I wonder when good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen if he knew much about the first of Deacons who died a martyrs death? St. Stephen, chosen with six other men to be the first Deacons of the Church, is celebrated today on the liturgical calendar. Among many titles he is the patron Saint of Deacons. We Permanent Deacons in New Orleans claim him as a patron and celebrate our community of Deacons on this very day!
Ironically, just a day or so before Christmas, a pretty active Catholic poster on Facebook recorded a status something like this: "why do Deacons need to dress up like Priests and why are they even necessary?" It's so difficult to imagine that 44 years after the restoration of the Permanent Diaconate, decades after encountering the Deacon at Mass, at the Church, at the many ministries we can be found at, we remain either a mystery to many or worse, a scandal to a few.
It should be noted that the Deacon is one of three Orders in the Church as described throughout Scripture, Tradition, the Magisterium and two-thousand years of history in the Church. Permanent Deacons were heavily used in the earliest years of the Church and Deacons were closely affiliated with the Bishop. In chapter six of the Acts of the Apostles, the Church calls for the institution of the diaconate so the Bishops and subsequently the Priests, can get about the business of saying Mass, attending to the Sacraments. Deacons went out into the community and brought the Eucharist to the poor and widows and attended to their temporal needs.
When Pope Paul VI restored fully the order of the diaconate to a permanent rank in the Church, it was only after many years of fruitful discussion. Some of these discussions date back to Vatican I but really took off in the interment camps of World War II.
The Permanent Deacon is indeed clergy. He is ordained, meaning he receives the Sacrament of Holy Orders. His ordination rite is very similar to what has been done for many years. The Permanent Deacon is ordained for service to a Bishop and a Diocese. He may be assigned to parish life, where the Deacon will assist at Mass, proclaim the Gospel, help distribute Holy Eucharist and occasionally preach. With the charism of the Deacon being charity or service, the Permanent Deacon is almost always found at the prison, ministering to the inmate, at a nursing home ministering to the elderly, at a food bank or soup kitchen, ministering to the hungry, at the hospice program, misistering to the dying, at the rehab center, ministering to the recovering alcoholic or drug addicted individual. The Permanent Deacon may be found ministering to the men and women of the armed forces, or first responders, or weary travelers at an airport, or any number of other places where people are hurting, scared, lonely and forgotten.
In today's Church can anyone really ask of there is a need for the Permanent Deacon? Whatever the need and however great, the Permanent Deacon, along with the Transitional Deacons on their way to one day becoming a Priest, are necessary to fulfill the three orders of Holy Orders in the Church. Each has specific duties and functions according to that office. The Permanent Deacon does what Deacons do and is what Permanent Deacons are called to be. As that Facebook poster implied, Deacons may look like Priests on the altar but only to a lazy, untrained eye. The Deacon never wears a stole like a Priest; his stole hangs across the chest. The Deacon never wears a chausable, the outer garment of the Priest but instead wears the Dalmatic. The Dalmatic has sleeves, a Priest never wears sleeves with his outer garment.
Yes Permanent Deacons are married and many work in the "civilian"workforce. The Permanent Deacon is not called to celibacy like the Priest but indeed takes a vow of conditional celibacy. We remain faithful to our wives and if our wives pre-decease us, we never remarry without a special dispensation from the Holy Father.
Having been ordained for over four years now I would hope that we would arrive at the day, among faithful Catholics, that never would they be such silly comments as the ones I saw on Facebok the other day.
St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr, Pray for Us!
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