Marycelis: 0:00
Sometimes in our life we can think that we only can bring just a little bit to the table and we see all the different things that are surrounding us and we don’t know how we can make a difference. But in Scripture the Lord always used humans. He always used our intercession and our actions to make glory. So even the small things that we think that we can add it can create a big movement.
Melissa: 0:30
This is For People with Bishop Rob Wright. Well, hello everyone. I’m Melissa Rau, your host, and this is For People with Bishop Rob Wright. Thanks for tuning in to this summer’s Summer Shorts, where we’ll be having conversations with guests from across the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, who prepared short devotions on behalf of Bishop Rob’s For Faith devotion, sent out every Friday. This week we’re joined Marycelis Otero, who happens to be a candidate for the Holy Orders of Priesthood with Holy Innocents’ in Sandy Springs, Marycelis, welcome.
Marycelis: 1:12
Good afternoon, good morning and blessings on every time that you want to hear us.
Melissa: 1:17
That’s great, you Marycelis, , before we get started. First of all, being a candidate for Holy Orders, for Fancy Talk, that means that Mary Sellis has discerned a call to ordained ministry and is being prepared, I believe at Candler, to become a priest in the Episcopal Church, and I’m pretty sure, edgar, your husband has been a guest on For
Marycelis: 1:53
Yes, I have been the Spanish voice of For Faith.
Melissa: 1:59
Yay. Marycelis, why don’t you tell us just a little bit about who you are, what brings you to the Diocese of Atlanta, and Holy Orders and all the things?
Marycelis: 2:10
Well, I am Puerto Rican. I’m born and raised in Puerto Rico. I moved to the States in 2007. And I grew up with the calling of becoming a priest for bringing Christ to our people and bringing his love to our nations. I am currently a senior at CanLearn like judges, just do like say, my first education. I have a bachelor’s in science of technologies of radio, television and communications. So the Lord has been moving me and preparing me in many ways, but the calling was always feed and surround and love all his people. So here I am.
Melissa: 2:54
I love it. You’re a mom of two boys.
Marycelis: 2:56
How old are they? I have an 18-year-old. His name is Iliam, he’s a senior and a 14 that thinks that he’s 48. And he’s a junior this year. So both my boys are going to the same high school together.
Melissa: 3:09
That’s very convenient. That’s great. Marycelis, thank you so much for joining us. Friends, mary Celis prepared a devotion that she calls gifts, based off of John, chapter six, verses 1 through 14, which is all about the feeding of the 5,000. And so your unique take on this you really pulled out and highlighted the fact that Jesus uses our gifts to make our gifts even more. That’s a very crude summary, I think, of what you wrote. Do you want to just share a little bit about what was on your heart when you were preparing your devotion?
Marycelis: 3:48
Sometimes in our life we can think that we only can bring just a little bit to the table and we see all the different things that are surrounding us and we don’t know how we can make a difference. But in scripture the Lord always used humans. He always used our intercession and our actions to make glory. So even the small things that we think that we can add, it can create a big movement and that can help and support the ones that are needed the most.
Marycelis: 4:23
So it’s important that we can understand that just the little things that we are, the little things that we have, it can be used greatly, because we never know how big the Lord has His plans with our gifts, and in other parts of the scripture it talks about how we’re going to be giving gifts and we need to invest them and multiply them, and that’s part also on this we are being given. Each one of us is special and is uniquely built in our mom’s womb and we are born with a calling and that calling is to come, support and surround everybody that comes around us. And we are born with a calling and that’s that calling is to come, support and surround everybody that comes around us, and I think that is the importance of us stepping into faith and allowing God to use the little that we have for the greater glory.
Melissa: 5:19
I love that. I love that so much. And if I, if I recall, just a couple of weeks ago I heard a sermon. Actually, it was given by my husband, who is also I love this, Both of us are married to priests and we’re both in discernment to also become priests, which is a really funny thing.
Marycelis: 5:39
I’m here with you, sister, I know, I know.
