But Hashem (blessed be He, and He certainly is blessed, even when He’s being very mysterious) has a sense of humour. A big one. And He’s got time. Eternity, in fact. He lets you wander, kvetch, wrestle like Jacob, and then—boom—He drops a burning bush in your lap just when you’re about to give up and buy a midlife crisis motorcycle.
I was born with a Jewish soul and a Catholic heart, which is already confusing enough to send your average rabbi into a three-day study session. I grew up with the sound of the Psalms in one ear and the voice of my mother in the other—usually reading something gloriously tragic, like The Lady of Shalott, while the pot roast simmered and the world outside did what it does best: misunderstand us.
My mother and my Aunty Faye were spiritual lionesses. Aunty Faye at 83, mind you—she up and became Catholic. So did her daughter Caroline, her granddaughter Natasha, and Natasha’s four lively children, all of whom I was blessed to be their sponsors. That family had more generations entering the Church at once than the cast of Fiddler on the Roof could fit on a stage. But we did it. We really did it. We said yes. And Aunty Faye, until she died at 88, prayed the Rosary with Caroline like it was holding the world together—which it was, at least for us.
Now, I didn’t slide into religious life like a nice piece of lox on a bagel. No, no. I fought. I resisted. I flailed like a man thrown into the Red Sea without a paddle. "You’ll be like a wandering bird cast out of the nest," someone told me in the 1980s, which sounded poetic until I realised it was also true and deeply inconvenient.
In my 20s, someone said I’d be a troubadour—a troubadour! I thought, what is this, medieval France? They also said trouble-shooter, which felt more realistic. I had a knack for stirring the pot (both liturgical and literal), for asking questions that made people shift in their pews, and for dreaming dreams that smelled like incense and tasted like hummus.
By 41 (right on cue), I discovered the writings of Luisa Piccarreta and the Divine Will. That’s when God stopped playing chess and flipped the board. Suddenly, I saw the whole picture—though, being Jewish, I naturally assumed it was a trick at first.
But no. It was real.
In 2010, I took my vows as a consecrated brother. Not a priest, not a monk, not a married man (oy, don’t ask)—but something stranger and more beautiful. A Little Eucharistic Brother of Divine Will. Try fitting that on a business card.
The early days were tough. The kind of tough that makes you wonder if you accidentally joined the SAS. But slowly, grace crept in like the smell of challah baking on a Friday afternoon. In 2015, Brother Stephen Joseph joined us—an older man from Sydney who left the world of managing big department stores to wear a habit and clean our chapel floor. He was a mensch. A real one.
We moved to Tasmania—the end of the world, as far as the map goes. Down in a hidden valley near Dover, 21 acres of peace and brambles and wombats. We called it St Joseph’s Hidden Place. And it is. Hidden. But glowing with presence.
Brother John Joseph, the youngest of us, made his life vows in 2020 at our little church, St Mary Our Hope. He was ordained deacon in 2022 and priest in 2023 by Archbishop Porteous. A young Catholic priest from the ends of the earth! What can I say? We raise them right.
In 2021, our little band was formally recognised as a Public Association of Christ’s Faithful. I was named Moderator. Me! The same guy who thought the Rosary was for idolaters in the ‘80s. Ha! I now lead the Rosary with more devotion than a rabbi with his Siddur on Yom Kippor.
Over the years, my devotion to Our Lady has grown so deep it could make St Bernard of Clairvaux weep into his wine: “Of Mary, never enough!” I teach that the Zohar, the mystical heart of Jewish Torah commentary, is a love letter to the Virgin. And I stand by it. Mary is our Jewish mother, Queen of Heaven, wrapped in mystery and maternal fury, like a good Sabra.
And Joseph—ah, St Joseph! The quiet tzaddik of Nazareth. My devotion to him bloomed thanks to Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, who taught me that the tzaddik is both the bridge and the compass. Now, all of our brothers take Joseph as one of their religious names. A brotherhood of Josephs! We joke that our mailman’s confused. But we don’t care.
I'm also part of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross—the one person in Tasmania, at the time, to join it. Monsignor Harry said I was the sole Ordinariate member on the whole island. I told him, “Like Elijah on Mount Carmel, I stand alone—but with excellent liturgy.”
I’ve got degrees too. Lots of them. B.A. in History, English, Music. Theology degrees. Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Greek. Torah study in Jerusalem. Teaching in Australia and Thailand. What does it all mean? Honestly, I think it just makes me good at answering obscure questions and finding the best hummus in a 20-kilometre radius.
