Deacons bring gifts to Diocese

Last month, we ordained five men to the diaconate. Two of these new deacons will be exercising this ministry permanently; the other three will serve as deacons during their final year of seminary formation and be ordained as priests next spring.

For the past 16 years, I have served on the Bishops' Committee for the Diaconate, and have become aware of how much misunderstanding still exists about this ancient and venerable ministry within our Church. Let me share a few key points about this ministry.

Early days

The diaconate has existed from the early church. The Acts of the Apostles describes the establishment of this ministry. In the Eastern churches of Christianity this ministry of the diaconate as a separate and distinct one has continued until the present day.

In our Western Church, however, the diaconate gradually became a transitional ministry reserved for those preparing for the ordained priesthood. It was only 40 years ago that the fathers of the Second Vatican Council restored to our Western or Roman Catholic Church the apostolic tradition (and that of the Eastern Church) of the diaconate being a stable ministry and a "living icon of Christ the Servant."

On the night before He suffered and died, Jesus, the head and shepherd of our faith community, offered us a profound and moving example of what diaconate ministry is meant to be. Having completed the Last Supper meal with His disciples, Jesus stood up from the table, removed His cloak, tied a towel around His waist, took a pitcher filled with water and a basin and proceeded to wash the feet of His apostles.

Upon completing this task, Jesus asked His disciples if they understood what He had just done. When they responded affirmatively, Jesus said, "If I, your master and Lord, have washed your feet, so you must wash each other's feet. What I just did was to give you an example: As I have done, so you must do" (Jn 13:14-15).

Ministry forever

This powerful sign of love on Jesus' part was intended to be enfleshed forever in the attitudes and behavior of His followers down through the course of history. And deacons, consecrated and conformed to the mission of Christ the Servant, have a particular responsibility for promoting and keeping alive within our faith community the Master's command to wash each other's feet, and for giving visible and tangible witness to that selflessness and other-centeredness which are the heart of Christian life.

The deacon does this through a threefold ministry of word, liturgy and charity:

1. As ministers of the word, deacons are expected to make the Scriptures relevant to God's people in the contemporary milieu, for God's word is meant to be a living word which does what it says and brings about what it proclaims.

But this will be possible only to the extent that those who preach the word of God make it applicable to people's everyday life experiences in the family, home, school, workplace, neighborhood and community.

How does this word connect with the teenager confused about his or her identity or feelings of sexual awakening...with the college student being inundated with philosophies and analyses which are contrary to the Christian vision of life...with the unmarried couple seeking to forge a community of life and love in a society where fidelity and permanent commitment are considered strange, old-fashioned values and where the traditional roles of provider and homemaker have been scrambled beyond recognition...with the business person seeking to respect the dignity of the worker and uphold the social teachings of the Church in a dog-eat-dog environment governed by the bottom line...with the elderly, worried about financial security, affordable and accessible health care and the reality of death in a culture which tries to ignore, flee or deny this inevitable part of the human journey...or with the outcast -- the poor, immigrant, mentally ill, differently abled, addicted, imprisoned, separated and divorced, those with HIV and AIDS, and those who are gay and lesbian?

People in all of these categories, and so many others which could be cited, need to hear the Word of God and have it interpreted in a way that speaks to their pain, their fears, their hopes, and their quest for that life-giving water which Jesus offered the woman by the well in Samaria.

Responding to these spiritual hungers and thirsts is the challenge deacons assume as they seek to draw upon their life experiences in the family, workplace and community and filter those experiences through the lens of Scripture and the Church's teaching.

2. Deacons are ministers of the liturgy: conducting the penitential rite at Mass, proclaiming the gospel, preaching the homily, leading the general intercessions, preparing the gifts for sacrifice, extending the gift of peace, distributing the Body and Blood of Christ to the faithful, and dismissing the community at the end of the Eucharistic liturgy.

Deacons are also called to baptize, witness marriages, bring viaticum to the sick and dying, preside at wake and burial services, conduct services of word and Communion in the absence of a priest, lead the Liturgy of the Hours and officiate at Exposition and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

To fulfill these liturgical roles meaningfully and well, however, deacons must be people of prayer; people steeped in God's word; people who reflect deeply on the mysteries they are privileged to celebrate; and people who bring to their personal prayer the needs and concerns of those whom they serve in their ministry and of those for whom they pray in the general intercessions at the Eucharist.

3. Deacons are to be ministers of charity and justice. Our late and beloved Pope John Paul II stated that the "deacon's ministry is the Church's service sacramentalized." Indeed, the deacon's ministry of word and liturgy is severely deficient if it is not accompanied by a ministry of charity and justice.

The apostolic tradition indicates that it was precisely because the deacon was a servant at the table of the poor that he was given a distinctive role at the Table of the Lord. Thus, there must be a complementarity between the deacon's role as herald of the gospel and his role as articulator of the needs of the Church in the general intercessions.

In his liturgical role, the deacon brings the poor to the Church and the Church to the poor. Similarly, deacons must show the linkage between the worship of God in the Eucharist, where we celebrate Christ's redemptive sacrifice sacramentally; and the worship of God in everyday life, where we encounter Jesus -- especially in the poor, vulnerable, marginalized, powerless and voiceless.

In particular, deacons must be advocates of social justice. Service and charitable works are vital and indispensable for fulfilling the mission and ministry of Jesus. But in the complex world and society in which we live, more is needed.

That more is to bring the gospel message to bear upon those social and institutional structures that oppress, manipulate and destroy others, be these the structures of the economy, the government or the Church.

That is why Pope Paul VI stated, shortly before his death, as a kind of summing up of his whole life experience, that we in the Church "must shift from a policy that seeks to alleviate the results of oppression to one that seeks to eliminate the causes of oppression."

At times, exercising the ministry of social justice will entail conflict, and even bring ridicule, scorn and rejection. But this is the cost of discipleship and the price of leadership within our catholic Christian community that deacons must be willing to pay. Otherwise, they may well be guilty of complicity with forces and factors which run counter to gospel values; and this, then, becomes the very essence of social sin.

I ask the members of our diocese to pray for our new deacons, that God will strengthen them for this threefold ministry they are called to exercise and enable them to be the compassionate and caring face of Jesus, the servant, in our contemporary Church, world and society. I ask your prayers, as well, for increased vocations to the priesthood, religious life and lay ecclesial ministry.

(6/1/06) [[In-content Ad]]