This past January, Fr. Tim Roth graciously accepted the position of being TEC's new Spiritual Director. We are so happy to welcome him in this role. Want to know more about Fr. Tim? Read on! Fr. Tim has also written a letter to the community about his enthusiasm for his new role, and how TEC truly shaped his Faith and his life.
My dear friends in the wonderful community known as TEC,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ — AKA, what’s up!(Not sure if St. Paul would actually approve of that translation). By now, you probably haveheard that I was discerned and subsequently asked to serve as the new spiritual director for our TEC community, succeeding Fr. Tim Kalista who served as the visible image of Christ, the ‘captain’ of this ‘ship’ we call TEC, who helped ‘keep our boat afloat’ for 6 years as spiritual director. (Okay, okay, easy with the TEC imagery). As a stubborn, skeptical 17-year-old teen on TEC 61, I remember sitting at a table listening to witnesses while scanning the room for potential female companions, wondering what was for lunch, and desperately hiding from Mr. Sneaky. (I’m just being honest!) Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that, 13 years later, I would be sitting in the rectory of St. Angela Merici Parish in Fairview Park as a priest ordained 3 years, writing a letter as the new (humbled and thrilled) spiritual director of the TEC community—the very community that provided me with the foundations for my vocation!
It leaves me breathless to ponder how the Holy Spirit worked in my life and through the lives of others during those 13 years. My experience of TEC helped to jumpstart my personal relationship with Christ and prompted me to establish a habitual prayer life. It motivated me to become more involved in my home parish and led me to seek many other opportunities to grow in my faith. It fueled my faith in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, and enflamed my desire to spend time in adoration of our Lord. It allowed me to experience in a very real way God’s ‘agape’ love embodied and made visible through the unseen, unheard, unrecognized, self- giving, self-emptying, self-sacrificing example of Wheat. It opened my eyes to see God’s constant presence and activity in my daily life. It inspired me to unabashedly live out my faith in the midst of a secular world and the chaos that was high school, striving (to the best of my broken ability) to be an authentic Christian disciple despite the judgment, ridicule, hostile stares, and harsh words of others.
As a result, for the first time in my life, everything began to make sense because it was driven with a renewed purpose. Confident that God was for me, Christ was with me, and the Holy Spirit was advocating for me, I felt that I was seeing clearly for once, and the small things that I used to worry about seemed to fade in comparison to the bigger picture of God’s plan for my life, his great love for me, and my newfound life in Christ. It is abundantly clear to me now how my experience on TEC served as the seedbed for my vocation as a priest by laying significant foundations, providing me with the space to consider God’s call, and allowing me to hear the voice of Christ speak to me more clearly: “Will you follow me?” “Will you feed my sheep?” “Will you serve the Church as my priest?” In other words, TEC lived up to its mission—it helped me to encounter the living Christ.
For all this (and probably for infinitely more reasons than I am aware of), I am eternally grateful for my experiences on TEC, for all of the friends I have made who have positively impacted my life and discernment to the priestly vocation, for the TEC community, its lay leadership, and all of the priests who have served from its inception and throughout its history. (I genuinely feel as if I am standing on the shoulders of giants). I am truly, truly blessed to have been given the opportunity to give back to this community who has given me so much by serving as its spiritual director.
Please pray for me that, by the grace of God, I do not allow this boat to sink! (Just kidding!) I am very much aware that it is by your support, effort, and prayer that keeps this community alive and well, but most of all, that this entire community is inspired, guided, and led by something greater than ourselves—God the Father, through his Son, Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit— without which none of the great work of TEC could be accomplished. I hope that reality brings you as much peace and comfort as it brings me. Once again, I am humbled and thrilled to be discerned as the spiritual director of our community to help lead it and guide it, by the grace of God, and with the help of so many others. Please be assured of my continued prayers for all of you, for all future TECites, and for the future of this community as a whole. May God bless you now and always.
In Christ,
Fr. Tim Roth
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