Deacon Dan Wright

On Suffering and Our Response

What a great contrast there is that exists between Job who tells us that our life on earth is a pitiful drudgery, in which he will never see happiness again, compared to the words we hear in Psalm 147 that tell us the Lord heals the brokenhearted and rebuilds and gathers. There are a number of different directions that we could go with this Sunday’s readings, but what stands out to me is that Job sets the tone for everything else that follows by first stating the problem of suffering in the world. First we recognize the problem, then we look to solutions.

I was once invited a number of years ago to contribute on a regular basis to a journal that dealt primarily with suffering. I declined at the time, mostly because I had too many other things going on then, though the idea didn’t really hold a lot of appeal. However, I also have to wonder whether if somewhere in my subconscious mind I had a fear of synchronicity somehow manifesting suffering in my own life. After all, suffering is something to which almost all of us who are adults can relate to some degree. Suffering is real in our world. In retrospect I probably should have addressed the issue and contributed a few articles.

Theologians have long attempted to answer how it is that evil can exist in the world alongside the presence of an all-powerful, all-good, and all-loving God. The same question can be asked about suffering, but I believe it’s much more fruitful to ask, rather than why God can allow it, what we can do about it, and certainly in my mind the wrong answer here is that we would be stoic and simply accept it as such. A true assessment of an existential experience is one that demands human response.

So we have a good example to consider. In the readings both Job and St. Paul refer to themselves as slaves. The Job reading probably comes closer to the meaning of slave that likely comes to our minds in the United States with our history of slavery, a history that also demands a response from us in how we engage others, especially those who are the descendants of slaves. It speaks of our willingness to make reparations and to rebuild what has been broken. The response we make reveals a great deal about us and about how truly willing we are to see the suffering Christ in our midst.

It’s in a different way that St. Paul uses the image of slavery. For him slavery is more akin to servitude, of being in service to another. We see this somewhat in the gospel today where Simon’s mother-in-law got up and served immediately after being healed. While St. Paul’s servitude lacks the element of suffering, at least as he presents it in the Corinthians reading, it still promotes solidarity with others. It’s where we get ideas like servant-leadership, or even we who are in the order of deacons as seeing our ministry as being servants, bearing in mind that diakonia is service. However, St. Paul does frame his role as one that is obligatory and one where he lacks complete freedom. He says it’s been imposed upon him. I think of this as being akin to the idea moral duty.

Where I’d to take this is to impart that Christian ethics imposes an obligation, a responsibility, on each of us. I know these are strong words, but it’s not my intention to paint an either/or, a heaven or hell choice, but we can take the obligation and keep on being Christians, or we can reject it and be something else despite what we call ourselves. The responsibility, the obligation or duty incumbent upon us is to our fellow human beings. Specifically we have a sacred duty to those who suffer in this world. We bear in mind the plight of migrant workers, immigrants, the undocumented, the poor and economically distressed among us. We bear in mind also the basic human right to healthcare and those who suffer because they have none or cannot afford it.

This brings us to Jesus in the gospel today who we see clearly as a healer. He reaches out not only to those who are sick physically but reaches to those who suffer in ways that were understood in the ancient world as having to do with possession. I’m of the opinion that Jesus took his responsibility to reach to those who suffered mentally as well as physically. Once at my former parish I used these readings to talk about healthcare as a human right. It wasn’t a popular homily. It actually got me a letter of complaint written. Perhaps people perceived something political in my message, though that wasn’t actually the intent. Still, I stand by what I said then and I say it now. Healthcare is a basic human right regardless of an individual’s capacity to pay for it.

Suffering in our world today is not confined to physical and mental illness. It includes all the ills that we might find in society, especially social ills like the sin of racism or of hate directed at others, such as LGBTQ people, because of who they are or how they define themselves.

What we have is a message to humanity telling us that rather than ask why there is suffering, our role is to alleviate suffering ourselves wherever we may find it by acting concretely and standing with those who suffer. The lesson for us today is about our personal responsibility in the world. The true mark of maturity is to begin to see that we are not alone, but that we bear responsibility for the other, always accompanying one another, we bear each other’s joys and pains. In that sojourning we ask how can I make this world a better place for you.

Where Teaching and Diaconate Meet

It's not often that I find myself in the news. Certainly with the kind of news we might see nowadays this can be considered a good thing I suppose. 

However, recently I was honored to have been selected to be profiled on one of the local Austin news programs for my work as a teacher. During the interview I was asked to explain what a deacon is and does. My comments about it were somewhat brief, so I was delightfully surprised to find that once the editing was done my role as a deacon took the forefront. 

I share this positive human interest story with you, and as always I seek your continued prayers that the work I do truly will always make a difference. Again, I am honored--but perhaps even more I am humbled and called to an even greater degree of Christian service.

To Be Who God Has Made Us to Be

All things are in the hands of the Lord, as the reading from Samuel in the Morning Prayer today reminds us.  I reflect on this briefly today after having a busy night—family responsibility, as well as work taken home, is part of being a deacon.   Today required a little more of me.

The diaconate is really a very different kind of ordained ministry in that in most cases it involves a job during the day and family to care for and to participate with in life.   Often life, my family and work, calls me to participate in ways that I don’t always anticipate but that I meet with readiness.

I’m quite thankful for my family.  They offer me exactly what I need in order to do what I do at the parish and at school.  They offer the balance I need and thus I am able to keep things in the proper perspective.  Our life is in the hands of the Lord: God has made us to be who we are.   God gives us what we have so that we might consecrate it and sanctify it as his instruments.  

