The
Ideal Family of the Permanent Deacon
Two
texts illustrate the characteristics of the ideal husband and of the ideal wife
on the one hand, and of the ideal deacon on the other. The first is taken from
the Bible, the second from the ordination rite. A Regula Vitae for the
deacon can be deduced from them and includes elements of a new way of living
guided by the Holy Spirit.
These
texts serve as the first two parts of my talk, the deacon as husband and the
deacon as an ordained minister. In the third part I will point out elements of
the deacon’s spirituality. In the conclusion, examples of contemporary family
spirituality will be cited.
Three
preliminary clarifications are in order. First, I assume that the family of the
Permanent Deacon includes his wife and children. Although it is true that some
deacons are single or widowed, most are living within a family they have
established.
Second,
Pope John Paul II offers the Church a magnificent vision of the family in his
1981 Apostolic Exhortation, Familiaris Consortio. "Like each of the
seven sacraments, so also marriage is a real symbol of the event of salvation.
‘The spouses participate in it as spouses, together, as a couple, so that the
first and immediate effect of marriage (res et sacramentum) is not supernatural
grace itself, but the Christian conjugal bond, a typically Christian communion
of two persons because it represents the mystery of Christ’s incarnation and
the mystery of his covenant. The content of participation in Christ’s life is
also specific: conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of
the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and
affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal
union that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it
demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual self-giving; and
it is open to fertility (cf. Humanae Vitae 9). In a word it is a
question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a
new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them
to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian
values’" (13). The ancient and glorious insight of the family as
the Ecclesia domestica shines forth in these words. The Ecclesia
domestica is the ideal for the Christian family.
Third,
the term ‘ideal’ means a practical model of excellence, a standard of
perfection. God’s design for marriage and the family must be striven after
responsibly. It is undoubtedly true that the deacon knows, loves and
accomplishes the moral good by stages of growth. But the baptized, including
deacons, do not look on the moral law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the
indefinite future. Pope John Paul II explains that married people must embody
the values enshrined in the law of God through concrete actions. "‘And so
what is known as ‘the law of gradualness’ or step-by-step advance cannot be
identified with ‘gradualness of the law’, as if there were different degrees or
forms of precept in God’s law for different individuals and situations. In
God’s plan, all husbands and wives are called in marriage to holiness" (Homily
at the close of the Sixth Synod of Bishops, 1980). In the title of my talk,
‘ideal’ doesn’t mean ‘unattainable.’
I. The Deacon as Ideal Husband.
St.
Paul gives the description of the wife and husband in his letter to the
Ephesians. This well-known text is foundational for Christian marriage and
sexuality. Today, unfortunately, it has become the focus of acrimonious and
unjustified criticism.
"Be
subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your
husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is
the head of he church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is
subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their
husbands. Husbands , love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave
himself up for her, that he might sanctify her by the washing of water with the
word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or
wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Even so
husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife
loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes
it, as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. For this
reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and
the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is a profound one. And I am saying
that it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his
wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband"
(21-33).
St.
Paul introduces this unsurpassed instruction on marriage with a general
command. "Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ."
Covering all relations among Christians, including husbands and wives, it
undercuts any possibility of an anti-woman interpretation of Paul’s Letter.
Above all, it offers a complex and beautiful vision of the Christian family and
indeed of every type of Christian community. Within a communio of
prayerful thanksgiving to the Father, believers are called to live in
reciprocal subordination to one another (20). This command attains a central
place in the catechetical exhortations of the early Church.
St.
Paul then elaborates on the application of this reciprocal subordination to
Christian marriage. He clearly teaches that this subordination does not apply
only to the wife. Both spouses must show a readiness to renounce one’s own
individual will for the sake of the other. This mutual subordination is marked
by a fear of the Lord Jesus Christ whose anticipated final coming is the
context of all Christian relationships.
The
wife is to be subject to the husband as to the Lord. It is a unity of obedience
to the husband as to the Lord. By being subject to her husband, the wife
makes concrete in her life the truth that Christ is head of the Church his
body.
It
is such because "the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of
the Church, his body and is himself its savior" (23). The salvation of the
spouses, as always, has the cross of Christ at its unique and universal center.
Because the church submits to Christ who has been crucified for her, so should
the wife submit to her husband.
