I met Kevin and Krista Wells on March 12, 2020, at a talk and book signing in Old Towne Alexandria, Virginia. I was one of the roughly eight people sitting in the audience with a friend of mine and a few religious sisters as the dark fog of COVID was beginning to cover the land. I had read his book The Priests We Need to Save the Church in the fall of 2019. After reading it, I knew that I was supposed to meet the author. I have never had that experience before, but it was a certainty.
At the time, I couldn’t find his contact information, but a couple of months later, he emailed me about a piece I had written on the priesthood. With a clear nudge from the Holy Spirit, I left my family in the quiet mountains of southwest Virginia to attend his book signing. I didn’t expect to be met with silence in the normally bustling streets of the Washington, DC metro area.
What I didn’t know at the time was that Krista was fighting for her very soul in the spiritual battle of her life. I didn’t know the precipice and sense of impending doom they were carrying as I stood in a darkened parking lot with them as Kevin handed me a stack of signed books. I wanted to get his book into the hands of as many priests and seminarians as possible.
That evening, in the early stages of COVID, began a now over four-year friendship based on the profound love of Christ, the priesthood, prayer, and the mysterious vocation of the writer. This night came to mind as I read the final manuscript of Kevin’s upcoming book The Hermit: The Priest Who Saved a Soul, a Marriage, and a Family.
In a call that required crucifixion of the Wells family, Kevin masterfully descends into the darkness of Golgotha that gripped his family for many years. It is his best book because it is raw, vulnerable, and redemptive. This is the best kind of writing. He set out to write a book about a courageous, humble, and self-emptying priest, but instead, Kevin ends up entering the heart of his own story where Christ met Krista, his children, and him in a storm-tossed boat at the darkest hour of the night. They needed the Lord to walk on water for them, and He did so through the loving spiritual fatherhood of Fr. Martin Flum.
Kevin nearly died from a malformation of blood vessels that had unleashed torrents of blood into his brain. But he was miraculously cured by God through the powerful intercession of his murdered uncle, Monsignor Thomas Wells. At the same time, however, with the supernatural ministering of Fr. Jim Stack, Krista found herself overcome by the immensity of the suffering and wounds she carried. The agony poured salt into her long-held wounds from childhood. While Kevin was learning again how to walk, speak normally, and function over the course of a year, Krista became plagued by demons—real and metaphorical—as she retreated into herself and the diabolical comfort of secretly binge-drinking red wine to dull the pain.
For years, Kevin fought in prayer, sacrifice, and long-suffering for the freedom of his beloved wife and the protection of his children. In a total surrender of vulnerability to raw places, Kevin shares his struggles with despair and the necessity of his own radical conversion as he learned how to live in desert places as he awaited the promised land of healing for Krista.
He learned how to love Krista as Christ loves by coming to expect nothing in return but the hard wood of the Cross and piercing nails. He learned to love through rejection, disappointments, and chaos. This is the true love we are called to in marriage, but it is to walk the purifying and excruciating fires of the purgative way.
Some may ask why Kevin would reveal the wounds and demons of his wife to the world. Krista herself asked it of Kevin. She knows that God will use their story to help lead countless others out of darkness. More than anything, she wants him to share with the world the true masculine love of a priest who fully embraced his supernatural identity in Christ. She wants the world to know about Fr. Martin Flum. The priest the Lord sent like a guerilla warrior to rescue her soul from the clutches of the devil. A priest who belongs entirely to His Queen, Our Blessed Mother, and Christ crucified. A priest who now lives the life of a hermit as a sacrificial offering for the sanctification of his brother priests.
One of the most striking aspects of the book is the beautiful display of masculine love in a time when men so often abandon their posts. Years of men being beaten into submission by radical feminism and commitment free relationships have left generations of men—both husbands and priests—without a clear masculine identity. The book serves as a blueprint of how to fight the spiritual battle for families and flocks.
Kevin’s unconditional love for Krista is a model for how husbands must answer the call from Christ to defend their wives and children at all costs. The book also reveals the authentic paternal love of spiritual fathers called to fight to save souls above all else through Fr. Martin Flum, Fr. Dan Leary, Monsignor John Esseff, and Fr. Larry Swink who all played a part in Krista’s healing journey. The book is a witness to the power of authentic masculine love lived fully in the Sacraments of Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders.
The book is desperately needed in a landscape that too often reduces the spiritual life to the sentimental or self-help. The path of the Christian disciple is brutal and radical. It is a stripping away of everything. It is nothing short of war. Kevin honestly shares the struggle his family endured and does not shy away from revealing his own weaknesses in the face of Krista’s secret binge drinking. He treats his suffering wife with reverence and loving dignity as he probes into the depths of her darkness for the salvation of souls who will be impacted by this book.
It takes tremendous courage for Krista to allow her brokenness to be laid bare by her husband. The Lord will use this book to help countless families trapped in cycles of addiction, dysfunction, and brokenness. It will strengthen marriages and fortify men to answer their God-given call to protect their spouse and children. It will encourage seminarians and priests to step fully into their supernatural and eucharistic identity.
This story is the converging of two vocations: Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders. This battle-ravaged family found consolation, peace, and the supernatural power of Christ through the witness of holy priests, especially the courage of Fr. Martin Flum. The priesthood today is so often misunderstood or relegated to an administrative functionary. These are diabolical lies. The priest is given supernatural power to raise souls dead in sin to new life. The confessional, Mass, Adoration, the Sacraments, and the deep prayer of a priest can quite literally wrestle souls away from the grips of Satan. Fr. Martin Flum witnesses to this fact.
In an age of no-fault divorce—a plague often ignored within the Church—Kevin and Krista’s story demonstrates the vocational and sacramental calling of Holy Matrimony. Love is not a feeling. It is an act of the will. Kevin made the decision each morning to will Krista’s good. There were days he failed, but he sought to get up again and again in order to hope beyond hope that one day the Lord would free Krista from the grips of alcoholism. His prayers were ultimately answered in God’s time in the soft candlelight of Eucharistic Adoration in a tucked away church where Fr. Flum fought for souls, while countless Tabernacles were abandoned worldwide.
Fr. Martin Flum reveals the unrelenting love of the Father through his unconditional love of Krista. The same love all souls crave from their spiritual fathers. He lives the forgiveness of Christ on the Cross when he enters the dark, shame ridden places within Krista’s soul after she quite literally slammed the door in his face at their first meeting. A father does not give up on his children and spiritual fathers are called to give everything to save souls.
Kevin’s latest book is his best because it enters the inferno in Dantesque fashion in order to reveal the full breadth and depth of Christ’s healing love through Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders. This book is for priests, laity, and religious. It reveals the lengths we are called to go to out of love for others. It shows us the Way of the Cross we must be willing to walk in order to find freedom. It answers the longing of every feminine heart to be met with authentic masculine love in marriage, fatherhood, and through the spiritual fatherhood of the priesthood. Ultimately, the main character is Christ who will go into the very depths of hell to save a single soul.
Editor’s Note: The Hermit: The Priest Who Saved a Soul, a Marriage, and a Family will be released on August 12, 2024 and is available for pre-order.
Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash
