“God has opened the doors.”
Throughout The Rev. Patricia Orlando’s path to ordination as a priest and her ministry in The Episcopal Church, this truth stands out. Her ordination service on Sunday afternoon, May 22, 2022, at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, celebrated not only the event but the great things God has done to help her reach this sacred point.
With wide-open doors that include a priest she had only just met telling her she would one day be ordained in The Episcopal Church; an anonymous benefactor offering to underwrite her entire seminary education after a prayer for provision; a vision of people laying hands on her head; a job as a hospice chaplain that she hadn’t requested; a hospice patient’s wife telling her she had a “mother ministry”; and service at two diocesan churches – Incarnation, Oviedo, and the Cathedral of St. Luke – this new priest knows God has prepared the way for her ministry.
God also opened doors for Orlando’s ministry via the caring friends and family who helped along the way. “It’s not a ‘me’ journey, but a ‘we’ journey,'” Orlando said, giving special honor to her husband, Michael Orlando, a technical director for business shows.
“It’s our call,” she said of her vocation. “As a woman, I wasn’t encouraged as a young person to be anything, and Michael’s the one who has always encouraged me. I am so grateful to him for being the man of faith that he is.”
The Rt. Rev. Gregory O. Brewer, preacher and officiant at Orlando’s ordination service, described the way Christ’s finished work will continue to open doors for her ministry, a truth proclaimed in the Gospel reading, John 10:11-18, read by The Rev. Rose Sapp-Bax. Emphasizing the benefit of being ordained during the Easter season, Brewer explained, “Everything that we say that we believe is predicated on the power that Jesus released when he was resurrected from the dead.”
Brewer found additional open doors for ministry in the Old Testament reading from Isaiah 6:1-8, powerfully rendered by The Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Frymire, associate professor of homiletics at Asbury Theological Seminary.
“You see, the glory of that story is what gets imparted to Isaiah changed him,” Brewer said. “And it was out of the power that was imparted that allowed him to say, ‘Here I am, send me.'”
The bishop also spent time describing the attitude underlying ministry found in 1 Peter 1:5-11, the New Testament reading shared by Ms. Virginia Knowles. Referencing a line from a song by gospel artist Tauren Wells that reads, “You’re melting my plastic heart,” Brewer emphasized the power of humility and transparency in transforming hearts for the gospel.
“When that love gets transmitted from one life into another in a way that draws them into the presence of Christ in a deeper and more profound way, that’s priesthood,” Brewer said.
“Take the risks,” he charged Orlando. “Step out front; say as was said about you in the Isaiah reading, ‘Here I am, send me.’ And know that through your frail hands, through your often-frightened spirit, through your determination, the nail-scarred hands of Jesus manifest themselves. And may God use you that others may be healed. Amen.”
Orlando, who has served since last summer as director of pastoral care for the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, said her ministry includes preaching and Eucharistic duties, hospital and nursing home visitation, assembling and training a volunteer pastoral care team, helping her husband assemble a church directory and more. As to the future, “I don’t see any reason for me to try to figure it out,” she said. “Because God will open a door, whatever that is. … he says, ‘I’ve got plans. And you just follow my lead.'”