Ordination Profile

Luke Spencer

Well, what to say… I grew up in Leicestershire in an Anglo-Italian Roman Catholic family, with the food, wine, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary the goes along with that! I had the best of both Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism as a child as I was a chorister at Leicester Cathedral as well as being brought up a Catholic.

I went on to study opera and vocal studies at the Royal Northern College of Music and after that I thought God was calling me to religious life when I was in my early 20s and joined a Roman Catholic religious order. I had an incredible four years in this order, including being sent to do further study at Cardiff University and at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome. It is also where my prayer life was nurtured and found its solid grounding and I still have a love of the rhythm and prayerfulness of the daily offices. However, for a variety of reasons I chose to leave religious life and pursue a career in teaching.

Throughout my life in education God has consistently been calling me and there are only so many times I could say “No, I’m okay where I am, thank you!” I found my spiritual home in the Church in Wales and it is also here that I knew God was calling me to explore my vocation to ordained ministry. The Lord works in mysterious ways…

I am dad to John and Anna (who are now 20 and 21… and yes that does make me feel old!), I am a teacher and currently Head of Expressive Arts and Head of Health and Wellbeing at our diocesan 3-16 school, Ysgol Penrhyn Dewi in St Davids. I also continue making music as conductor of Cor Dyfed and Cantabile Singers.

I feel that God has called me both to my vocation as a teacher and to my vocation as a priest and I am delighted to be serving my curacy in my school as chaplain and in the Daugleddau LMA. I thank all those who have supported me personally, in my discernment and my training and I give thanks to God for all those being ordained this Petertide.