A new permanent deacon's word of thanks

At the end of the Mass, today, July 15, in Cucuyagua, Copán, Honduras, in which a young man was ordained a priest and I was ordained a permanent deacon for the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán, I shared these words (in Spanish).

Sisters and Brothers, I want to greet you with the greeting of St. Francis: Paz y Bien – Peace and Good.

Today is a special day in the diocese of Santa Rosa de Copan. Monseñor Darwin Andino has ordained me as the first permanent deacon in the diocese as we celebrate the hundredth year of the diocese in this jubilee year of mercy.

To be a deacon is not an honor, nor a privilege, nor a prize, nor a matter of prestige or power.

To be a deacon is to be called to live, in a profound way, the call which we all received in our baptism: to be incorporated into Christ – prophet, priest, and servant king. In a special way, it is a call to wash the feet of others and to hand over my life with Jesus, even to the Cross.

Pope Paul VI said that the deacon is an animator – a driving force – of all the faithful for service. As a sign of Christ the Servant, the permanent deacon, ought to join the altar, the table of the Lord with the table of daily life, especially the table of the poor and marginalized.[1]

The deacon assists at the altar in the Eucharist; thus I am called to give thanks, for the word “Eucharist” means “give thanks.’

First I want to give thanks to God for calling me, with all my weaknesses, to serve Him and the People of God in a new way.

I also wish to thank Monseñor Darwin Andino, our bishop and Father German Navarro, my pastor, who invited me to discern if God was calling me to the permanent diaconate. Despite not being worthy, God has called me.

I also wish to thank Monseñor Luis Alfonso Santos, our retired bishop, who accepted my offer to help in the diocese and helped me when I arrived in June 2007. I also thank Father Efraín Romero for inviting me to work in the parish of Dulce Nombre de María.

I thank God for all those who have inspired me to serve God and His People, especially the poor. My parents were examples of love of the neighbor and of those in need. Several teachers have sown seeds of diakonia – service – in me, from my days in high school. When I worked, almost 24 years, in the parish of St. Thomas Aquinas in Ames in the US, I worked with many parishioners, especially university students, who inspired me with their lives of dedication to the poor. In addition, a couple who served in Bolivia and El Salvador have helped me by their example and counsel.

In El Salvador and here in Honduras I have also encountered many people of faith who live a life of service. I dare not fail to thank them.

I wish to thank in a special way two communities of Franciscan sisters in the diocese who have inspired me and are my family – the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate, especially Sor Ines and Sor María Jesús, and  the Franicscan Sisters of the Holy Family (the Dubuque Franciscans), especially Sisters Nancy Meyerhofer, Brenda Whetstone, Pat Farrell, as well as Sisters Erika, Carol, and Mary Beth. Their dedication to the poor give me strength to go forward.

There are many more people I ought to thank. Pardon me for not mentioning you.

For all this, I am very grateful.

But we cannot live our baptismal commitments and I cannot live my diaconal promises without the help of God and the help of the Church.

Therefore, I ask you – pray for me.

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[1] “Pone de manifiesto la vinculación que existe entre la mesa del Cuerpo de Cristo y la Mesa de los pobres”. (Directorio del Diaconado Permanente)

Gratefully bathed in prayer

Yesterday was stressful. I got up early and went to get lab tests, in preparation for a medical check-up. I also took my car to Santa Rosa to check the suspension system; these roads really wreck the shocks and other parts of the car. Not too much damage – a belt and two parts. Only about $20.

Then, since I had bought new tires on Friday, I took the car to a different shop to balance the wheels and get the car aligned. Well, there was more to be done, partly because of some worn out parts, partly because the alignment resulted in some damage. I dropped the truck off about 12:30; it was finished at 5:45 pm. Several parts had to be replaced, to the tune of about $185.

After I dropped the truck off, I went to the doctor’s office for my regular three month check up. I was there until about 4 PM, waiting. But that was not the worst. My chlorestol and triglycerides had gone through the roof! My doctor listened to my heart and had this worried look on her face. She recommended that I get up early and have an electrocardiogram the next morning. There was something goofy about my heart rhythm.

Last night, after a long and rather stressful day, I wrote a short note on Facebook, asking for prayers.

More than 75 comments, most with a word of prayer and concern. More than 135 “liked” the post.

