Playing Dress-up

Recently the United States College of Catholic Bishops Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations highlighted the importance of the deacon in the life of the Church from their annual survey in a tweet. Someone commented that the Church needs more priests and not empty nesters who like to play dress-up. In a later comment he went on to say that there is no coincidence that priestly vocations have collapsed at the same time as permanent deacon vocations soared.

The vocation of deacon is vastly misunderstood by clergy and lay alike. Even many deacons seem not to understand who they have been called to become. The permanent diaconate, at least in the United States, is always changing. It is not really evolving in as much as it is becoming better understood. The Church is two thousand years old and clarity comes to it over centuries, not years. The permanent diaconate in the United States was only restored in 1968. In Church time it is still in its infancy.

To understand why the deacon is important to the life of the Church we have to understand their two fold ministries of service and liturgy. Before we talk about the deacon let us start by understanding the role of the priest. Why do we have priests?

Jesus called the Twelve and bestowed his authority on them. They were the first bishops. As the Church grew the Twelve could not be everywhere at once. They ordained additional bishops to manage the new Churches, which became localities, which became what we know as dioceses. The bishop is the ordinary minister in his diocese. He is responsible for every soul residing in his diocese, Catholic or otherwise. His job is to offer sacrifice and prayer for all of the people.

A bishop cannot be in every parish in his diocese at once. Priests are the bishops’ stand ins in the parishes. Priests offer sacrifice and prayer on the behalf of the bishop in their parish. This is their primary ministry.

Bishops are also responsible for the wellbeing of the people living in his diocese. The original bishops found out early that they could not look after the well being of their flock and offer sacrifice and prayer at the same time. There just are not enough hours in the day to do it all. They ordained the first deacons as ministers of service. They were to look after the day to day needs of the people while the bishops offered sacrifice and prayer.

Deacons are ordained primarily as the agents of charity for the bishops. They are ordained so that they may receive ordinational graces to strengthen them in this ministry. Serving those on the peripheries is not an easy thing to do. To bring Christ and be Christ to those in most need can be both emotionally and physically taxing. Ordinational grace strengthens the deacon to go forth and do that which Jesus calls him to do. Without the deacon the responsibility for the well being for the people of the parish falls to the priest who is already overburdened with things besides sacrifice and prayer. The first bishops learned quickly that they could not do both at the level both required. The priest is supposed to take care of the people’s spiritual needs whereas the deacon attends to their physical needs.

The deacon has a secondary ministry when it comes to the liturgy. The deacon is the ordinary minister of the Gospel, not the priest or the bishop, even if it is the bishop of Rome, the Pope. When a deacon is present at a Mass it is his duty to proclaim the Gospel. The deacon is also the ordinary minister of the chalice. In a Mass where the host is being distributed under both species it is the deacon who distributes the blood of Christ. The secondary responsibility of the deacon in liturgy is to assist the priest wherever he needs assistance. In the Church one retains all of the authority to do the ministries below the one they are in. If there is no lector the deacon becomes the lector. If there are no altar servers the deacon becomes the altar server. If there is no deacon the priest becomes the deacon.

There is a theological purpose to the deacon in liturgy that is seemingly unknown to just about everybody. To understand it we have to realize what the Mass actually is in reality. The Church teaches that the Mass is a re-presentation of Jesus’ sacrifice on Calvary.  It is not a recreation. It is not a remembrance.  The Mass, in every respect, is a time machine that transports us to the foot of the cross on Calvary. We become physically present at Jesus crucifixion. To maintain our sanity our eyes are veiled from seeing the supernatural world that surrounds us. Every Mass, no matter how large or small, is part of the one true Mass offered once forever in heaven.

The ordinary minister responsible for offering the Mass for the people in his diocese is the bishop. Because the bishop cannot be present in every parish for every Mass the priest acts as his stand in. In this world the bishop himself is also a stand in. The bishop stands in for Jesus who is offering the sacrifice of the Mass, which is his body, blood, soul, and divinity. We say that the bishop/priest acts in Persona Christi, or in the person of Christ.

If we were to lift the veil on the supernatural and see the actual Mass we are a part of we would see angels to the right and left and surrounding Jesus at the altar. In our reality the deacon is the stand in for the angels. A Mass without deacons is a Mass without the visual representation of the angels. When a priest chooses not to use the deacon at Mass because he does not feel they are needed he is robbing the faithful of the fullness of what the Mass truly is. It does not matter if it is just a private Mass at which there is only one priest and one deacon or our highest solemnity, the presence of the deacon makes visible the angels who are only visible through supernatural vision.

It is true that the bishop/priest is the only one who can bring life into the Church. They are the only ones Jesus has given his authority to consecrate the host and unless we eat of the flesh of Jesus we will have no life within us. No priest, no Eucharist; no Eucharist no life. The bishop/priest is also the only one who can act as a conduit for the forgiveness of sin. Again, no priest, no absolution of sin; no absolution of sin, no life. The bishop/priest cannot be replaced. But, just as a car engine cannot run long without oil, the Church cannot run long without her deacons. This is the reason the permanent diaconate was restored in 1968, has flourished, and continues to grow throughout the world today. It wasn’t to give a bunch of old, empty nesters a chance to play dress-up.