Melissa: 5:41
So he preached a sermon too and kind of highlighted I think it was the part of Mark that book ends, the feed, that Mark’s accounting of the feeding of the 5,000. And it’s where Jesus really didn’t have much power in his own, like he was a Nazareth, and then and then they crossed the the, the sea of Galilee, to go be by themselves for rest sake and prayer sake, and then of course the feeding of the 5,000 happened between the lectionary readings and they didn’t go into it because of course it shows up in John. I’m just I’m struck by Jesus’s inability and I don’t want to say inability, but really his power was diminished, I think, because belief has a lot of things to do with manifesting power to make miracles happen. I don’t know, At least that was the interpretation and I thought it was pretty cool. I’m curious about what you think about gifts. So you talk about investing in your gifts, and what gifts and belief, how they are related. How do gifts and belief go hand in hand?
Marycelis: 6:49
We have in our tradition of faith every Sunday we’re going to hear the phrase when we’re getting close to the Eucharist and when we are part of the Eucharistic part of the liturgy the gifts of God for the people of God, and sometimes we think that those gifts are merely the bread and the wine, but it’s everything that is given to us. So if you know how to do something, it’s your responsibility to do it right and to give it right. That gave me goosebumps. It has been given to you for free to be used upon your brothers and sisters that need you. So when you have a gift, like I, like many things I have, like the use of the ones, that are under your charge.
Melissa: 8:11
I love that. So you also talked about investing in gifts, and I’m curious about ways that you have seen the discernment of gifts go well in community.
Marycelis: 8:22
Yeah, so we are all together, but not together together. Let me let me I I I am a neurodivergent mind, so I have many ideas running at the same time. But imagine that you see a vine of grapes. All of them are together by the vine, but they’re separated on each one of them are together by the vine, but they’re separated on each one of them. So each one of them, just like the body, has a function, and if part of the body doesn’t function, or if part of the grape vine is not being taken care of, the rest suffer, the rest suffer.
Marycelis: 9:13
So when we are able to discover in community and when we are able to see that we do have that gift, it is important that we polish that and we make that work in a way that it could be useful. Like, for example, I have been speaking English since 2007. My way to invest in that, my way to be multilingual, is continually listening to new things so I can invest in bigger words, so I can invest and train my vocabulary so it could be used for the good of our people. I had a challenge myself, and my challenge is that I, because I am neurodivergent, I learn better by listening. So I challenged myself with an app that I have that, because we have 52 weeks, I’m going to listen to 52 books. Wow, because I want to invest in that and the gift that I have been receiving, that I have been given. I wanted to make it greater so I can help the ones that need me.
Melissa: 10:22
I love that, Marycelis. I want to talk more about expanding our gifts when we’re back after this short break.
Melissa: 10:47
Welcome back to For People. Maryc elis, let’s talk about the feeding of the 5,000, shall we like? I mean, to me, it’s always. I love miracle stories. I love all the miracle stories in the Bible, but this one’s kind of a good one, and I really love how you you kind of highlighted the fact that it’s gifts. You know, with our gifts are only made bigger. So I happen to understand that you right now are in what we call CPE, clinical pastoral education. It’s mandatory for people in the Episcopal church who become priests, and you’re walking alongside people and you don’t have to share their stories. I am curious, though, how you think, specifically, gifts are made greater with the power of faith and belief and hope in God specifically.
Marycelis: 11:43
One of my prayers during this process.
Marycelis: 11:45
I am on a trauma one hospital and I am running between three towers and each one of the towers has seven floors, and I also have a psychiatric hospital that is attached to it.
Marycelis: 12:00
I have been praying all this time that I’m able to see the face of Jesus and not be so preoccupied that I miss him.
Marycelis: 12:07
Able to see the face of Jesus and not be so preoccupied that I miss him, and it was scary at first, but I needed to be humble enough to bring myself and offer me. You never know what’s going to happen when you open the door and what situations are they’re going through, but we have to become an arc in which we can carry them through the process and we can be part of the solution of their issues. As soon as I close the doors, I take out my Episcopalian hat and I’m just vested on the blood of Jesus, and every single one of them is part of my kids, so they become my child and that mother love that is one of the things that I believe has helped me. People that know me know that one of the things that I love the most is being a mom to my sons, and my gift is giving that mother love when it’s needed, in the silence and in the sterile the sterile environment that you can encounter at a hospital.
Melissa: 13:25
Yeah. What miracles have you seen in your work using your gifts?
Marycelis: 13:32
Wow, I just encountered a birth today. Wow, we I cannot share most for that because of the HIPAA law, but I was. One of my floors is labor and delivery and I was blessed to be part of a birth of a baby. And it’s just the little things, it’s just the walking with them. I work with complicated births, with moms that have, you know, their babies have different issues, and it’s just walking day by day and just building that confidence until they allow me to be with them. So having that reassurance that, even though we have questions that we may never get answers, god is carrying us through the process.
