Bishop Olson with newly ordained Transitional Deacons
Jonathan Demma (left) and Maurice Moon (right).
Photo by Susan Moses.
Jonathan Demma (left) and Maurice Moon (right).
Photo by Susan Moses.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church
Keller, Texas
April 29, 2017
Numbers 3:5-11
Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5,18-19
Acts 6:1-7
John 6:16-21
In the Gospel just proclaimed, we see Jesus walking towards the disciples on the water. The water is a primordial symbol of chaos. Christ’s walking upon it makes known that He, and He alone, is the Master of creation and the only Provider of what is needed to overcome the chaos caused by sin. The chaos caused by sin, is subservient to Him and can only be conquered by Him. Notice that the disciples at first don't recognize Jesus, because they left the shore without Him. The Gospel reading mentions also that it is evening and that it is dark. They are attempting to navigate the waters of chaos alone and in the dark. Jesus appears and utters the divine phrase in Greek "Ego eimi"—“I am”—translated as "It is I." In so doing Jesus articulates that He will never leave the Church alone and unprotected against the forces of chaos and darkness.
Jesus Walks On Water, by Ivan Aivazovsky,
1888, Public Domain
1888, Public Domain
The boat represents the Church. The apostles are attempting to lead the church in the dark without recognizing Jesus’ presence. They struggle to row and to navigate by their own will power and the darkness frightens them. It is only after they recognize Jesus and invite Him into the boat that their fear leaves them and they arrive at the ultimate end of their journey. The Church arrives at the ultimate end of her journey—the Kingdom of God when the Church treasures Jesus’ presence and follows His direction and example. Without Christ as the Church’s focal point, the Church can soon become misunderstood as only the product of our human and organizational designs straining against forces of fear and darkness. Jesus will be with the Church always—even when the Church’s members fail to understand that truth. When members of the Church set out without Him, Jesus will come to them to be with them, assuring them that they have nothing to fear from the chaotic when they are with Him.
The right order promised by Christ’s Gospel and the authentic teaching of the Church requires more than positive thinking. It requires a real relationship of love. The relationship of love is forged by the Church’s sacramental life—chiefly the celebration of the Eucharist—the Eucharist, the sacrifice of the Mass, whereby we experience the real presence of Christ and not simply his historical memory or his values and ideals—that are really more truly our own values and ideals. As Saint Augustine says, “The Eucharist makes the Church.” Yes, and the Church that the Eucharist makes is one of order and hierarchical structure complete with purpose and direction; it is not simply a chaotic mob of individuals seeking their own will at the expense of others and of the common good. When chaos reigns, the weakest among us are most in danger of being harmed. Right order provides us with just relationships among real people with clarity of purpose for Christ’s redeeming mission. As Pope Francis writes in Evangelii Gaudium, “We achieve fulfillment when we break down walls and our heart is filled with faces and names!”
Our reading from the Acts of the Apostles presents the call of the first deacons by the Apostles. We hear of how the Church is confronted by the forces of chaos in that the Greek-speaking widows are sinfully being excluded from participation in the life of the community and are threatened by effects of poverty. The problem is compounded by a language barrier between them and those Jewish Christians who speak the dominant language of Aramaic. We are reminded that the confusion of Babel was a sinful force for chaos that destroyed the fabric of human society.
Yet, in the life of the early Church, chaos does not have the final say. Just as in the life of the Church today, chaos does not have the final say. God’s Grace enters mercifully once again into the life of the Church. We read that the Apostles declare, “It is not right for us to neglect the word of God to serve at table. Select from among you seven reputable men, filled with the Spirit and wisdom, whom we shall appoint to this task, whereas we shall devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word."
This is an important point that must not be misunderstood. The Apostles are not delegating the problem of the poor away from themselves so that they can be free of their responsibilities to the poor and focus on the more attractive and glamorous activities like prayer and preaching. It is not a decision of exclusion. The Apostles are not abandoning their ministry that has been entrusted to them by Christ in the great commissioning. They are instead ordaining the men of good reputation as discerned by the Church to be deacons, so that these deacons might more closely and intentionally unite the ministry to the poor and marginalized with the Apostles’ mission of prayer and preaching. The deacons bring the poor into closer proximity of the ministry of the Apostles. For this relationship between the Apostles and deacons to happen, there must be a clear order and trust established in love between the Apostles and the deacons.