I feel myself bathed in prayer. Such love and care from others, even from as far away as Brazil and the Philippines. I feel the presence of God’s loving care from these people – and from many others.

A few weeks ago, Gloria Steinem is reported to have said:

“gratitude never radicalized anyone”

I beg to disagree.

Gratitude has opened my heart – not once, but innumerable times.

Gratitude is the recognition that all is gift and that God and others provide this.That doesn’t mean that gratitude is tied to good fortune, to money, to success.

I clearly remember my months in El Salvador in 1992, helping in the parish of Suchitoto. I spent much of the week in the farthest part of the parish, staying in the house of Esteban and Rosa Elbia, and the six or eight children still at home.

It was a poor house, fashioned out of the stalls of a former cattle shed. Esteban and other families had moved into this former hacienda a few months before the end of the Salvadoran civil war.

Yet almost every morning, when I woke up in my hammock in the house of the Clavel family, my first thought was “Gracias” – thanks!

Here I was in a poor community, without water, with minimal food (and with too much salt in the beans), with streams of rainwater entering the house and flowing under my hammock. But I felt gratitude.

Partly is was gratitude for being able to share in the lives of these people, to see their faith, their resilience, their commitment to God and to a new El Salvador. Most of the people were sympathetic to the Salvadoran guerrillas. Several were former guerillas and a few, like Esteban, had been catechists who had escaped death threats and death attempts.

But here I was among them, helping train catechists, visiting communities to see how the faith life was being nurtured, swimming in a nearby stream with the kids, occasionally helping with the work – including a few days helping build the trench for a water line.

Gratitude was my reaction.

And here too I find myself grateful. It’s central to my experience, visiting the communities, training catechists and working in other areas of faith formation, accompanying a new association of small coffee growers, assisting at Mass and at other sacraments, bringing Communion to the sick.

But it is also my reaction when I encounter people who care for the elderly and the sick – including a young man who cared for his aunt who just died and still cares for his grandmother; when I talk with one of the Communion ministers who walks hours to get to meetings and to share the Eucharist in other communities; when I listen to the struggles as well as the successes of people.

Gratitude is central for me as it was for Dorothy Day who wrote in From Union Square to Rome:

Gratitude brought me into the Church and that gratitude grows, and the first word my heart will utter when I face God is 'Thanks.'

It is central to the recent experience of Robert George. Though I do not hold many of his views, he reflected how he was flooded with so many messages of prayer and concern when he was hospitalized. 

“My reaction to all of those was pure, unadulterated, overwhelming gratitude – gratitude to God, not only for my survival, but for the good people, who, moved by their devotion to Him, offered their prayers for me. And gratitude to the, Boundless gratitude to them.”  

“Because of their prayers and God’s goodness, I now understand every day as a gift.”“So don’t tell me that gratitude never radicalized someone. Every morning when I brush my teeth and look at the guy in the mirror, I see someone who was radicalized by gratitude.”

All is gift.

As Gustavo Gutiérrez puts it in We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People  (p. 110):

The experience of gratuitousness is the space of encounter with the Lord. Unless we understand the meaning of gratuitousness, there will be no contemplative dimension in our life. Contemplation is not a state of paralysis but of radical self-giving… In the final analysis, to believe in God means to live out our life as a gift from God and to look upon everything that happens in it as a manifestation of this gift.

It is because of the centrality of gratefulness and the need to see how God continues to fill us with gifts, the first step of the Ignatian examen is asking for God’s grace. In gratitude, we recall the good things that God has done for us during the day.

In a world wrought with divisiveness, violence, suffering, and pain, perhaps gratitude is the most important lesson we can learn.

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Follow up on my health

I went to Santa Rosa this morning for an electrocardiogram in the Hospital. The results indicate an irregular heart beat - asymptomatic ventricular extrasystolis (or something like that.) The doctor gave me a medicine and told me to check my blood pressure and let her know in a week. If all is going well, I will go back to her office for a check up next month.

Follow up on the Clavel family

Saturday one of the little girls I knew in the family made her final profession as a Franciscan Sister in Guatemala. Earlier this month, the youngest son was married. Sadly, Esteban did not live to see these blessed events. He died a few years ago with complications from chagas.

Esteban and Rosa Elbia, December 2010