Contemplate the Christ

Intercede for the Needs of Others

Perform Acts of Kindness

Brother Tony suggests adopting the Scripture below:

"I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me, and that is why I am quite content with my weaknesses, and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for Christ's sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong."

(II Corinthians 12: 9-10)

Pray for others and attempt acts of selfless service

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Below: about the past

Formerly known as Brother John OHC in the monastic Anglican Order of the Holy Cross in West Park, New York, Tony converted to the Roman Catholic Church in 1961. He then became a Catholic layperson. Subsequently, he took again the monastic habit as Brother Tony on his fiftieth birthday, December 27, 1984, in St. Mary's Catholic Cathedral, Austin, Texas. The Rev. Joseph H. Frazer, Jr., Ph.D., pastor of Saint Margaret of Scotland Roman Catholic Church (Anglican Use) in Austin and Tony's spiritual director, invested Tony in the monastic habit and received his simple vows to a rule of life as a lay brother, with the permission of the Most Rev. Vincent M. Harris, D.D., bishop of the Diocese of Austin. At the time, Brother Tony was operating the Angels House soup kitchen and street ministry. Over the years, he has struggled to live a consecrated life despite difficulties with the world's system and temptations of the flesh. Throughout, he believes he is called to live as a solitary contemplative intercessor. His monastic habit consists of a gray tunic, a navy blue scapular, a gray capuche, and a bare pectoral cross of Brazilian hardwood. "In the final analysis," Brother Tony says, "What truly matters is not what a person wears around his or her body. What is of importance is whether a person puts on the Lord Jesus Christ! Wrap yourself in Jesus! It's the habit that wears well!"

"It is by grace you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything you have done, so nobody can claim any credit." (Ephesians 2: 8-9)

Tony wore a white monastic habit as a choir brother of the Anglican Order of the Holy Cross, West Park, New York. He is pictured when he was twenty-five years of age.

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Tony's Journal