Fr. Reid honored as Conception Seminary College’s 2026 Distinguished Graduate
He and Benedictine Fr. Barmann speak to fellow alumni on military chaplaincy
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The U.S. Air Force has promoted Father Nicholas Reid to major, but you won’t be able to tell from his camouflage uniform.
New Department of War regulations for military chaplains call for the insignia of their religion, rather than their rank, to be displayed on their uniform.
“There’s a reason the cross replaces the rank for military chaplains,” stated Fr. Reid, fellow alumni of Conception Seminary College in Northwestern Missouri.
“In fact, I submit that the cross must replace the rank for all Christians,” he said.
Fr. Reid, pastor of St. Martin parish in St. Martins and St. Michael Parish in Russellville, received the seminary’s 2026 Distinguished Graduate Award during the Sept. 14-15 Alumni Reunion.
He and Benedictine Father Karl Barmann, a priest of Conception Abbey and retired military chaplain who previously served as pastor of St. Peter Parish in Fulton and St. Jude Thaddeus Parish in Mokane, spoke to their fellow Sons of Thunder about their experiences as chaplains.
It was Fr. Barmann’s 88th birthday.
Fr. Reid, a member of a military family, was ordained a priest of the Jefferson City diocese and of the Archdiocese of the U.S. Military Services in 2011.
He later spent 10 years on active duty before returning to minister in the diocese in 2025. He continues his service in the U.S. Air Force Reserve as an Individual Mobilization Augmentee (IMA) Program chaplain, spending a month of training last summer at Canon Air Force Base in New Mexico.
He noted to his audience in Conception that the word “chaplain” comes from the time of St. Martin of Tours, a Roman soldier turned Catholic priest in the fourth century.
St. Martin once met a freezing beggar at the Gates of Amiens in modern-day France.
“He had already given away everything he had except his military cloak,” said Fr. Reid. “So, he drew his sword, cut the cloak in two and gave half away to this beggar.”
That night, St. Martin had a vision of Christ wearing the half-cloak he had given away.
“The Lord said, ‘Martin, who is still a catechumen, clothed me with this robe,’” Fr. Reid recounted.
St. Martin’s half of that “little cloak,” or cappa, was moved to a sanctuary known as a cappella. There, the priest who guarded the cappa and offered Mass for the Frankish kings and their court and the army was known as the “cappalanus.”
From those titles come the words “chapel” and “chaplain.”
“The first chaplain was not a man who owned the institution,” Fr. Reid noted. “He was a priest attached to someone else’s world, carrying a fragment of mercy into it.”
Today, a chaplain is called to be a keeper of the cloak, in a spiritual sense.
“That same instinct, a presence attached or walking alongside someone else’s world, did not stay in Gaul,” said Fr. Reid.
For one thing, it came to the United States.
General (later President) George Washington took command of the Continental Army in July 1775, a year before the Declaration of Independence.
He almost immediately authorized the Continental Congress to pay for chaplains.
“He wanted chaplains ‘to animate the Soldiery,’ to impress on them the rights they were fighting for, and at the same time, tie the necessity of courage, obedience and decent conduct,” said Fr. Reid.
The future president expected officers and soldiers to attend worship services.
Later, said Fr. Reid, Gen. Washington would write that chaplains were to attend to the sick constantly, “and that while they were about those sacred duties they could count on his support.”
“The American chaplain,” Fr. Reid proclaimed, “was never meant to be a court ornament. He was meant to be ‘sent into the line,’ to walk with the men, visit the wounded, bury the dead, write letters home and keep the Army from becoming only a machine.”
“Same cloak, new gate,” the priest asserted.
Fr. Reid likened that role to the calling of every Christian, reiterated by Pope Francis (+2013-2025), to the “art of accompaniment,” which “teaches us to remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other...” “steady and reassuring, reflecting our closeness and our compassionate gaze, which also heals, liberates and encourages growth in the Christian life.” (“Evangelii Gaudium, 169)
The late pope in 2015 told chaplains that their work is “to accompany and support them on their journey, to be a comforting and brotherly presence,” pouring on wounds “the balm of the Word of God.”
“Remove your sandals”
Fr. Reid pointed out that civilian priests often get to serve the same people for years and usually minister on a defined timetable.
“That’s not the case in the military,” he noted. “In uniform, you are assigned to an institution that does not exist for the Church.”
“You go to the squadron or the hospital or the flight line,” he said. “Time is often one conversation. It can be as little as one Mass, one counseling an hour or half-hour before the next permanent move or deployment.
“You meet whoever is hurting, whether they are Catholic, Baptist, spiritual-but-not-religious, angry at God — or even the commander,” he said.
