A Neglected Order
America
(iStock photo)
I’ve
only ever met one person of my generation—just barely young enough to
be millennial—who claimed a calling to be a deacon. He was an
Episcopalian. He was studying for a master of divinity degree at an
eminent university more accustomed to producing graduates who aspire to
lofty titles like chief executive officer and bishop. But he spoke about
the deacon’s special role as a bridge between the hierarchy and the
people, and about the humility and holiness of the calling. He spoke
about it as a way to heal the church’s divisions. After a few minutes’
conversation in a doorway, he got me wondering for the first time about
that calling for myself, though I was then still far from the age of 35,
the minimum for a deacon in the Roman church. There was no shortage of
times during those years, as a new convert to Catholicism, when I had
been asked about becoming a priest; never had the diaconate come up.
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