Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians - Way of Life Literature

He began meeting with a Catholic priest named MartinWolter at Alverna, a Franciscan retreat center in Indianapolis(now defunct).In 1978, he joined the Roman Catholic Church and withina year his parents followed his unwise example. He claimsthat God spoke to him and said: “She is my first Church, andI love her most dearly. But she has been sick and nearly died,but I am going to heal her and raise her to new life, and Iwant you to be a part of her” (Come to the Quiet, p. 7).Obviously this was a deluding spirit, because the firstchurches described in the Bible were nothing like the RomanCatholic Church. Peter was married. He did not operate as apope. He didn’t sit on a throne and live in a palace or wearspecial clothes and lord it over his brethren. In the earlychurches described in the New Testament there was nospecial ordained priesthood, no ceremony like the Mass, nohost, no monstrance, no bells, no incense, no tabernacle, noprayers to Mary, no special sainthood, no purgatory, nocardinals, no archbishops, no infant baptism, no holy relics.e same year he joined the Catholic Church, Talbotbecame a lay “brother” in the Secular Franciscan Order andbegan to live at Alverna as a hermit. He claims that he had apowerful mystical experience on the feast day of Mary’s(mythical) assumption into heaven. He was walking by theShrine to Our Lady of Lourdes with its statue of Mary and feltcalled to build a little shack nearby so that he could entercontemplative solitude.In 1982, he founded the Little Portion Hermitage in EurekaSprings, Arkansas, and in 1990 the Brothers and Sisters ofCharity was approved by the Catholic Church. is is “anintegrated monastic community of families, celibates andsingles,” and Talbot is “General Minister and Spiritual Father.”e community, which is formally recognized by the CatholicChurch, has about 40 members who live on the 250-acreproperty in Arkansas and another 500 nationwide.355