Entering the Heart of the Diaconate
Back in late May, I mentioned I was starting to read Deacon James Keating’s The Heart of the Diaconate (2015, Paulist Press). Sadly, I had…
Back in late May, I mentioned I was starting to read Deacon James Keating’s The Heart of the Diaconate (2015, Paulist Press). Sadly, I had to set the book aside for a few weeks while I attended to other things, but have recently picked it back up. I’m glad that I did.
The book is not long (less than 80 pages), but densely packed. It is divided into three sections — Calling, Formation and Ordination, and finally Ministry. The book seems intended especially for those responsible for the formation of deacons, but any deacon would find food for thought in its pages, as well as any man discerning a call to ministry.
I just finished reading the first section on Calling and wanted to share some thoughts with you.
Deacon Keating is doing much to revive the contemplative aspects of the diaconate as a way of reminding us that deacons are not merely social workers or church volunteers.
The deacon is, first and foremost, a man of interiority; a man who wants to be affected by trinitarian love. He can assist the needy as one in Holy Orders if and only if this assistance flows from his inherent intimacy with Christ the Servant. Anything less is simply ethical behavior or acts of humanitarian charity. Such acts to not need to flow from the supernatural action of the paschal mystery and therefore do not call for ordination.
This is an important point. Much is made in the literature about the servant nature of the deacon — generally spoken of as service to the poor and needy. But we must be careful not to locate the heart of the diaconate in corporal works of mercy rather than in ordained ministry. All the baptized faithful are called to perform corporal works of mercy and acts of charity. Ordained ministry is distinctive.
Ordination means entering into a different sort of relationship with Christ. Not better or more valid or more effective than the baptismal union all the faithful share with Christ. But different. The nature of that difference is something the prospective deacon candidate is going to need to meditate on and pray about quite a bit during his discernment. Just because a man likes to serve others does not mean he is called to the diaconate. As Deacon Keating puts it:
To discern a diaconal vocation is to distinguish between the attraction to “help out” around the parish and the weighty invitation from Christ: “Will you allow me to live my servant mysteries over again in your own flesh?”
That is a powerful invitation that any man discerning the diaconate must take seriously.
Deacon Keating invites those in discernment to be open and honest about what we love. “[W]hat we truly love is what forms us most deeply,” he writes. Is it Christ? Or is it something else?
To be truly in love with Christ is to be rooted in the Church — not the world. Some aspirants will discover that they are not perhaps as rooted in the Church as they thought themselves to be.
To live in the Word one has to live where the Word lives, and the Word abides in the church. So the first painful movement of formation comes when a man is invited to be uprooted from his former “residence” and see if he wants to live in the church and not simply within the popular culture. The kind of deacon needed today is not a “back-slapping buddy” but a man who has suffered the coming of Christ and lived to tell about it (see Col 3:3).
To save you looking it up, Colossians 3:3 is, “For you are dead; and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Douay-Rheims version). These are the kinds of deacons James Keating says our Church and our culture needs. I agree.
Marriage & the Diaconate
Deacon Keating addresses the spousal relationship of married deacons in his treatment of discernment, as well. He has some very practical things to say, such as the suggestion that:
…mandating spousal attendance [as is common in most diocesan formation programs] at weekend formation programs or even evening programs can have the unintended effect of automatically attracting only older candidates. Encouraging but not mandating spousal attendance leaves more room for younger couples to come forward and thereby enliven the diaconate in the diocese with not simply the wisdom of age but the vibrancy of youth.
Younger couples will presumably have younger children and therefore the additional burden of child-care is placed upon the couple. My wife and I entered formation with five young children and had a sixth baby during formation. We are blessed to have both my parents and my wife’s parents live close by and both were more than willing to take the kids overnight when we had formation weekends. I don’t know how we would have managed otherwise. Not every deacon candidate will be so blessed.
More important than child-care arrangement during class time, however, is the health of the deacon’s marriage itself. Deacon Keating, in just a few short pages, offers words of profound wisdom to help the discerning candidate honestly evaluate his marriage to determine whether he truly is free to enter into a diaconal vocation, or perhaps needs to spend a more attention nurturing his marital vocation.
He discusses the problem faced by many wives who feel that their husbands are already over-stretched, but don’t want to say “no” and get in the way of their call by God. Deacon Keating offers the wise advice: “the wife is not standing against God if her husband has refused a life of emotional intimacy with her… A wife knows when her husband has received a call because she is ready to ‘send him.’”
Deacon Keating talks of the need for simplicity and spiritual poverty, especially for the married deacon, as a remedy against the tendency to “do” more.
In a diaconal ministry that is humble, measured, and contextualized within a whole set of relationships (spousal, paternal, professional, and civic), each man is not called to “take on” a lot of activity. He is, instead, called to discern which activity of Christ he is to gracefully receive within a limited purview. In this way, Christ maximizes his own glory and not the man’s.
Something that all deacons (and husbands and fathers) need to learn early on is when to say “no.” Men called to the diaconate are generally men whose instinct is to say “yes” when asked for help, or when they see a need. But no one can do it all. And a burned out deacon is not only not a good deacon, but neither is he a good husband or father.
Celibacy
Deacon Keating does not neglect the matter of celibacy. While noting that only 2% of permanent deacons in the United States are ordained as celibate men, he reminds us that celibacy is a potential reality for every deacon, as married deacons are called to a celibate life should their wives predecease them.
When people find out that I would not remarry if my wife dies before I do, the first thing they ask is, “Aren’t you worried about being lonely?” I usually reply that with six children (and who knows how many grandchildren or even great-grandchildren by that point) I would hope I’d have the company of my family and friends around me. But in truth, yes, of course I am worried about being lonely should my wife die. Who wouldn’t be?
So my favorite quote from Deacon Keating on celibacy is this:
To be celibate for the kingdom is not to be lonely. Loneliness stems from personality traits, unhealed affective wounds that repel others, or it is even imposed upon the self by others based on prejudice or ignorance. Celibacy is not synonymous with loneliness; it is synonymous with communion. “He who is with God is never less alone than when he is alone.”
(That last line is a quote from Pope Benedict XVI, The God of Jesus Christ, Ignatius Press, 2008).
That being said, Deacon Keating is a realist.
This way of living, however, does not prevent one from occasional emotional loneliness, bouts of alienation, neurotic aching for popularity, affectively empty prayer times, or occasional rejections by friends, parishioners, and fellow clergy. It also does not prevent one from experiencing sexual temptation and the desire to hold a woman. Celibacy is a way of being human; not a way of avoiding our incarnate state.
Summation
This section on Calling has a lot for the deacon to chew on. I think it would be good reading for any man considering a calling to the diaconate, but I think it will be most helpful for those who are responsible for diaconal formation — both those involved formally in diocesan formation programs, as well as pastors and spiritual advisors to men who are in discernment.
The next section is on Formation and Ordination and I look forward to sharing my thoughts on that with you in the near future.