By Christina Leslie | Staff Writer

Father Charles J. Flood has never been one to sit still.  The former U.S. Air Force veteran and current Trinitarian priest has travelled the world and served the Church across the United States in many capacities: as parochial vicar, pastor, administrator, prison minister and hospital chaplain.

Now marking his 25th year as a religious, and serving in his current role as Catholic chaplain in Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, Hamilton, while also assisting at Incarnation-St. James Parish, Ewing, he shows no signs of slowing down.

Father Flood began a recent interview with The Monitor at top speed. He met this reporter in his small office adjacent to RWJ Hospital’s Jeffrey F. Pierfy Multi-Faith Chapel, then led a rapid walking tour of the sprawling hospital complex, bidding a cheery “Good afternoon” by name to each of the staff he passed and evoking smiles in all of them. After each floor and lower catacomb had been explored, we settled into chairs in the library to review his long and circuitous journey to the priesthood and a life of service.

Born in Flushing, N.Y., in 1949 to Charles L. and Stella P. Kern Flood, young Charles attended the Empire State’s St. Anne School, Brentwood, and St. Anthony High School, Smithtown.  He earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from St. John Fischer College, Rochester, N.Y., in 1971. The draft for the Vietnam War was in effect, so the future priest decided to pursue his interest in meteorology via enlistment in the U.S. Air Force.

Father Flood served nearly 12 years in the armed forces, working in the field of electronics both stateside and in the Philippines, Taiwan and Korea. The seeds for the priesthood were planted by an Air Force chaplain in Oklahoma City; “I was a lector on base, and Chaplain Smith put the bug in my head about the priesthood,” he recalled.

“Like a lot of people that grow up Catholic, you tend to drift [from the faith] in college,” Father Flood continued. “I was a science major.” He credited his spiritual reawakening to the inspiration of the people in the Philippines. “When I was [there,] I saw the faith of the people who had nothing; they were so poor, they used what we discard.”

Upon earning a master’s from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, Ill., Father Flood remembered, “When I was in the Air Force communications command at the base parish, this is what I wanted to do: I wanted to become a priest first, then decided upon being a religious later.”

He left the Air Force in 1983 as a captain, then studied with the Trinitarians in Baltimore for seven years, serving in a parish and soup kitchen in New Orleans, a summer camp for inner city youth in Trenton, a homeless shelter near the former Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Md., and a hospice in Washington, D.C.

His service and study spurred his decision to serve as a Trinitarian priest; Father Flood made his solemn profession of vows in 1989 at the Washington Theological Union, Pikesville, Md., and was ordained at the Dominican House of Philosophy, Sept. 8, 1990, by Bishop William Curtin, auxiliary Bishop of Washington, D.C.

Father Flood’s travels as a religious first took him to Victoria, Texas, where he served as part-time vocation director for his order and a parochial vicar in a Hispanic parish. “Then, in 1993, my MBA caught up with me,” he laughed, recalling his order’s request to return to the Trinitarian’s Baltimore community for a decade to serve as its treasurer provincial, formation director and in administrative capacities. In addition to the duties of his order, Father Flood served as part-time chaplain in a Hagerstown, Md., medium-security prison which held 6,000 men.

In 2003, Father Flood served as a hospital chaplain while stationed in St. Bridget-St. Emeric Parish in the East Village of New York City. A year later, his ministry in the Diocese of Trenton began. He served as hospital chaplain in Jersey Shore Medical Center, Neptune, from 2004-08 while in residence at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, and served as the Asbury Park parish’s pastor from 2008-12.

During his pastorate, Father Flood oversaw the renovation of Our Lady of Mount Carmel’s church and parish center, celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Trinitarians at the parish, and saw it through the merger of five Catholic communities – Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Holy Spirit, St. Peter Claver and Our Lady of Providence Parishes, and the Haitian Apostolate – into the present Mother of Mercy Parish.

Since 2012 he has served in RWJ Hospital as chaplain, as well as saying daily and weekend Mass in Incarnation-St. James Parish. When relating to people in the hospital, he advised, “It starts off with a human connection, not a Church one. You hear about their families, their lives, fears and hopes. You have to read people. Some are friendly, some devout. The Trinitarians have been ministering to the sick since the 12th century in France.”

Father Flood paused as he pondered his advice to a man considering the priesthood. “The answer is different for everyone. It is a rare person that knows what he wants to do right out of high school.”

He concluded, “Prospective religious should begin to talk to people and see where God is calling them. They have a lot of options.”