Leadership

St. Thomas Welcomes The Rev. Martha Camele as our new Curate & Diocesan Priest-in-Residence

The Priest Residency program is an intentional two-year fellowship of the Diocese of Southern Ohio, whereby a newly ordained priest is matched and placed with congregation identified as a teaching-parish with the Rector serving as a mentor along with a support community to further enhance learning goals and objectives in the start of a new career as a priest.

Hello! I am excited to meet all of you soon. I was recently ordained to the Priesthood at Christ Church Cathedral on June 10, 2023. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to serve as your first Diocesan Priest-in-Residence at St. Thomas Episcopal Church for the next two years. Let me share just a little about myself and my journey, ahead of us meeting, in person, in a couple of weeks. First and foremost, please feel free to call me Martha.

I grew up in Loveland Ohio, just around the corner and down the road from Terrace Park. My parents and older sister still live in Loveland, while I currently live in the Pleasant Ridge area of Cincinnati. I was baptized and raised in the Roman Catholic Church and my father was ordained in the first permanent diaconate class in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati when I was in Junior High. So in a real sense I grew up around the Seminary and the Church from a very young age. I did not dream, however, that I too would one day be ordained. I grew up surrounded by the Church’s liturgy and I have loved it since early childhood. When I left the Roman Catholic Church in 2011, coming to the Episcopal Church, I knew that I needed the liturgy and was so grateful to find it here in what seemed a more complete and expansive way that was life-giving, and I knew I was home!

I retired from the Public Library of Cincinnati in December 2012, after thirty years of employment; the last ten years as a Teen Librarian in Blue Ash and then at the Main Library, downtown. It was in those years that I first began to understand what “Ministry” meant. The relationships with our young patrons were about more than providing materials, and resources; it was about walking alongside, as the teens were growing into evolving identities, as they were moving from childhood to young adulthood. It was where I began to understand that we all have ministerial roles to play in relationship with each other, and that they are each uniquely vital and important. As the time neared for me to retire, I started to begin exploring and discerning what would be next in my life and the sense of calling to priesthood began to grow stronger.

I chose Bexley Seabury as my seminary, because they had a program that centered around the idea that faith and ministry involves all of us; it is the right and responsibility of each of us to minister to, and to be ministered by each of us, in equally important ways. Bexley Seabury taught me that ministry is not a hierarchical system, but a community relationship fostering mutual ministry. An integral part of my education was two years of field-education at St. James, Westwood with a Lay Committee who helped teach me what this form of ministry
might look like. As I start my Priesthood, I look forward to continuing to explore ways that I can participate in the ministry is happening here at St. Thomas!

Until we meet in person, may the Love of Christ be with you.

The Rev. Martha Camele +