This relationship of trust and love is defined today by the promise of obedience that you make to me and to my successors as your bishop. The obedience owed to a bishop by a deacon is not simply a protocol whereby the deacon passively does whatever the bishop tells him to do. The obedience of a deacon to his bishop (and that of a priest to his bishop) is rather a decisive relationship strong with justice and replete in love whereby each the bishop and the deacon has the heart and mind of Christ present to each other within the life and ministry of the Church. It is this relationship of obedience which gives vitality and muscle to the body of the Church in order to overcome the power of chaos and fear that threatens the Church. Without this relationship of obedience between deacon and bishop the Church can become anemic and sick. If the Church becomes anemic and sick, the weakest among her members are most in jeopardy of abandonment.
Christ will never remove His presence and love from the Church; yet the Church’s members and servants can ignore and deny Him through the abandonment of prayer, the neglect of preaching of the Truth, and the refusal of service to the poor—unless we decide to trust Him. How you live your obedience is essential to the quality and character of your ministry as a deacon and affects the health and life of the Church. How I, as your bishop and as a successor of the Apostles, call and receive your obedience is essential to the health and life of the Church. Each of us will be judged by Christ accordingly. Therefore, we must each consciously and intentionally maintain the centrality of Jesus Christ as the anchor of our respective vocations in His love and mission through our relationship that is given backbone by your promise of obedience to me and my successors. Arbitrariness on the part of the bishop is as destructive to the health of the Church as apathy is on the part of the deacon or priest.
St. Catherine of Siena, on whose feast you are ordained today, understood well the essential relationship between fidelity to one’s own vocation within the Church and to the Church’s health and vitality. She did so, in part, because she lived at a time of great chaos in the life of the Church—the time of the Western schism when there were three claimants to the Papacy. This schism came about in part because the previous pope had ignored his pastoral responsibility as the Bishop of Rome in favor of the life of a prince at court in Avignon. The weakness on the part of this pope, Gregory XI, in not deciding to live his vocation, prompted many to abandon their obedience to the Pope’s sacred office causing darkness, fear, and the chaos of disunity. St. Catherine called the Pope back to the integrity of his own vocation and ministry. She writes to him, “I beg you Holy Father, for love of the Lamb who was slain, consumed and abandoned on the cross, as His Vicar fulfill his holy will by doing what you can do, leave Avignon and return to Rome.” She writes to priests at the same time, “I long to see you enlightened with true, most perfect light, so that you may know the dignity in which God has placed you. For without light you would be unable to know this.”
Do not leave the shore in the darkness without the presence of Christ. “Do what you are able to do.” “Live in the light,”—just as Saint Catherine wrote these words to Pope, bishops, and priests at the time of her life, she speaks them to each of us today, bishop, priests, and deacons, to live our respective vocations faithfully in accord with the justice of obedience and the clarity of purpose provided by our promise of celibacy. Prayer maintains our awareness of the presence of Christ and prevents us from placing lesser goods like money, career, power, social status, and privilege, in the place that rightfully belongs to Christ alone. Prayer also enables us to live in the light in times of doubt and darkness; it is by prayer and confidence that we see that in our vocation Christ has gotten the man He called and we trust His decision joyfully to choose us.
Maurice and Jonathan, the Church depends upon your promise of celibacy to help to make clearly present the unconditional love that Christ has for the People of God. For this to happen, your celibate commitment depends upon your living as a friend of Jesus who selflessly loves His people for love of Him. Celibacy is not being an indecisive bachelor. As Pope Benedict XVI said, “The avoidance of marriage is based on a will to live only for oneself, and therefore a ‘no’ to the bond. Celibacy is a definitive ‘yes’ to give oneself into the hands of the Lord. It makes present the scandal of a faith that bases all existence upon God.” Our celibacy is a firm decision that makes us poor; our celibacy makes us to rely on God alone; it shows the generosity of the love of Christ to the people whom we serve. Without a friendship with Christ, our celibacy can quickly become embittered with fear, narcissistic, self-directed, isolating, sterile and chaotic.
In conclusion, your ministry as deacons can be expressed by the words of Pope Benedict XVI spoken in his inaugural homily as pope, “The purpose of our lives is to reveal God to human beings. And only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary. There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him. The task of the shepherd, the task of the fisher of men, can often seem wearisome. But it is beautiful and wonderful, because it is truly a service to joy, to God’s joy which longs to break into the world.” God breaks into the world and dispels the power of darkness and chaos.