A Catholic priest serving as a chaplain remains a priest of the Church, “serving inside another institution, under another commander, in another uniform,” said Fr. Reid.
“That is not a compromise,” he said. “That is the original job description of the chaplain.”
Being a priest — administering the Sacraments, preaching the Word, offering Mass, “showing up and walking beside.”
“The altar does not change,” he said. “But, the tent and surrounding area do.”
St. Martin surrendered half of his cloak to a man in need before himself being baptized — long before becoming a bishop and long before being recognized as a saint.
“In a sense, his rank came later,” said Fr. Reid. “The first thing he did was witness that someone was freezing. He would not keep the whole cloak for himself.”
A chaplain spiritually safeguards that same torn fragment — “a presence, a word, a Sacrament, a correct greeting of the day, a long silence, a Mass in a place that is not a parish.
“Remove your sandals,” the priest advised. “Walk at their pace. Do not make it about you.”
Which brought Fr. Reid back to why he approves displaying the cross rather than his rank on his work uniform.
“You don’t have to wear the uniform to keep the cloak,” he asserted. “Parents do it. Teachers do it. Spouses do it. Anyone who refuses to pass the beggar at the gates does it for God’s glory and for our salvation.
“May we do likewise!” he said.
“Mobile stability”
Fr. Barmann, a Benedictine priest, spent 28 years as an Air Force chaplain.
He spoke of the constant tension between honoring the vow of stability — his familial tie to his monastic community — and the call of a military chaplain to minister all over the world.
He pointed out that all who experience priestly formation at Conception become familiar with the strong tradition of community prayer and community-building.
Having grown up in a very tight family, he was drawn to that kind of experience as an adult. Arriving at the abbey’s former high school seminary at age 14, he expected to live at the abbey for the rest of his life.
“But how God has blessed me!” he said. “The military taught me the discipline of St. Benedict, that commitment to the common good, the dedication to duty and the heart of service that prepared me for that with my family here at the seminary and the abbey.”
He said being a chaplain was one of the most eye-opening experiences of his life.
He spoke of the long Benedictine tradition of sending chaplains to minister among the people in uniform.
That ties well into St. Benedict’s insistence on being hospitable and treating strangers as Christ.
From that same charism flows the practice of sending forth priests from the monastery to serve in parishes, hospitals, military chaplaincies and other ministries.
“The history of Conception Abbey is one of sending people forth to share the spirit of St. Benedict and to be a source of light and a source of God’s presence in the world,” said Fr. Barmann.
Yet, the tension persists.
“A monk strives to find God in the quiet, unchanging stability in the monastery,” the priest stated. “In the military, the chaplain is called to find God in the movement, disruption, the deep and often urgent needs while serving the people who defend our country.”
Growing up on a farm near Maryville, not far from Conception Abbey, Fr. Barmann often looked up at passing planes and thought, “it would be nice to be up there and touch the hand of God.”
He realized that dream years later while ministering on an Air Force base.
The commander let one of the airmen give Fr. Barmann a ride on an F-15 supersonic fighter jet.
The young pilot gave terrifying instructions to the priest about how to eject from the cockpit in an emergency.
They then flew for hours, doing some major dips and occasional rollovers.
“It was so peaceful, so beautiful out there flying this plane about 600 or 700 miles an hour,” said Fr. Barman. “It was a beautiful experience. That was the greatest high in my life in the military.”
Fr. Barmann had 19 assignments in those 28 years.
In the process, he developed an understanding of what he calls “mobile stability.”
“It’s not an external thing,” he said. “It’s an internal reality of who you are, what you are called to do with your life as a person, and growing in knowledge and awareness of self,” he said.
Maintaining the discipline of praying the Divine Office every day and taking part in community life was essential.
“And the Air Force basically is a community of people,” said Fr. Barmann.
In taking care of the living, ministering to the wounded and honoring the fallen, “you also end up experiencing a very close sense of family,” he stated.
Deployed to Vietnam near the end of the Vietnam War, to Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s and later to a base in South Korea, he flew aboard massive cargo planes and got to know the people who kept them in the air.
He learned about the family dynamics of those he worked with and ministered to loved ones in times of tragedy and death.
He became more open to people, different cultures and diverse manifestations of faith around the world.
“You learn to appreciate people’s desire to come to experience God and then come grow in knowledge of themselves,” he said.
Moving from base to base and ministering to people who were constantly doing likewise helped reinforce holy detachment for him.
“You were there to be present to them and be a presence of God’s presence there,” Fr. Barmann recalled. “As a saint says, to seek God in your life experience.”