The
norm of the sexual relationship for Christian spouses is a theological one,
namely the relationship between Christ and the church. Does this imply the
wife’s exclusive subordination to a dominant husband? No! The Christian husband
himself is the sign of the boundless image of the bodily gift of self. It
signifies Jesus’s self-surrender on the Cross to his Father by giving himself
up for the church.
The
husband observes the Christian commandment of love within marriage and in the
marital act only by handing himself over unconditionally for his wife.
Henceforth he sees in her all that he has surrendered, which is his very self.
"Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who
loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but
nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members
of his body. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be
joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’" (28-31). St. Paul
concludes that the mystery of man and woman who become one flesh is
unfathomable when he writes, "I am saying that it refers to Christ and the
Church" (32).
St.
Paul places eros, human sexuality and marital friendship under the law
of Christian agape. The union of spouses is an image of the communio
of Christ and his Church. This nuptial communion finds its complete realization
in the Eucharist, the irrevocable self-offering of Jesus to the Father out of
love for his church, making her an immaculate bride. Filled with the Holy
Spirit, the faithful in the Eucharist "become one body, one spirit in
Christ." This is prefigured by the man’s self-offering in the marital act
and throughout marriage. Thus redeeming love is transformed by Christ into
spousal love (John Paul II, Wednesday Catechesis, 8/18/82, §6).
St.
Paul’s instruction to the husband looks back to Paradise: Eve comes forth from
Adam’s side and therefore the mystery of Adam in loving her as his own flesh is
fully illumined by the Ecclesia ex latere Christi. The Christian husband
cannot find his fulfilment simply in an erotic embrace of his wife; his
exemplar rather is the self-giving love of Christ crucified for the Church, the
New Eve, who is born from his pierced side.
St.
Paul also reminds the husband that the relationship with his wife is rooted in
their Baptism. He loves his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself
for her so that he might sanctify her, "having cleansed her by the washing
of water with the word" (26).
Here
within the New Testament synthesis of the elements of covenantal nuptiality,
reference is made to Baptism. The importance of the first Sacrament for the
deacon/husband cannot be exaggerated. Reflection will reveal why the Catechism
of the Catholic Church (CCC) declares, "Holy Baptism is the basis of
the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit, and the door which
gives access to the other sacraments" (1213).
The
deacon also understands why St. Gregory of Nazianzus says that "baptism is
God’s most beautiful and magnificent gift" (CCC 1243). All Christians
should understand it. Unfortunately, for many Christians, Baptism occurs when
they are young and therefore unaware of their newfound dignity through God’s
merciful love and the faith of the Church.
It
is important for the deacon to recall often the critical stages of the
Christian’s journey toward Baptism. The first Sacrament, also called the
Sacrament of faith, requires a profound changing of one way of walking to
another. This ‘turning’ is called a ‘conversion’ - a new way, once embarked
upon, leading to ‘salvation.’ It is a ‘liminal’ experience, the crossing of a
threshold. It is not surprising that the psalter should begin with the
description of such a liminal experience. Pope John Paul II teaches that one
"who receives Baptism becomes at the same time - by virtue of the
redemptive love of Christ - a participant in His spousal love for the
church" (Wednesday Catechesis, 8/25/82, §7).
In
ancient times, a series of dramatic exorcisms took place on this journey of
conversion. Baptism assumed a conversion from a terrifying field of forces -
pagan gods, their cultic processions, the games, the theater, and the
gladiatorial extravaganzas.
Likewise,
today all the psychological, spiritual, and physical sources of sin, including
life’s addictions, need to be subjected to scrutiny and their source, Satan, to
violent expulsion. Immediately before the immersion in the depths of the
baptismal waters, the catechumen is anointed with oil, like an athlete, to
prepare him for one, final, Olympic-like struggle with Satan in the baptismal
font.
Tertullian,
an African theologian of the third century, explained the reality of the three
Sacraments of Initiation - Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist. "The
flesh is the hinge of salvation." This is mystical anthropology at its
best. Tertullian understood that the sole foundation of Christian knowledge is
the "mystery hidden in God until it was revealed in Jesus Christ."
