Holy Family Cathedral Welcomes Deacon J Thomas!

This summer, Holy Family Cathedral was pleased to welcome Deacon J Thomas and his family to our faith community! Deacon Thomas joined us following his ordination to the permanent diaconate on July 18. With a deep love and respect for the vocations of marriage and family, Deacon Thomas especially enjoys serving the Church by preparing the faithful for the Sacraments of Holy Matrimony and Baptism.

Deacon Thomas was born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas in a Baptist family. He was first seriously introduced to the Catholic faith when he was a student in the Physician Assistant program at the University of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City. There, he met and began dating Kelsie, a practicing Catholic. When he mentioned that he would like to start attending Mass with her, Kelsie told him to choose from any of the local parishes, mentioning that the liturgy and readings would be the same at each one.

For Deacon Thomas, learning that the celebration of Mass is consistent among Catholic churches was a watershed moment.

“I think it has to do with my nomadic experience growing up,” he says. “My father was an electrician, so we moved every four or five years to follow the work. In doing so, we would go to different Baptist churches and I would see the Scriptures discussed or interpreted differently, and the dynamic of each place would be so different in personality and preaching style. So I wouldn’t have been able to put a name to it then, but in the moment when Kelsie said that, it showed that something was greater here than just this option or that option.”

Deacon Thomas went through the RCIA process and was received into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil Mass on April 3, 1999. The next month, he and Kelsie were married at Holy Family Cathedral. Deacon Thomas had received four sacraments within a month’s time — Baptism, First Holy Communion, Confirmation and Holy Matrimony — and has felt truly at home in the Church ever since. When the couple moved from Oklahoma City to Tulsa, they became parishioners at St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

About 10 years ago, Deacon Thomas first began feeling a “silent nudge” toward the permanent diaconate, further inspired by the servant’s heart he witnessed in a family friend, Deacon Alan Mikell. Deacon Thomas feels a special devotion to marriage and family life and sees the permanent diaconate as a wonderful way to serve couples and families in the Church. And as a husband and father of five children, ranging in age from 4 to 21, he certainly has a lot of personal experience to draw from as well!

“I love sharing the beauty, joy and depth of the teaching of marriage with the young engaged couples in the early stages of their relationship — showing them that it takes three, with Christ being the third, and embracing that and the joys that will come from that,” Deacon Thomas says. “I also enjoy helping parents prepare themselves for their child’s Baptism and just seeing the beauty and power in that. I hope that in preparing for those two events, I’m really helping them continue to live a life of our faith.”

Throughout his formation to the diaconate, Deacon Thomas’s wife, Kelsie, has been an unfailing support. Here at Holy Family Cathedral, she will also be devoting her time and talent to helping our parish families as she coordinates the Restored Order Sacramental Preparation Program.

Having discovered as an adult the immense beauty of the sacraments of our Church, Deacon Thomas encourages all of the faithful to remain close to these spiritual graces.

“For as long as I can remember, I always loved our Lord and knew that our salvation was through Jesus,” he says. “It was in a very Baptist way, focused on my relationship with Him and all other things aside, but I think even as a child I had an inkling or even a hope that there was something more to it than that. It wasn’t until I became Catholic and was living the faith that I realized and truly appreciated that having a personal relationship with Jesus is having a life in the sacraments. I would encourage everyone to cling to the sacraments, especially Reconciliation and the sacrifice of the Holy Mass and reception of the Eucharist, just as often as we can.”

In his first months here at Holy Family Cathedral, Deacon Thomas has been thankful for our beautiful and reverent liturgies, and our welcoming and loving parishioners. He feels blessed to be called to serve our faith community and looks forward to getting to know all of our parishioners well in the months to come!

“Holy Family Cathedral has always been a very inspiring place where people are visibly living the faith,” he says. “I hope that I can also be an example of a good steward of all things and be able to share practical ways to live the faith in all aspects of our lives so that we can truly be the disciples that we are called to be.”