"Deacon Reader" Summer Reading 6

Chapter 3 - The Deacon and Gaudium et Spes (Fr. McPartlan)

This essay argues that "We must try... to relate the diaconate... to some of the major principles of Vatican II's teaching," and especially to the main themes of the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes.

The first major principle he notes, in the second paragraph and following, is Church unity (my p. 57). Charity, he notes, serves unity, as does the authentic kerygma of the Good News, along with reaching out to the marginalized (probably envisioning both ecumenism and social justice) and defending the rights of the weak. Then he has a long section on the relationship between Church and the world, and the relevance of this to the diaconate (which we'll come back to in a moment), before listing other major principles at the end (by way of demonstrating what he's been trying to say). The other major principles he notes (my p. 73) are (2) the Church as servant, (3) the central role of the College of Bishops (and the implications of this for the meaning of the Sacrament of Holy Orders), (4) that "good liturgy animates the apostolate [of the laity]," and (5) solidarity.

Now, as principles for the Church, these five are quite solid. The challenge of the essay is in the part about the relationship of Church and world.

He wants to argue that the Church and the world should be united in the manner of "seamlessness" (p. 65, beginning of the section, "Deacons and the New Ecclesial Embrace of the World"). He says, "Everything she [the Church] does is for the salvation of the world, of which she is thoroughly a part" (p. 60, just after the long quote from JP2 at the Assisi ecumenical meeting in 2002).

Now, there's an obviously sense in which this is true: the Church has never not understood herself to be both "in the world" and "for the world." Even the most isolated hermit serves the world by praying and sacrificing. And every attempt to deny that Christ established the Church for the whole world (e.g., Manicheaism in the 4th-5th c., Waldensians et al in the 12th c., Jansenism in the 18th-19th c.) has been roundly condemned.

But at the same time, the Church has also always understood that she is supposed to be "not of the world." The world is fallen. Original sin exists. Personal sin exists. This is the universal and unchanging basis for admitting that we need a Savior. By baptism, we die in a very real sense, in the order of fallen nature, so that we can live the new life of Christ. The life of struggling to carry the Cross is, at the most basic, completely different from the life of not struggling to carry the Cross.

It's not clear in this essay that this "seamlessness" argument includes both of these terms. The "in and for the world" part predominates; the conversion part is hard to see. At best, it's implicitly present in what is preached, and how that preaching might be received by the modern world.

In the section on the "Deacon and the New Ecclesial Embrace..." (my p. 65ff), he states that deacons should be signs of this seamless solidarity; present in the world, somewhat like what the worker-priest movement tried in the 1950's; a kind of link between altar and world (he doesn't mention that both priests and laity do this also, each in different ways from deacons); a reader of the signs of the times and an applier of the Gospel to them.

If he means all this as "in and for the world" only, without the expectation of conversion to Christ, then all this is pretty obviously flawed. Without the demand of conversion, solidarity degenerates into mere niceness; presence gives way to autonomy and moral relativism; the Eucharistic altar stands well apart from the world; and the signs of the times can never say anything truly human, but only fads and whims as culture drifts.

I have a hard time thinking this is what Fr. McPartlan really meant. So, we must read in explicitly the need for conversion. Then I think his argument is pretty good, although still imprecise. With the demand for conversion to Christ (even if that demand is not made explicit in every act), then these things make more sense. Solidarity with my neighbor is a way of being in Christ, together; presence brings the grace of Christ into a situation; the Eucharistic altar calls everyone to truth and beauty; and the signs of the times can speak essential human needs, where Mercy is most hungered for.

But, I still note that this is only descriptive, not definitive. I argue that the set of {solidarity, presence, linking to the altar, and responding to true need} is what deacons do, not because of ordination, but because of baptism. These four aspects are general modes of discipleship. We have to dig deeper if we want to see in what particular, unique manner they are modes of diaconal ministry.

For example, in his opening list of principles, he notes the special role of the College of Bishops, and therefore of ordained ministry, and therefore (one infers) of the particular share in the apostolic ministry each of the lower grades (priests and deacons) receives. So how does the sacred power to proclaim the Gospel by word and action, in liturgy and in ministry, give a unique shape or character to the deacon's particular discipleship? He says it should be "symbolic of their [deacons'] relationships and activities in the world at large" (my p. 76, third-to-last paragraph). But none of our sacraments are mere symbols; so, symbolic in what sacramental sense?

Likewise, the principle that good liturgy animates the apostolate clearly means something different for deacons than for priests, since our liturgical roles are distinct. So, what exactly does it mean for deacons? How can we, in our liturgical ministry, be in solidarity with the laity, or with the whole world; or be present to them; or link them to the Eucharist; or (help) respond to their actual needs for grace and mercy?