With a thoroughly Catholic imagination he elaborated. "The flesh is washed
that the soul may be made spotless; the flesh is anointed that the soul may be
consecrated; the flesh is signed [with the cross] that the soul too may be
protected; the flesh is overshadowed by the imposition of the hand that the
soul may also be illumined by the Spirit; the flesh feeds on the body and blood
of Christ so that the soul may be replete with God."
The
baptismal font is seen as both a tomb and a womb. The water receiving the
candidate, like the earth which received Christ’s body after his death, is a
tomb from which, like a womb, Christ and the newly baptized arise new-born.
The
baptized gain access to salvation through grace-filled faith and the
sacramental signs of water and word. Another patristic writer, Origen of
Alexandria, applied the three days that Christ spent in the tomb to the
baptized, "Those who have been taken up into Christ by Baptism have been
taken up into his death and been buried with him, and will rise with him."
Consequently, he calls Baptism the "mystery of the third day." The
‘mystery’ is the participation of the baptized not only in Christ’s death and
burial but also in his resurrection through their immersion in the baptismal
water.
The
baptized walk a new way. The ancient designation of a Roman pilgrimage
illustrates this reality, Ad limina Apostolorum (To the threshold of the
Apostles). By their pilgrimage to and from the baptismal font, Christians
have been converted to a new community, to a new network of relations and responsibilities,
and to new values. They have crossed a threshold; they have had a liminal
experience and moved into a new society in which there is no status. St. Paul
describes the experience of the baptized, "For as many of you who were
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, their
is neither slave nor free, there is not male and female; for you are all one in
Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3: 27-28). As the Fathers in the ancient church never
wearied in saying, Christians live in "a new home and a new family."
II. The Ideal Deacon.
The
second text is from the Rite of Ordination of the Deacon. It articulates the
Church’s faith in the Sacrament of the diaconate. From that flows the deacon’s
spirituality.
The
rite of ordination indicates that the bishop first lays his hands in silence
upon the man. The gesture is an ancient sign of the transmission of a charge.
In the Old Testament Moses lays his hands on Joshua, who thereby receives the
Spirit to guide his people.
Subsequently
in the Prayer of Consecration, the bishop asks the heavenly Father to send the
Holy Spirit: "By prayer and the laying on of hands the Apostles entrusted
to those [seven] chosen men the ministry of serving at tables. Lord, look with
favor on this servant of yours, whom we now dedicate to the office of deacon to
minister at your holy altar. Lord, send upon him the Holy Spirit, that he may
be strengthened by the gift of your sevenfold grace to carry out the work of
the ministry."
These
brief lines, leading to and including the sacramental epiclesis, employ
the words ‘ministry’ or ‘servant’ or ‘minister’ five times. The prayer
concludes with the eschatological petition that the deacon imitate Jesus,
"who came to serve and not to be served, and one day reign with him in heaven."
The
reference to the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit not only repeats the number
of the original deacons (seven) but also refers to the seven charisms of the
Servant in Isaiah 11. The gift of the Spirit assures the strength and fidelity
needed to fulfill the deacon’s ministry.
The
word ‘servant’ specifies the deacon’s sacramental mystery and therefore his
spirituality. The 1968 Apostolic Constitution of Pope Paul VI, Pontificalis
Romani, underlines this. He writes that deacons, "strengthened by
sacramental grace, in communion with the bishop and the presbyterium, ....
serve the people of God in the diaconia of the liturgy, of the word, and
of charity". The consecratory words likewise indicate that the hands of
the bishop are imposed upon the deacon "not for priesthood but for
ministry", a description dating back to the ancient Constitutions of the
Egyptian Church and cited in Lumen gentium (28). The bishop alone, and
not priests, imposes hands upon the deacon at his ordination, thus manifesting in
a negative manner the difference between the ‘ministry’ of the deacon and the
‘priesthood’ of the priest.
The
sacramental nature of the diaconate becomes clear. The deacon is a sacramentum-persona
of Jesus the Servant of God. All the liturgical references - the 1968
Apostolic Constitution of Pope Paul VI, the ordination homily, the prayers and
signs - affirm not simply the deacon’s functions but, above all, his permanent
diaconal essence through the imprint of the sacramental character. Though the
lay baptized at times do what he does, it is in being a deacon, not just in
doing diaconal things, that he is an enduring sacramental sign.
