Given by Bishop John Sherrington on Saturday 15th at Westminster Cathedral for the Ordinations to the Diaconate.
Thank you for offering your lives in service to the Church as deacons and continuing to look forward to the gift of priesthood. Your act of generosity will bring both you and the Church many blessings in the Dioceses of Arundel & Brighton, Southwark and Westminster. Today you are surrounded by family and friends, brother deacons, those to whom you have ministered and the Church, in heaven and on earth, uniting in joyful prayer for you.
Your act of prostration during the singing of the litany of the saints is an act of offering or oblation. We heard in the first reading how the tribe of Levi were assembled to become oblates, or sacrificial offerings, for the service of Aaron and the Temple. When you lie prone on the ground, you will make yourself vulnerable and open to the power of the Holy Spirit to transform you. It is a sign of your readiness to offer yourselves in the service of the diaconate to the Bishop and the Diocese. The sign reminds us of Jesus who prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, ‘Father, let your will be done, not mine’. You will be reminded of your prostration each day when you pray the words of the ‘Our Father’; ‘Thy Will be Done’, at morning and evening prayer and during the Mass. This act also symbolises the wheat grain falling into the ground and dying so that it might be transformed and bring forth a good harvest to give praise and glory to God. Your commitment to the Liturgy of the Hours as the prayer of the Church continues this offering five times a day.
During the litany, we invoke the saints to intercede for you and pray for the Divine Love of the Holy Spirit to come down into your hearts, as on the Day of Pentecost, like a great wind and tongues of fire. When I pray the prayer of ordination, you will hear the words, ‘Send forth the Holy Spirit upon them, O Lord, we pray, that they may be strengthened by the gift of your sevenfold grace to carry out faithfully the work of the ministry.’
The gift of the ‘fear of the lord’ will strengthen your offering to the Father as you recognise your dependence upon God who has called you to bear fruit in the world. The gift of ‘piety’ will inspire your daily commitment to the Liturgy of the Hours and daily prayer. The gifts of knowledge, understanding and wisdom will help you minister the compassionate and tender love of Jesus to all people, especially those who are most in need. As you are conformed more fully to Christ each day, you will see Christ more clearly in your neighbour with the tender and merciful gaze of Jesus. The gift of counsel with help you make wise decisions in complex pastoral situations. The gift of courage will assist you to preach and teach with boldness tempered by gentle charity.
The prayer continues, ‘May every evangelical virtue abound in them: unfeigned love, concern for the sick and the poor, unassuming authority, the purity of innocence, and the observance of spiritual discipline.’
Your commitment to celibacy will deepen your sacrifice so that you are able to love God and your neighbour with greater freedom. Celibacy is also an eschatological sign that human fulfilment is only found fully beyond the grave when we shall see God ‘face to face’. Until that day, we abide in faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love. As St Paul writes, ‘For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.’ (1 Cor 12:11-13). Imitate in your lives, Jesus who humbly and lovingly washed his disciples’ feet.
Today you will be vested with the stole and dalmatic. In the vesting prayers of the deacon and priest, the stole is accompanied by the words, ‘Lord, restore the stole of immortality, which I lost through the collusion of our first parents, and, unworthy as I am to approach Thy sacred mysteries, may I yet gain eternal joy.’ It reminds you of our earthy nature which is redeemed by God’s grace on which we depend, and the hope of eternal life which Christ has promised to you at baptism. Never become proud or haughty but always humbly recognise the source of your gifts.
The prayer of vesting in the dalmatic follows, ‘Lord, endow me with the garment of salvation, the vestment of joy, and with the dalmatic of justice ever encompass me.’
The dalmatic symbolises the gift of salvation which you have received from Christ at baptism. As a deacon you are called to imitate his kenotic self-offering of love poured out for all on the cross. You will serve at the altar, so that God’s holy people may share in the life of the Body and Blood of Christ as nourishment for their pilgrim journey of life.
The dalmatic is the vestment of joy because you will preach the joy of God’s love for all people as well as knowing and loving Jesus Christ who has chosen you as his friends. Be joyful in your ministry for joy is attractive and infectious and spreads the gospel. Your joy will lead others to Christ.
Further, the dalmatic is a tunic of justice which symbolises the justice which you must bring to your ministry, whether in administration, or in the service of the poor modelled on Christ. The dalmatic reminds you to reach out with Christ’s mercy to those who are most in need.
Finally, be mindful of the admonition of the Saint Polycarp: ‘Be merciful, diligent, walking according to the truth of the Lord, who became the servant of all.’ [1]
[1] Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium, no. 29.