Deacon reflection 6

 What’s different, being a deacon?

A few months after I had been ordained, my pastor asked me what was different.

 

Not much, I told him.

 

I was continuing my work in visiting communities on Sundays for Celebrations of the Word with Communion as I had been doing for years. I was continuing to visit the sick and bringing them communion. I continued working with catechists and helping to organize the social ministry in the various communities.

 

There were some differences in the way I presided at Celebrations of the Word with Communion and in how I visited the sick. The most obvious difference was that I was giving a blessing to those I encountered.

 

There were a few new things. I baptized a few times and presided at funerals.

 

I was a member of the clergy.

 

As such, I had a position within the church. I was ordained for the order of the community, in my case to image Christ the Servant.

 

But a real difference for me was that I was no longer a “free agent.”

 

I had come to Honduras as a volunteer and offered myself to the bishop to serve as he saw fit. But I was a volunteer. I had no contract. I had no official commitment. I could leave when I wanted.

 

But ordination meant that I was no longer a volunteer. I had a role in the church as a deacon. I couldn’t, without permission, just get up and leave. I had been called and ordained for a specific service in this local church, the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras.

 

Now, I’m here as one with a particular ministry in the diocese. I’m no longer here on my own.

 

This isn’t a privilege, nor an honor. It’s a calling to live out.

 

Before my ordination, I had been serving in the church and the world. But now I’m expected to do this because of being called in a different way.

 

This doesn’t mean that all the baptized are not called to serve. That’s part of who we are as persons baptized into Christ who is prophet, priest, and king (servant), as the rite of anointing with chrism after Baptism notes.

 

This is who I am now, not above anyone, but commissioned, ordained, to serve the People of God in a special and visible way.

 

All of us who are baptized are also called to live as Christ, as member of His Body. Before we were baptized, if we were baptized as adults, we may have been living as Christians. But, by baptism, we are doing this publicly, commissioned to do this – not because we want to, but because of who we are.

 

And so, I am now called to serve, not because I want to, as a free agent, but as I am – called to be an Icon of Christ the Servant in the world, at the service of the People of God, especially the poor.