"Deacon Reader" Summer Reading 4

By the end of the 1st century, the apostolic deposit of the diaconate (i.e., special share in the Apostles' ministry, given by the laying on of hands, including sacraments/catechesis/evangelization but not including the "breaking of bread;" with moral and spiritual qualities expected over and above initial conversion/baptism) was taking on the form of a more stable office. Fr. Enright continues the section, "New Testament and the 2nd Century" (p. 9-11 in my copy) by looking at the Didache (prob. Syria, ca. 90 give or take a decade or so), the Shepherd of Hermas (Rome, before 150), St. Ignatius of Antioch (martyred ca. 115), Justin Martyr (Rome, martyred ca. 155), and Tertullian (Carthage, ca. 180-210).

All five of these sources share the concern of 1 Timothy, that bishops and deacons (and priests) have particular moral and spiritual qualities. All of them list bishops, priests, and deacons as ministers of particular importance (sometimes adding others to the list, sometimes just those three alone). All of them repeat the basic parameters of the deacon's ministry, in varying levels of detail. Justin in particular, in his First Apology, esp. Ch. 65-6, gives us one of the earliest descriptions of the Mass, including the deacon's role of distributing Eucharist.

By the beginning of the 3rd century, Hippolytus, a priest in Rome, records for us details of actual ordination rites (p. 13, section "From the 3rd century to the 5th century"). These too reflect the apostolic deposit of Acts 6 etc., and the development of precision since. Bishops, priests, and deacons, and the minor orders, are described. Ritual actions and language to distinguish clearly the grades from each other have developed. There is still plenty of variation in what deacons actually do after ordination, especially in emergencies (read: pagan persecution).

After noting further examples in Cyprian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Egeria and Jerome, he starts talking about the decline of the diaconate (p. 16 in my copy; the paragraph that begins "The councils of the ancient church are a vital source...") He notes how conciliar evidence points to conflict between deacons and priests, and how councils started restricting the role of deacons in liturgy, etc. Fr. Enright argues (p. 17, 19) that the expansion of the Church in the 4th century increased "demand" for priests, who could say Mass outside the bishop's own church, and thus simultaneously decreased "demand" for deacons. Deacons, he argues, continued to serve their bishops, especially as legates and administrators; they didn't penetrate the rural communities like the priests did, and therefore faded in relative importance. He doesn't talk about formation and the bishop's trust in a proven deacon, but he implies some of this when stating that the diaconate thus became, by ca. 600, a "transitional" stage to the priesthood.

To me, what's interesting about all this is how stable the diaconate proved to be over these first 5 or 6 centuries. Despite all the changes the Church went through, despite all the different ways deacons were used in practice, despite the changing relationship between deacons and priests, the apostolic core (sharing the bishop's ministry, laying on of hands, sacraments/catechesis/evangelization, not confecting but giving Eucharist, expected moral/spiritual qualities) and most of the 2nd-century development (ordination rite, characteristic liturgical and ministerial roles) are visible at every point along the way. Given that stability, should we really see the acceptance of the "transitional" diaconate as a decline?

"Deacon Reader" Summer Reading 3

In addition to Acts 6, there's good information on deacons in Phil 1 and 1 Tim 3, which Fr. Enright refers to in the first essay in the Deacon Reader.

Phil 1 specifically addresses the "bishops and deacons" in this city. They are described as having a "partnership in the Gospel" (1:5; and 1:7, "defending the Gospel") and as being completed by Christ's "good work in you" (1:6 - a prayer still used in ordinations: "May he who began the good work in you bring it to completion"), and as "sharing in God's grace with me [Paul]" (1:7). All these ideas resemble the actual ministry of the Seven, and will certainly become characteristic of the ordained by the end of the 1st century. But there's a little element of doubt that "bishops and deacons" are, this early, recognizable offices in the Church, distinct from others, because (a) the Apostles are still alive, and (b) Rom 16 refers to Phoebe as a "deacon". So the words "bishop" and "deacon" seem to be used to refer both to those on whom hands had been laid for the apostolic ministry (ordained, like the Seven), and on those on whom hands had not been laid for the apostolic ministry. In any case, even if, before the 60's, the identity of the clergy was still rudimentary and developing, the special share of the apostolic ministry given to some was notable.

1 Tim 3 also describes "bishops and deacons," given a list of moral and spiritual qualifications. This seems pretty clearly something different from baptism; even this early, it looks like, leaders of the fledgling Christian community were expected to be held to a demandingly higher standard. There is also a distinction, as with the Seven, between the bishops and the deacons, since there are two lists of these qualifications, not just one. The list for deacons (vv. 8-12) is still recognizable to us, and, in its essence, is what we're still expected to represent.