By
sharing in the apostolic ministry of which the bishop alone is the total and
permanent sign, the deacon himself sums up the servant character of the whole
church. Indeed he makes the bishop present in the world of need and suffering.
Through the deacon’s ministry to the poor and the outcast, the church, in a
concrete, unique and personal way, is the sacrament of the suffering servant to
the world.
Finally,
both the homily of the bishop and one of the questions he asks in the
ordination examination contain a command of St. Paul to Timothy upon whom he
had imposed his hands. The bishop admonishes the deacon to "hold the mystery
of faith with a clear conscience" (1 Tim 3: 9). Later the bishop asks the
deacon-candidate , "Are you resolved to hold the mystery of faith with a
clear conscience?"
From
ancient times commentators have discerned here a reference to the deacon’s ministry
of the Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. Furthermore, by directing that
"the deacon who assists the bishop ministers the cup," the rite
reemphasizes the association of the deacon’s ministry with the mystery of the
Blood of Christ. Some applications of this will be developed below.
III. The Regula Vitae (Rule of Life) of the Deacon.
What
lessons for the deacon’s Regula Vitae can be drawn from the two texts
cited from the Bible and from the Rite of Ordination? Since the principalities
and powers are very powerful today, the deacon and his family beg access to the
divine mercy and grace. The elements of the spirituality of the deacon are
central in this struggle with the mysterium iniquitatis.
What
are these elements? Pope John Paul II in his 1999 Apostolic Exhortation,
Ecclesia in America, defined ‘spirituality’ as "a mode or form of life
in keeping with Christian demands" (29). A Regula Vitae then
provides a practical guide for Christian living and for the cultivation of
virtue. Its spiritual genre is related to the sapiential books of the
Old Testament. It derives primarily from a reflection upon the Christian
experience of faith. I will suggest eleven elements for a deacon’s Regula
Vitae. They are complimentary to the instructions found in the 1998 Directory
for the Ministry and Life of Permanent Deacons issued by the Vatican
Congregation for the Clergy.
1.
The spirituality of the deacon is Trinitarian and Incarnational. In the
beginning he was baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit." The baptized have a radically different experience and
knowledge of God through the revelation of the Trinity and Incarnation. The one
and unique God, in his essence, is love and self-surrender. Hans Urs von
Balthasar approaches this mystery by reflecting on the self-awareness of the
Word Incarnate: "Jesus knows and acknowledges himself to be the Word, Son,
expression, and self-surrender - of that Origin prior to which no existence is
thinkable and which he calls the ‘Father,’ who loves him and whom he loves in a
common divine Spirit of love, a Spirit whom he bestows upon us so that we can
be drawn into this abyss of love (vast beyond measure) and thus comprehend
something of its superabundance: ‘to know the love which surpasses knowledge’"(Eph.
3: 19).
God
gives all reality the form or logic of Trinitarian love. As a result, the
deacon with the eyes of faith sees a real relation between the truths of the
political order, the economic order, the intellectual life on the one hand, and
what Von Balthasar calls the beauty of "the mysterious ray of Trinitarian
and crucified love" on the other.
2.
The deacon and his family heed the exhortation of Pope John Paul II:
"Family, become what you are!" (Familiaris Consortio 17). The
Pope elaborates on this element of nuptial spirituality. "Hence the family
has the mission to guard, reveal and communicate love, and this is a
living reflection of and a real sharing in God’s love for humanity and the love
of Christ for the Church his bride" (17).
3.
The Sunday Eucharist is the life-center of the deacon and his family. Pope John
Paul II in his recent Apostolic Letter ascribes to Sunday a litany of ancient
titles: Dies Domini, Dies Christi, Dies Ecclesiae, Dies Hominis, Dies Dierum.
It is the day of the celebration of the Creator’s work; the day of the Risen
Lord and of the gift of the Holy Spirit; it is the day of joy, rest and
solidarity, the primordial feast revealing the meaning of time.
The
Pope recalls the astonishment and joy of the early Christians. "The Lord’s
Day - as Sunday was called from Apostolic times - has always been accorded
special attention in the history of the Church because of its close connection
with the very core of the Christian mystery. In fact, in the weekly reckoning
of time Sunday recalls the day of Christ’s Resurrection. It is Easter
which returns week by week, celebrating Christ’s victory over sin and death,
the fulfilment in him of the first creation and the dawn of ‘new creation’ (cf.
