ONE PERSISTENT DESIRE

Family Background

I was born and raised in Nassau, Bahamas. My parents, Herbert and Majorie Treco were both born and raised on Long Island in The Bahamas. They were baptized, confirmed and married within the Anglican Church. Although they attended church every Sunday throughout their childhood and young adult years, today they describe themselves as nominal Christians. In the mid-1950’s mom and dad both became born again Christians. Since that time they have lived consistently as devout Evangelical Protestants.

For many years, my father served as the leading Elder within Grace Community Church, the Plymouth Brethren congregation to which we belonged. My mother has assisted and led many evangelistic, catechetical and social ministries within the congregation. Together, they sought to nurture a love for Christ in the hearts of each of their eight children.

My parents have ten children: Gregory Daniel Treco (1952; Wife – Ola Mae Treco nee Matheny), Ramona Marjorie Treco Peet (1953; Husband – Cyril Ira Peet), Jacquelyn Grace Treco (1954 – Deceased), Joy Margarita Treco Coleby (1955; Husband – Gregory Coleby), Herbert Ricardo Glenmore Treco (1957; Wife – Jennifer Treco nee Knowles), David Jonathan Treco (1958 – Deceased), Melodie Erenie Treco Hanna (1960; Husband – Leroy Hanna), Timothy Appolos Treco (1961; Wife – Linda Treco nee Burrows), Vaughn Andrew Treco (1962; Wife – Norma Lorraine Treco nee Turner) and Daneen Petita Southworth Treco (1964; Husband – Robert Southworth).


Early Christian Experience

I grew up in a devout Evangelical Christian home. Our family life was characterized by a consistent desire to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. Each morning my parents would awaken us for a time of Bible reading and family prayer. Frequently, my mother would gather the younger children about her and tell us stories of the saints of the Old and New Testament. Spiritual, moral and theological themes were center stage at many of our family meals. Each family gatherings was begun with prayer and more often than not, they closed with prayer.

Throughout my childhood I was constantly aware of my parents’ greatest desire for each of their children: that each of us would come to trust in Christ as our personal Saviour and Lord. I cannot recall a time when was not aware of the centrality of Christ to all of life or when I was unaware of his presence at home or at church. At about age five I gave my life to Christ. Several years later, my uncle, Rex Major, an evangelist and bible teacher among the Plymouth Brethren, baptized me.

High School Experience

During my high school years I remained actively involved in the youth ministries of our congregation. I helped to form “The Young and Free”, a youth singing group that performed at worship services and evangelistic outreaches on several of the islands of The Bahamas. Although I was not a model Christian youth, I helped to establish a group of Christian youth that traveled and hung out together at parties, dances and other high school events. “The Holy Rollers” – as we were nicknamed by our high school buddies – actively sought to keep each other accountable for living consistently with the Gospel. It was this group that sustained and nourished my continued growth in Christ. Several of our friends were won to Christ because of the witness of “The Holy Rollers”!

In addition to these specifically spiritual activities, my brother, Timothy, and I also helped to form and lead pop rock bands that represented our high schools in inter-high school musical competitions. Because of the prominence that these bands brought to us, Timothy and I were afforded many opportunities to give verbal and other witness to the claims of Christ and the wonder of the Gospel.

Later Christian Experience

Early in my university career I experienced a deeper conversion to Christ. This experience led me to study the Bible and examine more critically the specific claims of the Christian tradition within which I had been raised. As my studies progressed, I began to discover what I believed to be important inconsistencies between certain biblical texts, other historical facts and the claims made by the Plymouth Brethren.

After returning to Trinity College (now Trinity International University) and switching to a Biblical Studies and Psychology double major, I was introduced to Prof. William Moulder, a professor whose influence was to change the course of my spiritual life. Through Dr. Moulder’s encouragement, I began attending a high church Anglican parish in Northbrook, Illinois, Saint Giles’ Episcopal Church. Gradually, and within the context of a warm community, my wife and I were introduced to many things Catholic. The people of Saint Giles’ helped us to understand and to embrace two particularly difficult Catholic doctrines: baptismal regeneration and transubstantiation. Through their witness to Christ I was drawn to embrace the Ancient Faith as it had been received by the Anglican Communion and was confirmed shortly thereafter.

Despite my attraction to the Ancient Faith, however, I became increasingly uneasy about the growing moral confusion that seemed to pervade the Anglican Communion – and especially the Episcopal Church USA – at that time. As a result, I was unable to seek ordination within that communion.

Over the next few years I made a valiant effort to live as an Evangelical Christian. As an act of gratitude, I served as a Pastor-in-Training for Grace Community Church (hereafter GCC). After that time of service, GCC ordained me to the ministry and commissioned me as a church-planting pastor.

In November 1991, along with my co-founding pastor Clint Kemp, I helped give birth to New Providence Community Church (hereafter NPCC). Our vision was to establish a creedal Christian community with a radically contemporary approach to evangelism and Christian formation. Despite our noble intentions – and our efforts to capture this vision on paper – by the time of NPCC’s second anniversary it was becoming increasingly clear that Pastor Kemp and I were at odds concern that governing principle of the vision. In consequence, in the early days of January 1995, I resigned from the staff of NPCC.

