The deacon embedded in the secular world: witnessing and listening

In an interview in the virtual Deacon Conference on November 5, 2021, Deacon James Keating spoke of deacons as “clerics embedded in the secular world.”

I think this is a very useful way to speak of the vocation of the diaconate as a permanent state. But this needs to be unpacked, not in terms of the status of clerics versus laity, but in terms of the vocation of the deacon.

Keating and others are pointing to the unique place in the church of the deacon who also has a vocation, including employment, outside the church. The worker-deacon can be in places where a priest usually cannot be found – in the factory, in the courtroom, in the hospital emergency room, in the halls of government.

I am somewhat reluctant to use the word “secular” since it is all too often used in contrast to the sacred. I believe that our role as deacons should reflect an incarnational spirituality.

Jesus is God made flesh, God-Human, Son of God and Son of Mary. He is both. He manifests the presence of God in the midst of human life and living. God reveals Himself in the flesh. As the early fathers (and St. Thomas Aquinas) affirmed. God became humans so that humans may become God – revealing the presence of God in the world.

Thus, the deacon can reveal the presence of God in the daily world – in Spanish, lo cotidiano. His is, as Deacon Tim O’Donnell writes, the ministry of the threshold. I heartily recommend his book, The Deacon: Icon of Christ the Servant, Minister of the Threshold.

But it is, sometimes, useful to note that the world of the church and the secular world often seem to be proposed as not only distinct, but even opposed, realities. But, as “clerics embedded in the secular world,” the deacon can see his call to be a presence in the world and to be one who hears “the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties” of the world (Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, 1). 

PRESENCE IN THE WORLD 

In France, in the middle of last century, the worker priest movement was an experiment by the Church in France to reach the working class which seemed so far away from the message of the Gospel. Priests worked in the factories, without identifying themselves to the other workers. They saw the importance of the presence of the church in the "secular" world. 

Also, one can also look at the example of the Little Brothers and Little Sisters of Jesus who live and work among the poor as a silent witness of the love of God in the world of the poor.

I believe that it extremely important to remember that the restored diaconate has several roots, including the Priest Cell block at Dachau. There, the priests noted the failure of the church to be attentive to the rise of Nazism. They saw the need to have persons, including clerics, who were immersed in the world so that they could share with the church what they were seeing and experiencing.

After the Second World War, one of the priests, Wilhelm Schamoni, noted:

The Church has not succeeded in holding its ground among either the leading intellectual classes nor among those classes most easily led astray, the proletariat. In their own milieu, deacons from these classes for these classes could gain influence incomparably deeper than could any priest, since priests would never develop within this milieu the kind of rapport that deacons would have already established. One could develop the diaconate into a means to win back the de-Christianized milieu. An intelligent deacon from the working-class would, without any special theological training, be able to touch the heart of his worker colleagues with just the right words.

However, Deacon James Keating, speaking of the role of the deacon as bringing the Word to the world, seems more intent on role of the deacon as one who shows the faith to the people he is around. In the interview, Keating mentions a deacon being present at social events and responding to the needs of the people. 

True, but is this the most significant aspect of this description of the deacon's call to de present to the world? 

LISTENING TO THE WORLD

As a cleric living and working in the world outside the institutional church, the deacon might be able to hear more than a priest would. 

This role of listening – and helping make it heard within the Christian assembly – is unique for the deacon working outside the institutional church. (I should note that I work full-time in a rural parish and thus don't show forth this aspect of the diaconate.)

As noted above, the priests in Dachau’s Priest Block saw the need to have persons, including clerics, who were immersed in the world so that they could share with the church what they were seeing and experiencing. They could hear and see what was happening and what one could miss if he were totally immersed in the affairs of the church.

Cardinal Walter Kasper has spoken of the deacon as “the listening post.” Referring to an ancient document, he noted that the deacon “is depicted as ‘the ears, mouth, heart and soul of the bishop’ (Didasc. II, 44).“ Thus, “The deacons can act as the eyes and ears of the bishop in identifying areas of need and can help him in his task of being father to the poor.”

The deacon thus can become the advocate of the poor and oppressed, amplifying their voices, which he has heard.

Saint Oscar Romero, martyr-archbishop of San Salvador, was called “La voz de los sin voz” – the voice of the voiceless. His homilies – which were extremely long – were a combination of reflection on the scriptures and sharing the news of the week, including the names of people killed or disappeared. These homilies were broadcast on the archdiocesan radio as an alternative source of news, as well as a call for justice.

What Monseñor Romero did, the deacon can do – listening to the Word of God in the scriptures and listening to the word of God in the cries of the poor. We can do this, I believe, when we are present to the world – especially with those at the margins of society.

A few weeks before I was ordained, I was in El Salvador and visited the tomb of Romero and dedicated my diaconal ministry to him. As I look back, I see how fitting this has been.

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Marshall Gibbs, “The Deacon as Preacher,” Forming Deacons: Ministers of Soul and Leaven.
Walter Kasper, “The Deacon offers an ecclesiological view of the present day challenges in the Church and Society,” Paper given at IDC Study-Conference, Brixen, Italy, October 1997.