. In the Roman Lectionary for the Second Sunday of Lent, we ascend the holy mountain with Peter, James, and John and behold the Transfiguration of Christ (Matthew 17:1–9). At the same...
Beginning Again: The Rite of Forgiveness and the Freedom to Start Fresh
Beginning Again: The Rite of Forgiveness and the Freedom to Start Fresh Every year when Lent approaches, we are invited into the desert with Christ. We hear the Gospel of His fasting. We reflect on temptation. We receive ashes. We are reminded of our mortality and our need for repentance. All of t...
A Pastoral Letter for the Holy Season of Lent
A Pastoral Letter for the Holy Season of Lent My Dear Spiritual Family, Grace to you and peace as we enter once again into the sacred season of Lent. Too often Lent has been described only in terms of what we must “give up,” or as a time marked primarily by sorrow for sin. While repentance is ind...
The Scandal and the Witness: Christianity’s Failure and Its Faithfulness
The Scandal and the Witness: Christianity’s Failure and Its Faithfulness A follow-up to “ Christianity Was Never Meant To Defend Empires ” An Honest Beginning: The Critique Is Not New The Church’s failure to live its ideals is not a modern accusation. It is an ancient one—voiced first not by skepti...
Christianity Was Never Meant to Defend Empires
Christianity Was Never Meant to Defend Empires A Scriptural, Patristic, and Sacramental Vision of Human Dignity, Communion, and the Common Good There is a persistent claim in modern culture: If Christianity had truly shaped the world, we would be living under an oppressive theocracy. History, we...
Choosing Life: The Law Fulfilled in Love
Choosing Life: The Law Fulfilled in Love Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year A Sirach 15:15–20 | Psalm 119 | 1 Corinthians 2:6–10 | Matthew 5:17–37 Beloved, Today the Word of God confronts us gently but directly: Life and death are set before you. You have heard it said… but I say to you… We...
A Pastoral Exhortation on Martyrdom, Sacrificial Love, and the Witness of Alex Pretti
A Pastoral Exhortation on Martyrdom, Sacrificial Love, and the Witness of Alex Pretti Brothers and sisters in Christ, There are moments when the Gospel confronts us so starkly that neutrality becomes betrayal. There are moments when silence itself is a sin. This is one of those moments. Our Lord...
Metanoia in an Age of Lies and Coercion
Metanoia in an Age of Lies and Coercion A Pastoral Exhortation There are moments when silence becomes a form of consent. We are living in such a moment now. Across our nation, we are watching the use of state power result in death, followed by official narratives that contradict what many of us c...
Why Insight Alone Is Not Enough
Why Insight Alone Is Not Enough For many spiritually serious people, growth begins with insight. A sentence arrives at the right moment and feels like illumination. A teaching reframes an old wound. A realization unlocks compassion, forgiveness, or clarity that once felt impossible. These momen...
“You Say You Are Righteous — But the Crowd Murmured”
“You Say You Are Righteous — But the Crowd Murmured” A homily on Luke 19:1–10, the sin of moral certainty, and judgment upon dehumanizing power by Joseph Michael Martinka “When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for today I must stay at your h...
You Were Never Meant to Carry This Alone
You Were Never Meant to Carry This Alone There is a quiet moment many spiritually serious people eventually reach. It usually comes after years of sincere effort—reading, praying, seeking, experimenting, trying to live well. Nothing is necessarily “wrong.” You feel grateful for what you’ve learned...
God Is Not an Idea You Figure Out
God Is Not an Idea You Figure Out Many people I speak with today are not spiritually indifferent. They are spiritually awake —sometimes profoundly so. They have had moments of beauty, insight, healing, or awe. They have felt presence in silence, meaning in ritual, depth in music, art, nature, or...
Blessings for the Rejected
Blessings for the Rejected There are those among us who know the quiet sting of being pushed aside—not because they have done wrong, but because they simply exist in a way that unsettles the familiar. Some know this pain from childhood homes, others from communities of faith, schools, friendships, o...
To Seek Out New Life: Independent Sacramentalism Through the Lens of Star Trek and the Ideals of the Federation
Introduction: A Federation Imagination and an Ecclesial Disappointment I grew up with Star Trek before I had language for ecclesiology. Before I knew the word sacrament, I knew that bridges were places where diverse beings sat in communion. Before I knew the term magisterium, I knew that truth was...
An Exhortation for a Wounded Nation
Beloved in Christ, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We live in a moment of profound turbulence and sorrow. The wounds of our nation are exposed and raw. In the streets we see anger, fear, division, and apathy. On our screens we see cruelty normalized, dignity n...
How Christians Lost Beauty — and Why We Need It Back
There was a time when Christians knew that beauty saves. Not in the superficial sense of decoration or aesthetic preference, but in the deep, ontological sense: beauty as revelation, beauty as knowledge, beauty as participation in the life of God. Cathedrals lifted our eyes. Icons opened windows int...
Epiphany for a Fractured World
Icon of the Nativity What the Magi Still Teach Us Now The Church never keeps Epiphany in the past. It places the Magi in front of us now —not as figures in a nativity set, but as a mirror held up to a world that is anxious, divided, exhausted, and searching for light. The questions that swirl aroun...