From NPCC to the CEC

After resigning from NPCC, I made a commitment to enter an Apostolic Christian community. Despite this new commitment, my continued confidence that the Catholic Church was unfaithful to Christ kept me from even the slightest consideration of embracing its version of the Ancient Faith. As a result, in the company of a few families – Covenant Community Church – that had embraced this apostolic vision, I went in search of a community that was an orthodox expression of the Ancient Faith.

In the summer of the same year, I thought that we had found such a community, the Charismatic Episcopal Church of North America (hereafter CEC). After several months of correspondence and two personal visits to Kansas. Archbishop Randolph W. Sly invited the Covenant Community Church and I to enter the CEC together. Despite our apparent unity of mind and our previous commitment to enter an apostolic community together, however, each of the families with the Covenant Community Church found themselves divided concerning the decision to enter the CEC. As a result, we dissolved our community in order to allow each family to decide its future course.

Upon hearing of the congregation’s decision, Archbishop Sly invited me to relocate to Kansas and join his staff. In the summer of 1996, my wife, Norma, and our three children, Michael, Jacquelyn and Cathryn, sold our home and moved to Olathe, Kansas. In November 1996, I was ordained as a Deacon for the CEC, then in May of the following year I was ordained to the priesthood. Although I thought that I had finally found my place spiritually and theologically, my service to Archbishop Sly that was to be the final experience that would lead me home to the Catholic Church.

In January 1997, I began an examination of the apostolic credentials of the CEC. At first, this was an informal examination motivated by strictly personal concerns. Some time later, however, Archbishop Sly asked me if I would conduct a thorough examination of the CEC’s apostolic lineage and submit a report to him and to the CEC’s House of Bishops. I conducted the study as commissioned and discovered no less than three points at which the CEC’s apostolic lineage was either in dispute or unverifiable.

This study concluded with a recommendation that the CEC’s bishops seek re-ordination to the episcopate at the hands of the men known to be in possession of valid Catholic orders. On November 7, 1997, it culminated in the re-consecration of five of the CEC’s bishops by Dom Luis Fernando Castillo-Mendez, Primate of the Catholic Apostolic Church of Brazil (hereafter ICAB), and two other bishops of that communion. Although I was unaware of it at the time, my study of the CEC’s apostolic credentials was to pave the way for my eventual departure from the CEC.

Since I was among the better-trained clergy within the Eastern and Central Province of the Charismatic Episcopal Church, I was invited to serve as the principle lecturer and dean of the Kansas Satellite campus of the CEC’s theological training school, Saint Michael’s Seminary. I served in this capacity from September 1996 through May 1998, when I relocated along with Archbishop Sly and four other families to establish a cathedral parish in Northern Virginia. In this capacity, I was charged with the responsibility to educate and form CEC candidates for the deaconate and priesthood in the doctrine and spirituality of the Ancient Faith.

My tenure as dean and principle lecturer for Saint Michael’s Seminary compelled me to give concrete and specific answers to a number of critical questions regarding the fundamental dogmas of the Ancient Church. As I gave answer to these questions, my sense of uneasiness with regard to the Spirit of Eastern Christianity which many prelates of the CEC seemed to have a predisposition to accept. Simultaneously, I became increasingly convinced of the validity of the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. By the time we were preparing to relocate, I was beginning to ask the question, “If I believe so much of what the Roman Catholic Church believes, then what is keeping me from entering her?”

In August 1999, as the first year of our relocation came to a close, I asked Archbishop Sly if I might be given a few weeks to decide the question of my continued service within the CEC or my conversion to Roman Catholicism. Almost immediately after Archbishop Sly had granted my request, I felt a tremendous freedom of mind. Shortly thereafter I took the decision to answer Christ’s call to enter the Church. I resigned from the CEC in September 1999, and entered the RCIA class at Saint Catherine of Siena Catholic Church, Great Falls, Virginia.

As my CEC exit interview was coming to a close, Archbishop Sly said to me, “You’ll be a nobody in the Roman Catholic Church. In the CEC you were somebody, a priest and Canon Theologian!” When he said those words I remembered the words of the psalmist that my mother had often quoted to me as a child, “Better [to] be a doorkeeper in the house of my God...” (Psalm 84:10)

At Easter Vigil of the Great Jubilee Year, my family and I were received into the Catholic Church. For my wife and I it had been a long and costly journey. Today, we continue to revel in the incredible kindness that God has shown us in drawing us beyond well-formed theological prejudices into the fullness of the life of the Son of His Love.

What awesome gifts has he given! With the riches of the sacraments our Lord has made it possible for me to serve him in significant pastoral – if not priestly – positions. When I entered the Church, I had relinquished all hope of ever using my pastoral gifts. But, our Lord had other plans. For the past three years, I have had the honor of serving the Catholic Diocese of Arlington as the Program Director for Marriage Preparation and Enrichment, and Our Lady of Angels Catholic Church, Woodbridge, Virginia, as its Youth Minister.

Since young adulthood, I have understood myself to have been called to serve as a Minister of Christ in his Church. This call has compelled, animated and invigorated my search for an ever-deepening understanding of what it means to serve our Lord in this way. While I was serving in the CEC I came to understand that the gifts and calling of God are ecclesially discerned, they are worked within the fellowship of the People of God. As I entered the Church, I did so with the confidence that –whatever my self-understanding – through the Church and its bishops our Lord would make his will known to me.

Today, I wait with renewed hope as I prepare for priesthood within the Catholic Church.