hilde the dog:
Folks what do you think? Those who know me what do you think should i try to become a deacon? This weigh’s on me. I hear no answer and yet feel a tug. HELP. Mercygate, mosher, deacon ed, cameron et el where are you. I love reading and helping at CCD where is this going???
I’ve been at a convocation of deacons and candidates in our formation program during the past several days and just read the post. One night, I realized I had taught scripture to most of the first deacons in our diocese, men approaching 30 years in the ministry now, or had been the director when most of the others went through admission and formation. I felt a little older that night.
One of the new candidates was a man whom I interviewed about ten years ago. At the time I turned him down for admission because I believed he needed some seasoning through broader apostolic activities and some wider spiritual growth. I know he was disappointed at the time, but he persevered, and now it has become apparent to the Christian community, that he has a call to the diaconate. I also thought of other outstanding men who spoke with me about the diaconate, but how another vocation was discerned for them and how they have found fulfilment in that.
As you can imagine, it always gives me joy when someone begins to consider a vocation to the ordained, religiously vowed, or lay service of the Church. I’ll keep you (and Michael below) in prayer. I think if you place yourselves in God’s will, only good can come of it. As Dante wrote, in His will is our peace, and as Mother Theresa said, God only wants us to be faithful.
I think the responses have been pretty solid. Committing ourselves to do God’s will requires patient and prayerful listening, the good counsel of those who know us intimately, and the inner knowledge that God brings things to fruition on his schedule and not ours, and according to his designs and not ours. For the diaconate, too, as in the case of the Seven in the Acts of the Apostles, it is others who eventually present us to the Church for service because they have seen in our lives of service something of substance, fidelity and inspiration. Others do call us. That’s how God works.
This is said not to encourage passivity or flight, but to help to admit we are not in control once we cross a certain threshold. The hand is laid to the plough of discernment. All we can do is to hold on for dear life, and let God direct its course. But it remains clearly true, that if you seek to serve the Lord, prepare for a hard testing.
Discernment is complex. God stirs the waters despite our desire for clarity. Sometimes like Jacob, we wrestle with the Lord until we learn to surrender. Like Elijah, we hear the roars and rumbles far before we are ready to listen to the gentle breeze. And if we have any sense like Isaiah, we realize that we are unclean men and women among an unclean people.
Ultimately a vocation to service in imitation of the Lord involves the same surrender and emptying which he experienced (Phil 2). It is sacrificial in its demands, transformative in a way that is almost terrifying, and death to self in a very real way. And utterly wonderful.
Those who guide you, your pastor, the director of deacons or vocations, etc., will also clarify things like spiritual direction.
In the meantime, before you meet with the people you need to talk with. . . if you feel overwhelmed or that you’re being taken on a more and more challenging ride, good. This is most likely a sign that you are disposed to patient obedience already. After all, God cannot work with those who are full of themselves.
God bless.
