Reflections on the diaconate, the spiritual life, preaching, and what it means to serve at the threshold between the altar and the world.
The diaconate has its own identity — not a stepping stone, not a lesser priesthood, but a distinct sacramental vocation rooted in the servant ministry of Christ himself.
One of the most frequently misunderstood aspects of the permanent diaconate is its identity. Many Catholics — including some clergy — think of deacons as “almost priests” or men who “couldn’t quite make it” to ordination. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The ancient ordination prayer makes it clear: deacons are ordained not unto the priesthood, but unto a ministry of service. This is not a lesser calling. It is a different calling — one that configures a man to Christ the Servant in a unique and unrepeatable way.
When a deacon proclaims the Gospel at Mass, he does so not as a substitute for the priest, but as a man whose entire vocation is ordered toward carrying that Word into the world. The deacon stands at the threshold — one foot at the altar, one foot in the marketplace.
Before you fill out an application, before you speak to the vocations director, sit with these five questions. They won’t give you the answer — but they will reveal where your heart truly stands.
Every ordained minister is configured to Christ — but in what way? Exploring the unique sacramental character of the diaconate and what it means to be an icon of the One who came not to be served, but to serve.
The diaconate is a family vocation. One deacon’s wife reflects on the joys, the sacrifices, and the unexpected graces that came with her husband’s ordination — and what she wishes she had known before it all began.
A deacon preaches differently than a priest — not because the message changes, but because the perspective does. The deacon brings the world to the ambo and the Gospel to the street. How does that shape the homily?
The permanent diaconate flourished in the early Church, then virtually vanished in the West for nearly a millennium. What happened — and what does its restoration tell us about the Holy Spirit’s work in the Church?
St. Francis was ordained a deacon and never became a priest. His choice reveals something profound about the dignity of the diaconate — a vocation complete in itself, not a way station on the road to something else.