I wrote a post many months ago on the spirituality of the diaconate and marriage. My point was that there was a dynamic tension between the ontologic change that occurs in the deacon by virtue of his ordination and the precendential graces of marriage. I pointed out that this tension is something to be acknowledged and lived, not something to be denied or made into something other than what it is. To deny its existence leads only to trouble, both for ministry and for marriage. Here it is reproduced for you:
Diaconal spirituality is one of dynamic tension between irrevocable change of Holy Orders and the graces of marriage.
Theologically, we speak of the indelible mark that cannot be erased on the very being of a man who receives Holy Orders. We deacons are so marked. There is no doubt that this is not just a theological construct; it is a very real and lived out each day. Because our wives do not share in this ontological change, this change of being, it places us in a sort of dynamic tension with them. This tension can be fruitful or not, depending on how well one’s marital spirituality undergirds one’s diaconal spirituality.
There seems to be a real possibility that deacons and their wives avoid the tension, or redefine it as something other than it is. This is a big mistake. Denial of its existence in this way, I believe, only leads to problems.
For example, there are some married deacons whose wives are envious of the deacon’s function and his reception of Holy Orders, wishing they too were ordained and both deacon and wife live as if she was a deacon also. There are also those situations where the deacon’s wife wants nothing whatsoever to do with her husband’s diaconal ministry and thus withdraws from him. She sees nothing in it for her.
In both of these situations, both the diaconal spirit and the marital life erode and wither.
Diaconal spirituality lies in living out the tension. It is never an either-or scenario. It is always a both-and.
A deacon’s spirituality arises from the ontological change of ordination. It grows in maturity in the context of the precedential graces of marriage. The unifying thread is the self-giving in service, giving so others may have life and have it fully. For the deacon himself there is no end to diaconal and maritial spirituality understood in this way. One never stops and the other begins. For the deacon’s wife, her spirituality is altered for he whom she now loves is now claimed by God and the Church in an irrevocable way, and her love for her husband now includes in a more profound way Jesus Christ the Servant.
Deacons, when people look at us, do they see Jesus the Servant? Do they also see the face of our wives reflected in who we are and what we do? Yes, do they see the face of our wives reflected in us….. we spiritually bring our wives into all we do as deacons; we carry them everywhere for that is what our promise of love and fidelity to them is about.
I passed this post on to my brother deacons in the diocese of Winona, asking for feedback. I received an interesting take on it from Deacon Eduardo Fortini. Here is what he said (my translation of his Italian original):
The diaconate establishes a spousal relationship toward the Church that is irrevocable and eternal. In this sense, his love for his wife is enriched in as much as we no longer love our wives only as a spouse united to us by the Sacrament of Marriage but also with the spousal love that Christ has for her as a member of his Mystical Body. The same spiritual love that we must have for those souls that God has entrusted to us in our concrete diaconal ministry. Wives, then, while not having the diaconal onotologic character that we have received at ordination, do have – through the communion realized by the Sacrament of Matrimony – a particular participation with diaconal grace that flows from us. This grace, if accepted in a spirit of cooperation, gives to our wives the capacity to exercise a deeper level of spiritual maternity with the souls entrusted to us by the Lord. This realization on the part of our wives should contribute to resolve the tension that arises between the spousal relationship of the deacon with his wife and that spiritua/spousal relationship with the Church.
I think Deacon Fortini says it well, and gives us something upon which we can meditate. Her certainly is pointing out that our spousal love for our wives becomes more rooted in our love for the Church, a marital love that arises anew from our diaconal ordination. His theology of how the graces of the diaconate flows in some sense to our wives is intriguing. Finally, his conception of the spiritual maternity of our wives that becomes more profound by virtue of our ordination is interesting. I left him with a question to which I hope he responds, “How does the spiritual maternity of our wives, which deepens by their cooperation with her husband’s diaconal ministry, affect the intimacy of the deacon and his wife? How does it affect their sexuality?”