Melissa: 14:32
Yeah, which leads me to my next question. Then you know, cpe can be pretty raw and, from what I understand, cpe folks are coming alongside patients and really providing them pastoral care in some of the most vulnerable and intimate settings, with loss and joy and difficult, difficult things right, but you’re with people at their most vulnerable. I’m curious what you think hope is about. Yes, how hope? Is hope necessary? Is hope coming within or is it a pouring into? Is it both? And how might we give others hope?
Marycelis: 15:24
Hope is a gift that is proof and is basically grown just like diamonds.
Marycelis: 15:37
We go through things in our lives and those things that are hard and they’re difficult prepare us to go and walk on the road, and I believe that those experiences, when you enter to the doors in a hospital setting, comes handy because they can allow you to look at the eyes of someone and say I have been in a position similar to you and I can make sure I make, let you know that you can do this.
Marycelis: 16:17
You know and and it’s just a part of of understanding that sometimes we go through things in life and we might not understand them at the moment, but years from now, years now, they’re going to be used for God’s glory. I have a lot of experience in my life that has made me the way I am, and I can tell you that one of the experiences that I can share is like seven days ago, I sit down with a woman that I have been waiting for for 15 years. Sit down with a woman that I have been waiting for for 15 years, and I was able to put a face to the pain that I endured and I was able to hold her hand and I was able to tell you. I went through the things that you’re going through. You’re going to make it. You’re going to make it.
Melissa: 17:14
You’re going to make it. I love that. I think one of my favorite lines in your devotion is this you said for what is given with love is pleasing in the eyes of God, and God will multiply the fruits of your hands, no matter how small you think they are. That’s kind of power right there. God will multiply the fruits of your hands, no matter how small you think they are, kind of like the boy in this story who has five loaves and two fish.
Marycelis: 17:46
That was a Lunchable of the time, so Lunchable.
Melissa: 17:51
I love that.
Marycelis: 17:52
He was with this little Lunchable.
Melissa: 17:53
It’s like okay, there you go so what does love have to do with it then?
Marycelis: 18:01
love is Jesus. You know, basically, I believe the entire gospel just resume in that word and we allowing love to grow within ourselves will make things possible, even when we don’t see it. It’s just like the size of the mustard seed. Like you know, granito de mostaza. You know, like we pray sometimes in church, the Lord will give force, will give strength to the one that doesn’t have it. Give force, will give strength to the one that doesn’t have it. So, just by following what he said, love your neighbor as yourself. By just adding love to the equation, by just remembering that we all come from the same energy, which is God, and one day we’re going to see one face to face with God. So by just adding that that love, like Jesus loved us, we can change this world.
Melissa: 19:02
Amen, Marycelis, , thank you. I am curious about how people discern their gifts and the process that you’re going through right now. How do you anticipate using your gifts to create maybe, even if they’re small, miracles in your future ministry? Is there a daily practice or something that you do to continue to discerning or investing in the gifts that are even like revealed to you in your discernment process?
Marycelis: 19:36
Every day I do my morning prayers, especially going through the hospital. There’s many not only physical battles, but there’s a lot of spiritual battles. You see the angel of life and death dancing around the hospital and that’s metaphorically. But it’s important to be ready and to be centered and to be prepared and also remember that every single Sunday and every single time that we have space, we can go to the table and dress ourselves and receive that holy communion, that holy bread and that holy blood that is going to be talked to in the other week, Because Jesus is that bread of life, that continuous relationship with God and just talking to Him and just surrounding yourself. Your good days and your not so good days is part of that process. You know, and it’s done better when you have a community of faith, when you surround yourself with people that loves on you and that also covers you in prayers. I am standing here because of the many people that love me and because of the many people that have been praying for me for years, because we are one family of faith.
Melissa: 21:06
Amen to that. And Marycelis, I am so grateful for you. I’m grateful for the many ministries that you bring to life. I’m especially grateful for the ways that you help for faith come alive through your great translation, all of the gifts that you bring to the Diocese of Atlanta and this entire Episcopal Church. I’m grateful for you and all the things. Thank you so much for joining us and listeners. We’re grateful to you for tuning in to Four People. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Rob Wright. Please subscribe, leave a review and we’ll be back with you next week.