II Cor 5: 17). It is the day which recalls in grateful adoration the world’s
first day and looks forward in active hope to ‘the last day’, when Christ will
come in glory (cf. Acts 1: 11; I Th 4: 13 -17) and all things will be made
new" (Rev. 21: 5) [Dies Domini, 1].
4.
St. Benedict called "the books of the Old and New Testaments ‘rectissima
norma vitae humanae’" (the truest norm of human life, Regula S.
Benedicti 73. 3).
Each
day the deacon contemplates, again with the eyes of faith, the form of Christ
in the Sacred Scriptures. What does this mean? Daily the deacon practices Lectio
divina. It is in the holy reading that the deacon discovers the
transforming power of the Spirit of Christ.
I
use the word ‘power’ advisedly. It is found throughout the New Testament to
describe that "drama of freedom" first experienced by early
Christians. Luke Timothy Johnson asserts that they knew "a power beyond
any they had ever encountered, understood, or could measure" beforehand.
He further points out that they "considered themselves caught up by,
defined by, a power not in their control but controlling them, a power that
derived from the crucified and raised Messiah Jesus." Here ‘control’ is
analogous to Jesus’s ‘must’ in Mk. 8: 31, "The Son of Man must suffer many
things."
5.
The Sacrament of Baptism configures the deacon in his freedom to the passion,
death and resurrection of the Lord. Under the seal of this divine drama his
whole past and future life has been set. He and his family respond in faith by
observing the prescribed penitential days in which all the Christian faithful
"in a special way pray, exercise works of piety and charity, and
deny themselves by fulfilling their responsibilities more faithfully and
especially by observing fast and abstinence" (canon 1249). In accordance
with the universal and particular laws of the Church, the deacon and, where
appropriate, the members of his family, are to observe the penitential nature
of all Fridays throughout the year and of the time of Lent.
Because
of their baptismal renunciation the deacon and the members of his family also
have an abhorrence of the very thought of evil. Such renunciation assumes their
judgement in conscience on television, films and other entertainment. In other
words, the deacon with his wife develops in their children a critical attitude toward
the popular media. Neil Postman has put his finger on the phenomenon which the
Christian conscience is called to assess critically. He writes in his Amusing
Ourselves to Death: "What I am claiming here is not that television is
entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for
the representation of all experience. .... the problem is not that television
presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is
presented as entertaining, which is another issue altogether."
6.
The Vocation of a deacon is to be a "confessor’ of the faith. He seeks to
revive this ancient title in democratic modernity. He searches for that
sanctity which informs the inner life of the university, of politics, of
economics, of marriage and family.
As
we saw, during his ordination the deacon was entrusted with the Blood of
Christ. Central to the deacon/confessor’s anthropology is his self-awareness in
Christ crucified. "For in [our Lord Jesus Christ] all the fulness of God
was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things,
whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the Blood of his cross"
)Col. 1: 19-20). Undoubtedly, the Gospel should become for him a reality that
informs everything from within - laws, customs, efforts, even pleasures.
In
the early and medieval Church a confessor was one who suffered for confessing
his faith, but was not called to martyrdom. The term was applied to markedly
holy persons. St. Edward, the king of England, is known in history as Edward
the Confessor. His reputation for holiness endured after his death; he was
canonized in 1161 by Pope Alexander III.
On
the threshold of the new millennium, a confessor is one who has been cast
forth, handed over by God. Where has he been cast forth? On the road he has
chosen, on the road he has hurled himself on. The deacon/confessor has cast
himself forth into the heart of danger like a lamb among wolves. The road of
the poor and outcast, not simply the altar, is his vocation. And at every curve
and bend of that road he will find challenges and suffering. St. Paul would
describe it as warfare. The deacon’s walk is an heroic one. For the cup of
blessing which he ministers is a participation in the Blood of Christ (1 Cor.
10: 16).
The
deacon/confessor becomes acutely aware of the fundamental law of post-Christian
world history - the more Christ is proclaimed as the One out of whose heart
flows rivers of living waters (Jn. 7: 38), as the One "who comes by water
and blood" (1 Jn. 5: 6), as the good shepherd who "lays down his life
for the sheep" (Jn. 8: 11), the more the deacon will meet determined
opposition and the more extensive the satanic counter struggle will prove. The
more the love of Jesus is manifested, the more it stiffens resistance. Then the
deacon discovers that persecution constitutes the normal condition of the
Church in her relation to the world.