And now? Now I’m just the Littlest Brother of them all—literally, that’s my title. The Littlest Brother. The bogan boy from Western Australia, teaching about Mary in the Zohar, making charoset for the Havurah Passover, and praying in three languages before breakfast.
I live a life hidden, in a hidden place, in the Hidden Will of God. And believe me when I say: it’s the happiest I’ve ever been.
“The Littlest Brother: Hidden in Tasmania, Loud in Heaven” – Part II
So there I was—living in a hidden valley in southern Tasmania, surrounded by wallabies, rosary beads, and more sacred books than the library of Alexandria (but thankfully fewer fires). You’d think that would be quiet, peaceful, meditative—and it is—but oy vey, it’s also a bit like being the manager of a spiritual kibbutz that keeps getting unexpected visitors from Heaven and the occasional possum in the chapel.
People ask me, “What’s it like, being a Hebrew Catholic Brother in the back-end of the world?” I tell them: it’s like Moses, Elijah, and Teresa of Avila all moved into a cottage together and tried to plan a Passover Seder while praying the Divine Office. In Aramaic. With Gregorian chant.
We live simply: gardening, praying, baking, studying, trying to keep the possums and wallabies out of the vegetable patch. But the soul! Oh, the soul—it soars here. And when it doesn’t soar, it sighs beautifully. As my Aunt Faye would say, “A soul that doesn’t sigh is either sleeping or plotting something.”
Now, you should know something about us Little Eucharistic Brothers of Divine Will. We may be little—but we’re not small. We dream big, we love deep, and we’re not afraid of a little theological wrestling match (especially if there’s tea or wine afterwards). Our daily life is a tapestry of Carmelite silence, Franciscan joy, and Hebrew rhythm—plus a dash of shtetl chaos whenever someone forgets where they put the incense.
Each of us has a Joseph name, as I said. Why? Because like our ancestor Yosef haTzaddik, we are dreamers, protectors, interpreters of mysteries. And like Joseph of Nazareth, we live in the shadows—but the holy kind. The kind that shelter stars.
Now let’s talk about Brother John Joseph. He came to us young, bright-eyed, with the kind of burning zeal that could light the Shabbat candles without a match. He studied hard, prayed harder, and carried the joy of the Gospel like it was a family secret he couldn’t wait to share. In 2020, on the Feast of Our Lady of Mt Carmel, he made his final vows. The church was packed (well, as packed as a pandemic church can be), and the joy was so thick in the air, you could slice it and serve it on a challah roll.
He became a deacon in 2022, then a priest in 2023—both times ordained by the wonderfully brave and gracious Archbishop Porteous, who probably wondered at times if he was accidentally founding a new rabbinical order. Brother John Joseph now serves as the Catholic Chaplain at the University of Tasmania, and the students adore him. Why? Because he’s authentic. He prays like a monk and listens like a Hasidic rebbe at a Friday tisch.
And then there’s Brother Stephen Joseph—our elder statesman, the one who once managed retail stores but now manages...well, mostly prayer candles, unexpected visitors and all the out side and physical work. He came to us in 2015, and from the start, he was like a holy grandfather who’d seen the world, then decided the world needed more Rosaries and fewer spreadsheets. He made his final vows in 2022, and let me tell you: the joy on his face could have lit up the Jerusalem skyline. We mis shim more each day since he died suddenly last year at the age of 70.
In 2021, the Archbishop officially recognised us as a Public Association of Christ’s Faithful. That meant, in Heaven’s ledger and Hobart’s diocesan paperwork, we were real. We were no longer a rumour. We were official, Baruch Hashem. And I—little me!—was appointed the Moderator. Which is really just a Catholic way of saying the guy who signs things, finds lost books, and occasionally tells people to stop arguing about Aquinas over breakfast.
Outside the valley, I wear many hats. I’m a member of the Ordinariate (the only one in Tasmania—still waiting for the others to arrive... maybe they took a wrong turn in Melbourne), I serve on the Advisory Board for the Association of Hebrew Catholics, and I’m the Co-ordinator of the Huon Valley Divine Will group and the Bnei Miriam Havurah. Our Havurah is a wild, beautiful mix of Jewish-Catholic souls who study Torah, Zohar, the Catechism, the Mystics, and somehow manage to have tea and cake before midnight.
