Christ Before Me
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Reflections on Ordination Weekend
Full of Paradoxes
Everyone said, “Be as present as possible” and “try not to be nervous.” I worried neither of those things would happen. I told friends I was most worried about the blessings afterwards. There were 1 million details swirling in my mind and heart. What if I just forgot all the words?
From the moment I walked into the cathedral Saturday morning, my heart was beating out of my chest, but it wasn’t nerves. It was sheer excitement, joy, and disbelief that this day had come. Looking back now, it feels like a dream, but the most vivid one I’ve ever had in my life, where every detail is etched into my memory. 
From the first notes of the processional hymn, which is the hymn that is most meaningful to me, and I had no idea would be playing, tears constantly streamed down my face. All I felt was God smile over me and the spirit ever present around me. Every interaction, every prayer, every moment felt like being carried by the spirit. The words of the blessings poured through me; they were not from me.
It was just as everyone said, and also nothing like anyone said it would be. Today and forevermore now, I am a priest of Christ’s Church. Thanks be to God and to every single person who walked with me and continues with me today. You know who you are. I love you.
A Reminder of What the Altar is For
People often ask a newly ordained priest what moment they'll remember most from celebrating their first Eucharist. Many priests say it's the first time elevating the bread or breaking it at the altar.
Those moments were sacred. But they weren't the ones that surprised me. The moments that remain etched in my heart happened away from the altar.
They happened when the children came running in from Children's Chapel during the Peace, wrapping me in hugs and handing me handmade cards that read, "Welcome," and "I love you, Mother Nicole." Some had known me as Ms. Nicole. Some were meeting me for the very first time. Yet every one of them simply received me as their priest.
They happened at coffee hour, where I never actually made it to the table where my family was sitting—or to the plate of food someone had thoughtfully saved for me—because person after person came to embrace me, introduce themselves, share their stories, and welcome me home.
What surprised me most wasn't standing at the altar. It was realizing, in a new way, what the altar is for.
There, Christ gathers us around bread and wine, but not simply so that one person can preside. Around that table, each of us brings the gifts we've been given. Mine happen to include priesthood. Yours are just as necessary. Together we become what we behold: the Body of Christ, the continuing incarnation of Christ's love in the world.
That was the gift of Sunday. Not simply that I presided at the Eucharist for the first time at St. Paul's, but that I was reminded, so tangibly, that none of us ministers alone. We belong to one another. We are being formed together into the life of Christ.
My heart is so full. Thank you, St. Paul's, for welcoming me with such extraordinary love
The Family That Chooses Us
Some of my favorite moments of ordination weekend didn't happen in the sanctuary. They happened around dinner tables, in church lobbies, and in my living room.
Just as what stood out most to me on my first Sunday as a priest was the embrace of community, so it was throughout the entire weekend.
On Saturday, I was surrounded by love from seminary classmates, fellow clergy, and scholars. Immediately, I found myself welcomed not as a student anymore, but as a colleague, encouraged to call, text, or reach out whenever I needed wisdom from those who have walked this path for decades before me.
My college best friends drove for hours to be there, despite busy summers and tired children. Missing this day was never an option for them. They have shown up for every milestone of my adult life, and their presence reminded me that vocation is never walked alone.
And then there were the mentors who have shaped me so deeply. Some spent hours in conversation with me in the days leading up to ordination. One even flew across the country just to stand beside me.
The two priests who presented me to the Bishop represent the contemplative life that has become the heartbeat of my own ministry. One introduced me to the other, and in many ways, they are complete opposites. Yet both have taught me, in their own distinct ways, to become more attentive to Christ's presence in the world and to accompany others into that same awareness.
These are the kinds of people who become family in what feels like an instant. Their friendship, guidance, and faithfulness have been gifts beyond measure. Thank you, Vincent and Stuart, for being Christ to me these past few years—and especially throughout these sacred days. I will carry your friendship with deep gratitude and am excited to see how our ministries continue to support and enrich each others.
The Land of My Heart
My final reflection from ordination weekend is about South Asia.
People outside my story may not fully understand how deeply my love for South Asia and the Middle East runs—how much those places feel like home to me.
I first fell in love with India through dance and music, through Bollywood and color, through the hospitality of the Indian community in New Orleans, through the love of my Bharatanatyam guru, and, of course, through Shah Rukh Khan.
But then I stepped onto the soil of Mother India and encountered the astonishing microcosm that is South Asia: poverty and abundance side by side, darkness and light, profound sorrow and unmistakable joy, hundreds of languages, temples and mosques and churches and ancient ruins existing alongside soaring modern cities.
