My life took another unexpected turn this week with the request from my bishop that I become the Assistant Director of the Diaconate for the diocese. I accepted and have now added this to the list of other responsibilities I have at home and at my office in the clinic.
It is a wonderful opportunity to serve the diocesan Church in a new way, and in a particular manner to serve my brother deacons and their families. With a new aspirancy class to begin next year, a lot of work needs to be done.
The diaconate is a vocation that so many think they understand but so few actually do. It is a multi-faceted calling, drawing deeply from the well springs of marital love (if the deacon is married) or celibate love for all of God’s people. In that sense, it draws from the very nature of genuinely human love through which God’s love is revealed in the particular circumstances of the deacon. It is an earthy calling for brave men that draws them up into the mystery of the Trinity. In the diaconate, one must be ready to be placed in the crucible of the Paschal Mystery….. the Protomartyr Stephen the deacon showed us this. Deacons suffer in many ways, but theirs is the task to take that suffering, humanize and divinize it as the sacramental presence of Jesus the Servant to those who in their lives are suffering. In this way, the deacon works not only for justice in society but shares in the Altar of Sacrifice at Mass.
The suffering of the deacon and the suffering of Christ are united in that both are the mark of obedience… obedience of the deacon to his bishop and the obedience of Christ to the Father….. and a sign of filial unity…. the deacon to bishop, the Son to his Father, so as no division be possible. The deacon, his bishop, the deacon being sent forth into the world to sanctify it, to suffer for and with it, to bring the world to the altar to be given to God for divinization… all of this is a reflection of the love and relationship that is the Trinity.
My friends, pray for me as I undertake these new challenges and new opportunities for my diocese.
A diaconal blessing on all of you!
Deacon Bob Yerhot
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