Welcome and Many Blessings! I am very honored that you chose to visit my Web site. St.Mary's-by-the-Woods is an independent, semi-eremitical expression of spirituality. I am an ordained minister with the Church of Interfaith Christians. I am also affiliated with The St.Benedict Interfaith Christian Fellowship (which is part of the Reformed Catholic Church of New England).

What is semi-eremiticism? It means being both in the world and not of the world. It means taking time alone to connect with my inner being and seeking the divine within. It also means living an authentic life with real cares and worries, but believing that Universal Divinity is present in all one does.

My work at St.Mary's-by-the-Woods does not seek a congregation nor does it need a building for religious services. That, too, is being semi-eremitical. The whole world, surrounded by the canopy of the sky, is the cathedral in which I worship.

Through my ordination as an Independent Catholic Priest, I seek to serve God is a myriad of ways while keeping true to my semi-eremitical calling. As an Anglo-Universalist, I combine the Liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer with a Universalist Theology which was supported by the early church in the first 500 years of it's existence.

For more information, please take the time to visit my blog (St.Mary's-by-the-Woods) which has a link on this page. Thank you so much for visiting and Many Blessings.

The Rev.Thomas P. Gilbert