God asks us to take responsibility in what he has given us.  He asks us to take ownership and identify with the life we have.  Life is not given to us to run away from or to hide from its difficulties and challenges.  God asks us to face it head on with faith.  God urges us to meet difficult situations—and perhaps difficult people—with strength, with love, with unfailing faith.

…the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and he has set the world upon them.  He will guard the footsteps of his faithful ones… (from 1 Sam. 2)

Let us go forth this day to be who he has made us be, and let us do it with faith.

Deacons in the News

It's not every day that we find news articles on the diaconate, so I was surprised to find two recently.  Here's an excerpt from the first, in which the Pope discusses the Permanent Diaconate:

I would like to...express my joy and my gratitude for the Council, because it revived this important ministry in the universal Church. I should say that when I was archbishop of Munich, I didn't find perhaps more than three or four deacons, and I very much favored this ministry because it seemed to me to belong to the richness of the sacramental ministry in the Church. At the same time, it can equally be the link between the lay world, the professional world, and the world of the priestly ministry -- given that many deacons continue carrying out their professions and maintain their positions -- important or those of a simple life -- while on Saturday and Sunday they work in the Church. In this way, you give witness in the world of today, as well as in the working world, of the presence of faith, of the sacramental ministry and the diaconal dimension of the sacrament of Orders. This seems very important to me: the visibility of the diaconal dimension.

Naturally as well, every priest continues being a deacon, and should always think of this dimension, because the Lord himself made himself our minister, our deacon. We can think of the gesture of the washing of the feet, with which he explicitly shows that the master, the Lord, acts as a deacon and wants those who follow him to be deacons, that they fulfill this role for humanity, to the point that they also help to wash the dirtied feet of the men entrusted to us. This dimension seems very important to me.

On this occasion, I bring to mind -- though it is perhaps not immediately inherent to the theme -- a simple experience that Paul VI noted. Each day of the Council, the Gospel was enthroned. And the Pontiff told those in charge of the ceremony that he would like one time to be the one who enthrones the Gospel. They told him no, this is the job of the deacons, not of the Pope. He wrote in his diary: But I am also a deacon, I continue being a deacon, and I would like to also exercise this ministry of the diaconate placing the word of God on its throne. Thus, this concerns all of us. Priests continue being deacons, and the deacons make explicit in the Church and in the world this diaconal dimension of our ministry. This liturgical enthroning of the word of God each day during the Council was always for us a gesture of great importance: It told us who was the true Lord of that assembly; it told us that the word of God was on the throne and that we exercise our ministry to listen and to interpret, to offer to the others this word. It is broadly significant for all that we do: enthroning in the world the word of God, the living word, Christ. May it really be him who governs our personal life and our life in the parishes.

Read the full article here.

I also found a discussion by Deacon Keith Fournier on the role of the deacon.  May the Lord bless us with sufficient humility to be of service to all!

On the Permanency of the Permanent Deacon

A reader commented in the previous post, asking:

We have a friend who was ordained in the permanent diaconate. Does that mean he can't ever change his mind, and go on to become a priest? My husband was thinking that due to such a clerical shortage, this deacon ought (and would be the type) to pursue that, but it's called permanent diaconate for a reason--yet it seems likely there is some dispensation or form to release him from the diaconate into pursuing that?

Fortunately, to address the question we are now able to consult the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops document National Directory for the Formation, Ministry, and Life of Permanent Deacons in the United States, which was approved in 2003 and released for publication in 2005.  For those of us in the diaconate, the National Directory was a long-awaited document that answered many questions, for which the responses tended to vary regionally.

It does, in fact, seem reasonable that there should be some permission or other means available by which a widowed or celibate deacon might enter the priesthood.  After all, people do change directions in life, and it's true that many deacons possess the qualities that go into making good pastors.

I have, in fact, known of several deacons who became priests after being widowed.  Though this certainly has never been the norm, even before the release of the Directory.  There are also occasions that I am aware of in which the transition from deacon to priest didn't work out.

In one case, with which I am familiar, a deacon became a priest and then subsequently left the priesthood to remarry.  Naturally, such mishaps might give rise to practical arguments against ordaining men to the priesthood who have been accustomed to married life.  However, in my opinion, this in itself is not a strong argument against allowing deacons to become priests.  The stronger argument simply has to do with the permanence of the order.

What does the Directory have to say about all this?  Here's an excerpt that gets right to it:

Since the history of the order over the last millennium, however, has been centered on the diaconate as a transitory stage leading to the priesthood, actions that may obfuscate the stability and permanence of the order should be minimized.  This would include the ordination of celibate or widowed deacons to the priesthood.  "Hence ordination [of a permanent deacon] to the priesthood...must always be a very rare exception, and only for special and grave reasons..."

However, the document goes on to leave open the possibility of ordaining a permanent deacon to the priesthood given that the diocese adheres to the correct protocol and insures the suitability and proper education of the candidate.  Still, it is clear that the role of the permanent deacon is, typically and most suitably, to remain a deacon throughout life.

Nevertheless, in the case of the deacon in the question, I would advise him to consult with his bishop and be in prayer and discernment.  Some the Lord called as teachers, and some to be prophets.  Others he called to be evangelizers, and still others to be apostles.  By the same reasoning some are called to be priests, and others the Lord calls as deacons. 

Whatever the calling, our role--our responsibility--is to accept God's will in our lives and to rejoice in that which we do.  Our responsibility also is to discern the call of God and to be ready to go forth when he calls.