That
is why the deacon is cast forth in hope. Hope springs from the eternal love
that pours forth from the pierced heart of the Crucified One. That is the key.
And that is the only thing that matters. The deacon’s vocation on the road is
the same as those "who conquer [the Devil and Satan] by the Blood of the
Lamb" (Apoc. 12: 11).
Modern
man is torn, dissatisfied and ironic. Only "the confessor", the
pilgrim who loves the "road", moves beyond that model. In democratic
modernity our temptation is to absolute human autonomy. It is at the core of
original sin. Therein is the enormous danger of modernity and postmodernity.
Only the deacon/confessor, who has come to the sprinkled Blood that speaks more
eloquently than the blood of Abel (Heb. 12: 24), can keep alive the sense of
man and make the world a place where love is gently at work.
The
deacon/confessor understands within the context of a nuptial communion the
worldly implications of a communio ecclesiology. The whole world, in and
through the Church, is destined for a transfiguring espousal with Jesus Christ.
He sees this logic of love in Mary of Nazareth, especially in her fiat at
the foot of the Cross. He contemplates it above all in the eternal Son’s death
and descent into hell. Jesus drank fully from the chalice of obedience.
7.
The teaching of Gaudium et Spes 37 concerning the things
of this world, especially of possessions, should inform the consciences of the
deacon and of the members of his family. It speaks of human activity in a
fallen creation and redeemed only in Christ. Having been renewed in the spirit
of his mind, the deacon, like all the baptized, "has put on the new
nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and
holiness" (Eph. 4: 24). According to the Council, the human person can and
must love the things which God has created. In democratic modernity he receives
them, guards them and honors them as they have come forth from God’s hands.
Consequently, the baptized "in using and enjoying creation in poverty and
freedom of spirit, attains to a true possession of the world as having nothing
and yet possessing everything. ‘All things are yours, but you are Christ’s and
Christ is of God’" (1 Cor. 3:22-23).
That
little word, ‘enjoying’ (fruens in Latin), joined with the other classic
word, ‘using’ (utens in Latin), opens the deacon to a new Christian
spirituality - one might say a specifically modern spirituality. The way of
holiness is no longer characterized by a prevailing flight and horror of the
world, but by a responsibility in and for the world. It combines both a welcome
to the love of God for oneself and the exercise of love toward God and the
neighbor.
The
accents of a new spirituality place emphasis upon both the Cross and
Resurrection in the deacon’s approach to created things. Catholic spirituality
is based on the ‘enjoyment’ and ‘use’ of the things of this world in poverty
and liberty of spirit. Both are at the heart of the deacon’s life and mission
in the new millennium.
8.
The deacon will have a Spiritual Director and will make use of the Sacrament of
Reconciliation at least on a monthly basis.
9.
The deacon and his family have a deep devotion to the Mother of God.
"[This] is expressed in a special way precisely through this filial
entrusting to the Mother of Christ, which began with the testament of the
Redeemer on Golgotha" (Redemptoris Mater 45).
The
deacon’s devotion to Blessed Mary is expressed in the daily rosary, preferably
within the family. Special familial devotions should also take place in the two
months dedicated to Mary, October and May.
10.
In applying Canon 1174 # 1 to permanent deacons, the majority of Bishops’
Conferences throughout the world have prescribed Lauds and Vespers. The living
out of this obligation should be informed with the spirit of Canon 1173:
"In fulfilment of the priestly office of Christ, the Church celebrates the
liturgy of hours, wherein it listens to God speaking to his people and recalls
the mystery of salvation. In this way, the Church praises God without ceasing,
in song and prayer, and it intercedes with him for the salvation of the whole
world." In this context of the deacon’s intercessory mission, itis iimportant
to recall that deacons must observe conjugal chastity (Humanae Vitae,21-22).
As a member of the sacramental, three-ordered hierarchy, I always have before
me the teaching of the ancient Council of Carthage (390 AD). It best summarizes
the reason why all clerics in major Orders were obliged at that time to perfect
continence: "so that they may attain in all simplicity what they are
asking from God." Even today, deacons, priests and bishops are ordained
primarily for intercessory prayer beginning with their ministry of the altar.
