As the year 2019 closes, I would like to remember in song 25 years of life as an ordained deacon. In thinking back to that day of ordination, there is only one other day that was so life altering, the day that I married Ruth. The Church teaches that there is an ontological change that occurs at the time when we celebrate a sacrament. This change happens over a long period of time, slowly, and in many ways, unperceivable. Like the Catholic understanding of conversion, which happens slowly over time, there is no “on the road to Antioch” conversion that we would like to say happens to us. As I look back on 25 years as a servant of God and a servant of the Church, I have found that I am not the same person I was when I knelt before Archbishop Roach, and received the sacrament of ordination as he laid his hands on either side of my head.
At ordination, we promised obedience to the Archbishop and his successors. We go and serve at the discretion of the Archbishop. I have served as a deacon in a large, affluent suburban parish, in an on-fire social justice inner city parish, among the poor, the disenfranchised, the immigrant, and the homeless, two small town parishes, and two rural churches. Each parish, each community shaping my faith, enlarging my understanding of what church is, and, expanding my awareness of the visible, physical Body of Christ in each church community. In the majority of these church settings my ministry has been welcomed. And, in a relative few, my ministry was viewed with disdain and resisted. This is just a part of following in the footsteps of Jesus, who was welcomed and beloved by many, and resisted and hated by others.
There is no such thing as a 40 hour week as a minister in the Church. All my “contracts” promised 40+ hours a week, my normal work week usually between 55 to 60 hours a week. Being a deacon has impacted my relationship with my family, in that a lot of the time I spent was not with my family, but with the families I was serving in the parish. I had one day off a week, often a day in which most of my family were either at work or in school. I attribute the health and happiness of my children to my wife, Ruth, who is the heartbeat of our home.
Prior to ordination, I asked Jim Murphy, an ordained deacon, how his life changed following ordination. Jim said, “Before ordination, my life was 80% private, 20% public. After ordination, my life has become 90% public, 10% private. This proved to be true not only for me, but for my family. My kids, were impacted by my ordination, not only by my absence, but because they became the “deacon’s kids.” People in our home parish had higher expectations of them as the “deacon’s kids”. My kids were “tattled on” by nosy people of the parish when they left Mass after communion. I apologized to my kids for having placed them in that uncomfortable spotlight. They survived it. We survived it.
As a newly ordained deacon, it is easy to get consumed and overly-focused on all the smells and bells of liturgy. All the liturgical pomp and circumstance, the albs, stoles, dalmatics and ritual can be easily alluring, so much so that the deacon neglects the places where he is needed the most.
I was no different than many deacons. I cannot begin to count the number of Archdiocesan liturgies, Confirmations etc at which I assisted as the Deacon of the Mass. This is not to say that a deacon does not have a necessary role at Mass. Liturgical services are places in which deacons are most easily visible to the greater Church. However, the real place of the deacon is not the sanctuary of a church. It is serving those who are most in need outside the dark sanctuaries of a church.
That place might be on the street with the homeless, in the homes of those isolated by illness, injury, or age, in nursing homes, in the workplace, in the hospital, in rallies protesting the injustices of the world, in prisons. As one of my professors, a priest, said in diaconal formation, “We don’t need any more men in the sanctuary. There are already too many. We need you doing ministry as you shop at grocery stores, filling your car with gas at a convenience store, in the board room and councils, it is there the Church needs you the most to share your diaconal ministry. He was just restating in a different way that which we read in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 6, in which the apostles institute the order of deacon to help with the needs of the Greek widows and orphans.
Over the summer of 1994, I composed this music as a gift for my diaconal classmates. Each diaconal couple (with the exception of Ruth and I) received a piano song from me. I composed one for Dr. Delore Rockers, one of the most influential professors I had in formation, and one for Trish Flannigan, the administrative secretary for Diaconal Formation and the Office of the Diaconate in the Archdiocese. Trish was and always has been a member of my ordination class.
The songs were not meant as a musical portrait of each couple. But in listening to them again today, I find that they reflect the life of a deacon couple in music. From the “Procession” representative of liturgical ministry, to the “Meditation” in which the deacon couple find themselves placing all their trust and hardships in God, to the prayerful/meditative melodies of the deacon couple at prayer, and to the joyful dance melodies in which the deacon couple celebrations with those they serve. While not my original intent at the time they were composed, all this music is, indeed, reflective of diaconal ministry.
Here is the music with pictures of those for whom they were composed.
Dr Delore Rockers (alas no photograph)
Abba, Yeshua Ruah, originally was a song for choir and organ performed at the ordination of my class at the Cathedral of St. Paul. The text for the choral music is here:
ABBA, YESHUA, RUAH (c) 1994 written by Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
Abba, may we be dwellings of your holy love,
the love which you grace all below, above.
May we be dwellings of your holy peace,
the peace for which all souls search and seek.
You loved so much that you sent your Son.
Only in him can we live as one.
Dwell in us, Abba, so that all may feel
the touch and the love of your peace-filled will.
Yeshua, may we be servants of you, Eternal Word,
Servants of you, compassionate Lord.
O may we seek you among the very least,
inviting all to your Abba’s feast.
You loved so much that you gave your life.
You conquered our death so that we may rise.
O Loving Jesus, may our bodies be
Your living bodies for all to see.
Ruah, O Holy Spirit come and make us whole,
enflame our hearts, our minds, our souls.
Inspire our actions, our fears relieve
so we may give to others what we’ve received.
Vessel of hope on our world outpoured,
Your healing breath our lives restore.
Infuse our lives now with your holy gifts
so in you, source of love, we may always live.
Abba, Yeshua, Ruah.