Between Egypt and the Cross
The Holy Family, the Thieves, and Us A homily on the Sunday of the Holy Family 2025 by Subdeacon Joseph Michael On the Sunday of the Holy Family, the Church places before us a paradox that feels uncannily modern: the Son of God begins his earthly life as a refugee. The canonical Gospels tell the...
Healing as Sacrament: The Body and Spirit
Healing as Sacrament: The Body and Spirit “The mercy of God is not exhausted in forgiving sins, but extends to the healing of the whole man.” — St. Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies I I. Introduction — Healing as the Restoration of Communion In the Eastern Christian tradition, the mystery of...
Theosis as the Fulfillment of the Gospel
Introduction: The Church as the Living Extension of the Incarnation In the theology of the Early Church, salvation is not an external transaction nor a mere pardon for sin, but an ontological transformation of the human person and creation itself. The Eastern Fathers understood the Church as the li...
The Seven Sacraments: A Mystalogical Exploration
A contemplative, mystagogical exploration of the sacraments as doorways into Divine Mystery—united with Catholic–Orthodox lineage and the inclusive, evolving sacramental vision of the ISM. Contents Introduction: The Sacramental Cosmos Baptism — The Descent into Light Confirmation (Chrismation) —...
Would Christ Have Come Even Without the Fall?
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Following the Words of Jesus — Not as a Label, But as a Life
Following His Words Changes Everything Over time, I’ve discovered that truly following the words of Jesus — His actual words in Scripture — is not only transformative, it’s the purest way to live a life of faith. It hasn’t made me a “liberal.” It hasn’t made me “woke.” It has made me something fa...
Writing Again: Returning to the Page After a Season of Study
After months of deep immersion in my Master of Divinity program, I find myself writing again. The pause was necessary—absorbing, integrating, and wrestling with the content of five challenging, beautiful courses left little space for my own words to emerge. But now, after passing Intro to Theologica...
My Soul Cries for a Wounded World
When I look at the state of the world today, my heart aches. The division in our politics, the hatred and bigotry that pour out in our communities, the cruelty of homelessness in the midst of abundance—it all weighs heavily on me. I see people judged for simply being different, excluded because they...
Reflection on Pilgrimage to Sedona and Flagstaff
26 August 2025 [Note: This article was originally written as a reflection essay as part of my studies for seminary. I share it here in its entirety for anyone who might gain spiritual insight or just for your enjoyment. - JM] Two Chapels, Two Messages of Love The Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona,...
Coming Home: My Journey to the Shrine of Holy Wisdom
For much of my life, I have searched for a place where faith felt alive—where spirituality was not about fear or exclusion, but about love, healing, and truth. There were seasons when I thought I had found it, and others when I nearly gave up searching altogether. Life has not spared me from hardsh...
Preparing My Heart for the Acolyte’s Path
On August 15th, I will kneel before the altar and be ordained to the ancient Order of Acolyte—an order that has quietly endured through the centuries, often unnoticed but deeply significant. This moment comes not as a formality, but as a threshold: a sacred invitation to deeper service, devotion, an...
A Reflection on Acceptance into Seminary
“Called Beneath Her Mantle: A Seminary Acceptance on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel” On July 16, the Church commemorates the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel—a day soaked in mystery, devotion, and maternal tenderness. For centuries, it has been a day set aside to honor Mary not only as the...
Marian Dogmas & Titles Comparison Chart
Doctrine / Title Roman Catholic Eastern Orthodox Independent Catholic (e.g. Old Catholic, CACA, OSST) 1. Divine Motherhood (Theotokos) ✅ Defined at Council of Ephesus (431) ✅ Affirmed at Ephesus; central to Orthodox theology ✅ Affirmed; considered foundational 2. Perpetual Virginity ✅ Dogma: Virgin...
A Concise Primer on Apostolic Succession & Sacramental Life Beyond Rome
1. What Is Apostolic Succession? Apostolic succession is the historic-theological claim that the authority Christ entrusted to the Twelve Apostles—especially to teach, sanctify, and govern the Church—is transmitted by the laying-on of hands (ordination) from bishop to bishop in an unbroken line. K...
Balancing Fatherhood and Faith: Sacred Lessons from My Children
There came a time in my life when the call to serve God through the Church grew louder than the noise of my own doubts. Drawn by a longing I couldn't explain, I entered seminary—a sacred space where I would spend three formative years immersed in prayer, study, and spiritual formation. Those years w...
A Manifesto for Sacred Leadership
Introduction There is a revolution stirring—not in the streets, but in the souls of those who can no longer lead from systems that suppress the sacred. We are the ones who have walked through fire, not to be consumed, but to be clarified. We’ve tasted religion’s beauty and its shadow. We’ve been bu...
The Mystical Traditions That Shape My Journey
Some of us are born into religion. Others are born with the ache for God that no religion can fully contain. I am both. My journey has been anything but linear. I have walked through churches, classrooms, deserts of doubt, and sanctuaries of silence. I have studied scripture and screamed into the...
The Role of Community in Spiritual Growth
There is a myth—one I clung to for a long time—that spiritual awakening must happen alone. That the path to God is a solitary mountain trail, marked only by personal revelation, private pain, and internal surrender. For much of my journey, I believed that the deeper I went into Spirit, the further I...