On a recent Sunday at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles, Deacon Valentin Saucedo preached on the Gospel reading found in Matthew 25:31-46 which contains the well-known "Corporal Acts of Mercy." Because he was a regular visitor to the incarcerated at Twin Towers, he took time to focus on verse 36: "I was...in prison and you visited me."
Later during Mass he led the congregation in the Intercessory Prayer which included a petition for the incarcerated. To his surprise there was a long line of people after Mass outside the sacristy wishing to speak with him. Most had written the names of friends and relatives incarcerated at Twin Towers and were requesting that he visit them.
This event perfectly exemplifies the ministry of a permanent deacon, a ministry that embraces Christian service in its own way beginning with the New Testament word diakonía which means "service." This is the first indication that in the permanent deacon "service" has a unique expression rooted in the ministry of Jesus.
For example, in Mark's Gospel Jesus teaches his disciples that they are not to lord authority over others and that to be considered great actually means to be "servant." This is because "the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve" because Jesus is to be given over "as a ransom for many" (10:42-45). Thus for Mark, the meaning of "service" is ultimately linked to the cross.
In the Gospel of John, service is modeled by Jesus washing his disciple's feet during the Last Supper (13:1-5). Later, during the Last Supper, Jesus commands the disciples to love one another and in doing so foreshadows his own death: "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."
Jesus adds that the disciples are his "friends" reminiscent of the teaching in Mark against lording authority over others (15:12-15). In this way John's Gospel expresses discipleship as love manifested in service, even embracing the lowliest functions in the community. Furthermore, by calling his disciples "friends" Jesus exemplifies a style of leadership that is exercised more through example than it is through position.
The "Corporal Acts of Mercy" in Matthew 25:31-46, which were the basis for Deacon Valentin's homily, provide a final component to the meaning of "service" in the New Testament: there is to be special attention to the marginalized.
While these Gospel ideals challenge all of us to love through service, they find a unique emphasis in the permanent diaconate understood as having the threefold character of liturgy, word, and charity. Referring to these elements, the Second Vatican Council embraced a renewed permanent diaconate:
"At a lower level of the hierarchy are deacons, upon whom hands are imposed 'not unto the priesthood, but unto a ministry of service.' For strengthened by sacramental grace, in communion with the bishop and his group of priests they serve in the diaconate of the liturgy, of the word, and of charity to the people of God" (Lumen Gentium, n. 29).
The ministries of "word" and of "liturgy" bring together the deacon's ministry outside of and within the liturgy. As a minister of the word, he proclaims the Gospel and may also preach. Yet, the deacon's liturgical proclamation extends into service for the community. In this way, rooted in the sacrificial love of Jesus, the deacon brings a unique presence. Pope John Paul II expressed this in terms of the deacon "sacramentalizing service." In a similar way the Unites States Bishops have said that "the deacon sacramentalizes the mission of the Church in his words and deeds, responding to the master's command of service and providing real-life examples of how to carry it out."
Thus, it is the deacon who properly reads the intercessions representing the needs of the community to the assembly. It is the deacon who helps receive the gifts at offertory, which is "symbolic of his traditional role in distributing the resources of the community among those in need." The deacon dismisses the congregation to "go forth to love and to serve the Lord" which invites the assembly to participate in his ministry of service. In this way the ministry of liturgy is inseparable from the ministry of word with the result that "in his formal liturgical roles, the deacon brings the poor to the Church and the Church to the poor."
By now it is obvious that the ministry of charity (or "love") is the cement of the permanent deacon's ministry as it brings word and liturgy into unity with itself. The U.S. Bishops have stated that the ministry of the deacon would be "severely deficient" if not accompanied by the ministry of charity.
The ministry of charity obviously derives from the sacrificial love of Jesus made present in the Eucharist and practiced through "foot washing." In this way the permanent deacon brings this "Eucharist" to the incarcerated, the homeless, the troubled youth, the sick, the elderly, and anyone else on the margins of the community.
In turn, he brings this experience back to his faith community especially as it assembles for liturgy. This type of pastoral care, flowing from the ministry of Jesus the servant, has been rightly recognized as making the permanent deacon an "icon of Christ the servant."
With the increasing pressure on parishes for ordained ministers, many in the Church today look to the permanent diaconate for a sign that help is coming. The danger is that in the rush to fill the gap this rich charism may be misunderstood or worse, forgotten. Yet, for the permanent deacons in the Church today the threefold ministry of liturgy, word and charity is a daily spirituality expressed in a pastoral practice that indeed will "fill the need," but in its own way. Bill Shaules is a coordinator in the archdiocesan Office of Diaconate Formation and teaches Scripture at Loyola Marymount University and at Fuller Theological Seminary. He has a Ph.D in New Testament from Fuller, and is a resident of Simi Valley.
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