Yes, we’re serious. Yes, we pray. But let me tell you, we also laugh. Because a Hebrew Catholic who doesn’t laugh is like a dreidel with no spin—too much gravity, not enough joy.
And joy is the key, isn’t it? Not the sugary, sitcom kind. But the fierce, holy kind—the joy that dances at the edge of tears, that knows exile and return, silence and song, darkness and dawn.
That’s the joy I live now. That’s the joy I never had before. And every day, I wake up to it.
I once ran wild like a white horse, unbridled, wounded. But now I run straight and free—bridle or no bridle. That’s what the monk saw when he prayed over me all those years ago. And he was right.
Because here I am.
A brother. A little one. Living at the edge of the world, laughing with God in three languages, and lighting candles in the dark.
“The Littlest Brother: Secrets of the Hidden Flame” – Part III
Now listen, friend, and lean in close, because here’s where things really get mystical — and a little mad, in that holy, fire-touched way that makes prophets weep and angels whisper. You see, once a person gives themselves over to the Divine Will — really surrenders, like Isaac on the altar or Miriam at the sea’s edge — something begins to happen. Time stretches. Words deepen. You look at a rose and suddenly you’re seeing the Burning Bush.
And for me, that door — that narrow, hidden door — was opened by a Lady.
Of Mary, Never Enough!
That’s not just St. Bernard’s cry. It’s mine. It’s ours. I came to Mary not as a child skipping to school, but like a yeshiva bocher stumbling out of exile, weary, wounded, and wondering if She’d even remember me.
She did. Of course She did.
My devotion to Our Lady — the hidden Daughter of Zion, the Jewish Mother of the Messiah, the Ark of the Covenant cloaked in Nazareth dust — grew like fire in dry wood. She was there in the Psalms. She was there in the whispers of the Zohar, veiled and luminous, a Shekhinah in exile. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise — the Zohar is a Marian book. I taught it in classes. I wrote about it on blogs. But even now, I barely scratch the surface.
Because once you see Her face — not with these eyes, no — but with the eyes of the soul? You are never the same. Never.
And beside Her? Always, always, her holy husband, the silent guardian, the protector of mysteries — Yosef haTzaddik. Saint Joseph.
What began as a gentle respect for the carpenter-saint became an all-consuming fire, especially as I immersed myself in the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, that holy madman of joy and paradox. Rebbe Nachman and Saint Joseph — now that’s a chevruta I’d like to listen in on. One speaks in riddles and brokenness, the other says nothing and holds the Child-God in his arms.
And that’s why every brother in our little community bears the name Joseph — not out of custom, but out of prophecy. For in this generation of confusion and fatherlessness, we need more Josephs. Guardians of silence. Men who dream dreams and raise the Messiah in hidden homes.
I love the titles of our Messiah as son of Joseph and son of David. Names that ties together the suffering tzaddik and the singing king, the dreamer and the dancer, the protector and the poet. And maybe — just maybe — I am all of those things, on my best days.
My Jewish heart was nourished, too, by my beloved Mother and Aunty Faye (may her memory be for a blessing), both with eyes like flames and hearts like menorahs. They kept the spark alive in me. My mother was engraved on my heart— her dignity, her mystical soul, her way of seeing the world not in grey, but in sacramental colour. These are the Jewish matriarchs of my heart — and what a holy chutzpah they had! If you crossed them, they’d straighten your theology with a wooden spoon and have you weeping over Isaiah by tea-time.
And now, here I am: a little brother in a hidden valley, speaking Hebrew with the angels and Aramaic with the possums. I walk between worlds — Catholic and Jewish, Carmelite and Hasidic, Gothic and golden. And I tell people the truth, whispered through the olive branches of time:
The House of Nazareth is not lost.
It lives in eternity.
It waits for those who remember the Circle —
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph —
Before the beginning, and beyond the end.
I teach this. I live this. I host seders, I lead the Bnei Miriam Havurah, I study Torah by candlelight and pray the Divine Will in all seasons. I’m on advisory boards, I share wine and coffee with friends of all or no faiths, I laugh at the jokes of the Zohar and cry over the Hours of the Passion.
And every now and then, I think of my younger self, spinning in circles, seeking, sighing, singing. I want to tell him:
“Don’t worry. It’s going to get weirder. But it’s going to get better.
You’ll find your home, not in a place, but in a Flame.
And there, in the hidden valley,
You’ll become the littlest brother —
And the happiest you’ve ever been.”