“Be like a deacon this week…”

A very good reflection on the diaconate, pegged to this Sunday’s scripture readings, from Fr. Charles Irvin in Catholic Journal: 

Deacons give us living witness to what we all should be about, namely heeding God’s call for us to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the imprisoned, bury the dead, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and shelter the homeless. What empowers deacons and energizes them is their ministry of the Word wherein they proclaim the Word of God in scripture to the faithful and instruct and exhort God’s people.

All that deacons do they bring to God’s altar to be joined into Christ. Thus deacons administer Baptism solemnly, distribute the Eucharist, assist and bless marriages in the name of the Church, take Viaticum to the dying, preside over the worship and the prayer services of the faithful, and officiate at funerals and burial services. All of their work they bring to the altar of God.

…It is often argued that those who are ordained priests should not be married in order that they might fully devote themselves to the work of the Church. But that argument does not stand up when we consider deacons. Our married deacons are fully involved in the ministries of our Church. Being married doesn’t hinder them. Because that it so, our married deacons demonstrate that it is quite possible for us to have married priests, married priests who, like our deacons, are fully involved in carrying on the ministries of our Church.

Deacons are collaborators, “co-laborers” with their pastors and with the people of their parishes. They go out into the vineyards of their parishes and there discern what should be pruned and what needs to be planted. They bring into the light those places where there is need for newness and those places where the past is controlling but in ways of doing things that are no longer effective, places and methods that are now fruitless. Deacons can “go to the peripheries,” as Pope Francis puts it, and bring the goodness of God’s presence to those places where new life can be, by God’s graces, allowed to grow and develop. Isn’t that what Pope Francis is calling us to do… and is himself doing? This isn’t simply a stylistic changes, it’s a substantive change in living out what Jesus is giving us. Isn’t that what St. Paul declares to be: “the glorious freedom of the sons and daughters of God”?

The final words you will hear and the conclusion is this Mass will be: “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.” You came here to Mass to receive in order that you might give. What we receive here we give in our daily lives. During this coming week do something. Pick out something that deacons do and then do it. How can the Lord be glorified if you do nothing? The worst thing you can do is do nothing.

Be like a deacon this week.

Read it all.