Through airport chaplaincy, permanent deacons offer listening ears, spiritual support to travelers and employees
On a busy Tuesday morning at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, Victoria Reynolds waited by her gate to fly home to Tucson.
Deacon Jim Martin spotted her sitting alone and struck up a conversation. She was in St. Louis for a job interview with the National Park Service and felt a little nervous about the results.
Deacon Martin listened, wished her good luck and said a quick prayer with her.
“In today’s world, not a lot of people seem to care, so that was heartwarming,” Reynolds said.
Deacon Martin, a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, is part of the 13-member St. Louis Airport Interfaith Chaplaincy team. The airport chaplains offer a ministry of presence to travelers and employees, making rounds through the terminals to offer cheerful greetings, listening ears and prayers.
Deacon Maurice “Moe” Milne, right, a chaplain at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, spoke with U.S. Army PFC Eric Hing, of Erie, Pennsylvania, and U.S. Army PVT Chase Lucado of Charleston, South Carolina, Jan. 11. Deacon Milne relocated to the archdiocese last year and began serving as a chaplain at the airport.
In his 15 years of airport ministry, Deacon Martin, 78, has witnessed the different concerns people in airports often carry, including worry about a job interview or business meeting, grief as they prepare for a funeral or anxiety about travel difficulties.
He wants to replace the anxiety with serenity. “Serenity is the spirit of God,” he said. “It’s all divine. And I can give it away for free,” and it just keeps multiplying.
Each terminal at Lambert Airport has a chapel — outside of security in Terminal 1 and inside the concourse in Terminal 2. The chapels provide a quiet space for people to pray, but since Mass and Communion services are not currently offered, the chaplains’ ministry is out among the people.
As Deacon Martin walks the length of the terminals, he “looks out for the loners,” he said, relying on the Holy Spirit to guide him. The strategy is pretty simple: “Go out and say hello to people. Listen to them when they tell you how they’re doing,” he said. “Everyone has a story to tell.”
That Tuesday morning, the first traveler he stopped to chat with was a parishioner at St. Patrick in Wentzville. Roger Guffey was waiting to board a plane to fly to Spain to begin a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago, he told Deacon Martin, who offered him a blessing for his travels.
A few gates down, he stopped to talk with Tim Prosinski, a parishioner at Immaculate Conception in Dardenne Prairie. Prosinski was flying to Jacksonville, Florida, to spend time with his grandsons. Being able to chat with Deacon Martin for a few minutes “was fantastic,” he said.
“To have somebody (from the Church) come to the airport and just be able to walk around and say hey, have a good trip, God is with you — it gives people a peace of mind,” Prosinski said.
Deacon Martin also makes it a point to spend time in the United Service Organizations (USO) area, which serves members of the military traveling through the airport. Cary Warner, chief operations officer at the airport USO, appreciates whenever the chaplains stop by and is especially thankful to be able to call them when a solider needs some extra support, often when they are headed to basic training or preparing to deploy, he said.
“Sometimes they’re not going to talk to anybody unless it’s a chaplain, so it’s a service that is definitely needed and probably becoming more needed,” Warner said.
This fall, two more permanent deacons, Deacon Andrew Garvey and Deacon Maurice “Moe” Milne, were assigned to the airport chaplaincy. Deacon Milne, a nurse anesthetist, served in hospital chaplaincy in the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio, before relocating to St. Louis in 2023.
“I always see the face of God in my patients,” he said, “and it’s still here (in the airport), too. All you have to do is look and listen.”
As he learned the ropes of airport ministry over the past few months, the most challenging part was “learning where all the elevators are,” he joked — but added that, seriously, people often see the bright yellow chaplain vest and ask him for directions. Even that can be a gateway to a deeper conversation as he walks them to the right place, he said. “We accompany a lot of people spiritually, but are they even going to listen to you if you don’t know where the elevators are?”
While the airport travelers he encounters are different every time he’s there, Deacon Milne tries to get to know the airport employees, learning names and forming friendships — the groundwork of evangelization. On a quiet Thursday morning, he stopped in to see Laura Futrell, who was working the front desk of the administrative offices.
“I love when he stops by — he doesn’t mind if we get interrupted, he just hangs and waits for a minute and tells me funny jokes and great stories,” Futrell said. She noted that Deacon Milne goes out of his way to get to know the employees, who often go unnoticed by most travelers.
Deacon Milne said that even the airport shuttle can be a time for ministry. He sat down next to a TSA employee on the ride from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2, striking up a conversation about why he ministers at the airport. “You and everyone else in this airport right now are my parish,” he told her.
No two days of airport ministry are the same, Deacon Milne said. Each one is fresh with new opportunities.
“This is a gold mine for God,” Deacon Milne said. “We just have to show people His love.”