Then God expanded my love across the Muslim world, and my eyes opened to even more hospitality, history, beauty, and complexity. Asia rooted itself deeply into my soul. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that my soul woke up to a part of itself that had always been there, waiting.
Living in Bangladesh for two years cracked me wide open.
The Bengali people are proud and resourceful, resilient and fiercely determined in ways I had never encountered before. And that tiny river delta tattooed herself onto my heart. I ache to return to her, even as I know my calling is here. I will always belong, in some mysterious way, to a part of the world that adopted me as one of its own.
So I knew I had to carry Bangladesh with me into this next step of my vocation. The gold earrings I wore at the altar were a gift from my best friend in Bangladesh. They caught the light throughout the liturgy.
I worried a bit if my chasuble would stand out because it was unlike anyone else's.
It did. And I'm so grateful it did.
The red side was handcrafted from a red silk sari in Bangladesh by Basha, a social enterprise founded by a friend in Dhaka. "Basha" means "home" in Bangla, and that feels exactly right. Basha creates beautiful textiles while providing dignified employment and new beginnings for women through the transformation of recycled and locally sourced materials. I've loved and supported their work for years, and wearing something they created felt like bringing a piece of Bangladesh to the altar with me.
When it arrived, I knew it needed a little more weight and presence. So I asked my friend Elizabeth, who has walked beside me for twenty-five years and even visited us while we lived in Bangladesh, to tailor it. She understood what that country had come to mean to me. She found a vintage green Indian sari to line it, creating a reversible chasuble that I can also wear throughout the long green season of Ordinary Time.
I didn't realize the symbolism until the day I tried it on. My daughter looked at me and said, "Mom...it's the colors of the flag."
She was right. The green of the land. The red recalls the blood of those who gave their lives in Bangladesh's struggle for independence. I hadn't planned it. But somehow it was fitting.
My priesthood began carrying the places that have formed me, the people who enlarged my heart, the friendships that became family, the land that still calls to me, and the God who has always been present in every border crossing, every welcome, every home I have found.
Bangladesh has become part of my faith, part of my vocation, and part of who I am. And now, she is stitched into the very garment I wear to stand at God's altar.
Christ Before Me
There are a hundred little stories from my ordination weekend that I could tell—moments of deep joy I will carry with me for years and quiet moments of synchronicity in which God seemed, quite simply, to be delighting in reminding me that I was exactly where I was meant to be.
I’ll probably spend much of the summer continuing to process those Spirit-filled days. But when I think back over the weekend as a whole—from the dream the night before, to the Cathedral, to my first sermon as a priest—one thread seems to weave through it all.
For several years now, a prayer and the hymn based upon it have quietly followed me.
It wasn’t a hymn I ever especially loved, and St. Patrick wasn’t a saint I naturally gravitated toward. Yet again and again the words found me. During my doctoral research into contemplative communities. During retreats. In conversations. In moments when I was wrestling with fear and discernment. Eventually, I stopped dismissing the pattern and began paying attention. (I made this fun little video with my favorite versions of this song, along with photos from my five-year discernment process).
As I prepared my first sermon as a priest, I knew I wanted to preach on St. Patrick’s Breastplate. I asked our choir director if we could sing I Bind Unto Myself Today, and I built my sermon around the simple but profound truth at the heart of that ancient prayer: Christ before me. Christ behind me. Christ beside me. Christ within me.
Then, moments before the procession into the Cathedral, while standing with my family, mentors, and those who would accompany me as I took vows I hope to spend the rest of my life growing into, I heard the opening notes of the processional hymn.
It was I Bind Unto Myself Today.
I wish someone had captured my face as surprise gave way to laughter and tears. It felt like one of those deeply personal gifts God occasionally gives, not because we need proof, but because love delights in reassurance.
As I processed into the priesthood to the very hymn I would preach from the next morning, I could only smile at the gentle reminder: “You are exactly where you are meant to be. Do not be afraid.”
A few days later, while recounting the weekend to my spiritual director, tears welling up in both our eyes, she observed that every story seemed to circle around the same theme. Again and again Christ had gone before me, inviting me toward what naturally frightens me, not by removing fear, but by meeting me within it.
Looking back now, I realize that it became the true gift of ordination weekend. And it became the heart of my first sermon as a priest.
The following sermon was preached on June 21, 2026, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Newnan, Georgia, on the occasion of my first Sunday serving as a priest.
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