Chaplin

Rev. Catherine Cathy BoydMeet The Rev. Catherine “Cathy” Boyd, Chaplain for Triennial Meeting 2018

[After writing this, Cathy Boyd accepted a call from outside the Diocese of Texas. She is now rector of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Williamsburg, Virginia.]

I am a lifelong Episcopalian who started to sense a call to the priesthood when I was about 12, although it took me another 30 years to start seminary. The eldest of three girls, I grew up in a close, hilarious family where–it has been said–conversation was a competitive sport. Until after college, I lived my whole life in beautiful Missouri, and am a proud graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. It was in college that I discovered the joy of coffeehouse performing, and making music with my friends (as St. Willie Nelson says) is one of the finest things I know.

My ministry and the life of faith are inseparable to me (it’s not just a job), and I am so grateful to have been brought home to this vocation. In addition, my own path to the priesthood is woven tightly with my life as a clergy spouse; my husband David has recently retired after 30 years as a parish priest in Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Texas. Forming the third strand braided into my life is my vocation as a mother of two wonderful human beings, Clare (a 30-year-old graduate student in Shakespeare) and Marc (a 24-year-old student of improv comedy.)

Over the course of professional ministry, my favorite times have been spent in retreat and fellowship times with clergy spouses and women’s groups. I love opportunities for small-group spiritual conversation. When we make these spaces in our busy lives, the Holy Spirit is revealed and we see Christ’s love for us in the face of others. I am honored and thrilled to be Triennial chaplain, and can’t wait to see what God has in store for us.