My dear brothers,
As you stand on the threshold of diaconal ordination, your hearts are no doubt filled with many things: gratitude, anticipation, joy, perhaps even a certain trembling before the mystery into which you are about to enter.
That trembling is good. It means that somewhere deep within you, beneath all the years of study, formation and pastoral preparation, you understand that this moment is not simply about receiving a role in the Catholic Church. It is about being configured to a Person.
Soon, the Church will call you forward, and through the laying on of hands and the prayer of ordination, something permanent will happen within you. You will not merely begin doing something new. You will become something new. More accurately, Someone will claim you more deeply for himself. Christ the Servant will draw your humanity into his own self-giving love.
And so, my dear brothers, before I speak to you about the priesthood toward which your heart now turns with such hope and reverence, allow an older deacon-theologian who has spent many years loving the Church, serving at the altar, and contemplating the mystery of holy orders, to first speak quietly to you about the