These three critical passages, then, seem to indicate that, even in the first generation of the Church, from the 30's to the 60's, the most basic truths of the sacrament of Holy Orders existed in the Church. Even though everyone in the Church was active in charity and ministry, some people were set aside by the Apostles, by the act of laying on of hands, to exercise a special share in the work Christ gave them specifically. There was the distinction between sacerdotal need (Apostles and bishops, which becomes what we call bishops and priests after the Apostles die) for "breaking bread" (the Mass), and diaconal need for preaching, evangelizing, baptizing, and so forth (deacons, like Stephen and Philip in Acts 7-8, from which all the minor orders, now reduced to lector and acolyte, eventually derived). There were moral and spiritual qualities looked for, which not all the baptized were expected to have. All this is part of the apostolic deposit of faith, but the precision of theological understanding and terminology developed in the next 2 or 3 generations.

"Deacon Reader" Summer Reading 2

We're looking at the first essay, by Fr. Enright. I posed the question,

1) What are the two points from Acts 6 he makes on p. 8? Do you agree with these two points?

On p. 8 he writes:

The diaconate starts out as seven men serving the Greek-speaking Jewish-Christian widows in Jerusalem, a serving that is to be found at two tables at which these neglected saints would sit, the table of the word and the table of charity, both places of need, the spiritual and the material, but each flowing from the other. To put it another way, serving these two tables meant that these men were engaging in an evangelization of the whole person.

Is this "evangelization of the whole person by word and charity" who deacons really are? What are your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing?

"Deacon Reader" Summer Reading 1

In the Introduction, Dcn. Keating writes that this collection of essays hopes to help clarify "the fundamental identity of the deacon" (1). We have to grasp what we are being called to, sufficiently that we can love our vocation. "In loving one's vocation, the conditions for the possibility of becoming a saint are established" (2). Please keep this ultimate goal in mind as we dig in to this summer reading.

It's fairly reasonable to start by asking, what has the identity of the deacon been in the past?

Fr. Enright's first essay gives an historical overview. He gives some indication of his method:

First methodological point: "[T]he historical movement of a great idea [in the Church] is from the implicit to the explicit. Therefore, the following trip through diaconal history starts out by uncovering the implicit roots of the order in the early church" (8). He clarifies a bit more: "As Kenan Osborne, OFM, cautions, when it comes to New Testament data about any ecclesial matters, one has to be careful not to read into texts anachronistically what appears at a later time in the Church's history" (9); and "The New Testament as we know it today was not completely formed into a canon until well into the fourth century..." (9). So he starts by looking at the apostolic information about the earliest diaconate through a somewhat skeptical historical lens. It's possible to take this skepticism too far; let's be careful not to be skeptical about dogma.

Second methodological point: "The history of the diaconate is painted in a very organic way by its intimate relationship to Jesus himself, whose whole life was diaconal, "to the point of death - death on a cross" (Phil 2:8), and to the call made by Jesus to all baptized Christians to be his servants in the world" (8). So the identity of the diaconate is assumed (not unreasonably, but note it's an assumption) to have some particular relationship to the two priesthoods in Christ (ordained, sacrificial priesthood, and common, baptismal priesthood). We should be alert to see if this relationship gets defined in this essay (or elsewhere in this book). This relationship should also provide a consistent element of continuity across whatever historical changes might surface.

Third methodological point: "At first all the ministries were verbs, the doing of something for the Christian community, but later they became nouns, designated offices" (8). He's suggesting that the earliest deacons defined their role by what they did, rather than doing whatever they did because it was "proper" to their "office" to do this but not that. There's a certain truth to this, but again, one mustn't take this point too far. We should understand that whatever the earliest deacons did was not entirely open-ended, nor defined only historically. If it's true that the diaconate is part of the sacrament of Holy Orders (which we believe dogmatically), and that all the sacraments are given to the Church by Christ in some way (which we also believe dogmatically), then the diaconate is given to the Church by Christ. So it has something inherent in it that the Church receives, not creates - presumably, that core diaconal relationship to the priesthood of Christ noted in the previous point.

Having noticed these three methodological points, let's look at his actual argument. He starts (see p. 8) with the most important NT passages on the diaconate: Acts 6:1-6, 1 Tim 3:13 (really 8-13), Phil 1:1, and Rom 16:1-2. But (perhaps in the interests of space in this book?) he seems to use the first methodological point to skip over much of the detail these passages contain. He's got just two brief point on the bottom of p. 8, but then passes on to post-Scriptural Church writings.

So, here are your discussion questions:

1) What are the two points from Acts 6 he makes on p. 8? Do you agree with these two points?

2) What else do you think Acts 6 means for the fundamental identity of the diaconate? (And in reading Acts 6, it's also important to read what Philip and Stephen actually do in Acts 7 and 8.)

3) What do the other three passages listed add to Acts 6?

Then we'll look at what he says about other apostolic and patristic texts.