11.
The deacon and his family have religious symbols in their home which are
integrated into their personal and communal prayer.
IV. Conclusion. Some concrete examples of the Ideal Christian Family.
To
illustrate the family spirituality of the deacon, I will cite two examples.
Louis
and Zelie Martin founded a family on their sacramental marriage celebrated on
July 13, 1858. They became the parents of nine children, the youngest of whom
is known as St. Theresa of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face. From the first
day of their marriage the husband and wife desired, in the words of St. Francis
de Sales, to "carry each other to God." In her own writings St.
Theresa says of her parents, "God gave me a mother and father more worthy
of heaven than of earth."
Their
biographer describes "the spirit of the home." Louis Martin had a
shop for the sale and repair of watches and clocks. He was a skilled craftsman.
But he insisted that his shop be closed on Sunday despite pleas of convenience.
He replied, "It is the Lord’s Day; God only must be served."
The point is clear. For the deacon and his family the Sabbath should bring
everyday work to a halt and provide a respite (CCC 2172).
Other
household practices included the devotion of the Martin children to the Holy
Family. One of them later described the family’s practice, "[To please our
Lady] how gladly the youngest (Theresa) gathered the best roses from the
Pavilion, the cornflowers and marguerites growing beside the country lanes! She
kept some for St. Joseph’s statue, before which her mother loved to pray. It
was thus that, quite spontaneously, she felt enveloping her a love for the
things of heaven" (111). Many of us could cite such experiences from our
own families.
I
wish to cite one last example of elements in family spirituality. It is drawn
from my experience as Archbishop of Denver. I noticed that many Hispanic
families coming from northern New Mexico and southern Colorado had a profound
faith in the Holy Family of Nazareth and in the Most Holy Trinity.
Their
art reflected their faith. Several years ago a priest of the Archdiocese gave
me a New Mexican retablo, La Sagrada Familia. It had been painted on
pine wood by a contemporary santero. In a short time I became aware of
the popularity of family devotion to La Sagrada Familia. It is even
centuries-old. Jesus is depicted as a boy raised on a small, blue platform
between Joseph and Mary. They hold his hands. The deep blue base on which Jesus
stands reminds me of one of the Old Testament visions of God, "And they
saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a pavement of
sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness" (Ex. 14: 10).
The
Holy Spirit hovers in the form of a dove above Jesus, and in the highest heaven
the Father blesses the communion of the three persons in Nazareth with an
all-embracing gesture. Mary and Joseph are depicted as caring for and loving
Jesus. For many Hispanic-American families, the Holy Family of Nazareth is
clearly a model of the communio of husband, wife and child. It enters
deeply into the life of the family. And like La Sagrada Familia these
families know themselves to be sealed with the sign of the Most Holy Trinity:
the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
It
is clear from the retablos, bultos, and reredoses that for
hundreds of years the Hispanic families of New Mexico and southern Colorado
have been formed by two central Christian mysteries: the Incarnation and the
Most Holy Trinity. And we are aware that these two mysteries form the essential
structure of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The
retablo depicting the Holy Family of Nazareth and the Most Holy Trinity is
now in my chapel at S. Calisto. This constant reminder of the faith of the
Christian families of southwestern United States challenges my Roman friends
and myself to pray for holy simplicity. The latter is another phrase for
spiritual childhood or "the second naivetè."
In
a beautiful way both the Martin family and the portrayal of the La Sagrada
Familia indicate some practical elements of the spirituality of the deacon
and his family. The pattern of married disciples is found in the constellation
of persons around Jesus in the household of Nazareth, Mary and Joseph in the communio
of life and love of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity.
St.
Ignatius of Antioch saw and was overjoyed by the mutual harmony of the Orders
of "the divinely established ecclesiastical ministry" (LG 28). With
his reference to the beauty of this harmony in the Letter to the Trallians,
quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I will conclude.
"Let everyone revere the deacons as Jesus Christ, the bishop as the image
of the Father, and the presbyters as the senate of God and the assembly of the
Apostles. For without them one cannot speak of the Church" (1554).
J.
Francis Cardinal Stafford
President
of the Pontifical Council for the Laity
February 19, 2000