Deaconate Ordination of Tim Collins,

Croagh Parish, 15 September 2024

When two thousand years ago Jesus asked the question “who do you say I am?”, he meant those words to reach well beyond his group of disciples in Caesarea Philippi that day. It is a question that reaches the heart of everyone. Each of us must answer the question: “who do you say Jesus is in your life?” These words have also reached Tim Collins who is to be ordained deacon today. And by coming forward and presenting himself as a candidate for priesthood and then underdoing the years of training in the seminary in Italy and in Maynooth, Tim has been answering with his life: “Lord, you are the One I want to follow in life, you are the One I want to have at the centre of my life, you are the Christ, the Son of God who has laid his life out of service for us so I want to respond with my heart by offering my life in service of my sisters and brothers”.

Tim, today we celebrate a milestone moment along your journey. The Church requires that you be ordained a deacon some time before you are ordained a priest. In doing so, the Church wants to remind you that the deaconate, service, is the foundation on which the priesthood is built. Pope Francis has stated that all priests must keep alive a “diaconal consciousness” in living out their priestly ministry. That means remembering the primacy of love, the primacy of service in all you are and do as a deacon and then as a priest: assisting at the altar, administering the Sacrament of Baptism, assisting at and blessing marriages, preaching and performing many other functions in the name of the Church.

Yes, to be a deacon is to follow Christ by serving. It is to lay down your life. It is, as Pope Francis often reminds us, to de-centre ourselves, no longer have ourselves and our ideas and our desires and dreams at the centre, but rather to let God’s thought and ways and actions work in my life that is much more than the way we normally reason and act. That is the lesson Peter had to learn as we hear in today’s Gospel. He had to let himself be transplanted in his way of seeing, judging and acting into the wisdom that comes from God who takes our thoughts, and hopes and dreams and actions and fulfills them in a way we could never have imagined. The promises of celibacy and obedience that you are taking today, Tim, are not about restricting your affections or narrowing your thoughts or impeding your freedom, but rather they are about expanding your heart, enlightening your mind, and fulfilling your freedom, enabling you to be a man of dialogue, of communion, building up communities of faith, hope and love.  The promises you are taking are about transplanting the roots of your life into the good soil of the Kingdom of God where true growth happens. Remember a central teaching of Jesus is found in today’s Gospel: “For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

All of this means there needs to be a constant conversion going on in life to let God take the first place in your life of service. As you know Pope Francis was in Singapore a few days ago. He met someone I know, a lay man and, to this man’s great surprise, the Pope said to him: “remember everything is possible only with God. Even the great things. They are only possible with God.”

To serve with God and the way God wants us to serve involves the cross. During the week we had the wonderful visit of St. Bernadette of Lourdes to Limerick. Thousands came to reverence her relics. It was very moving to see the faith of so many from across the Diocese. A key feature of St. Bernadette’s life was certainly the 18 visions of Our Lady in Lourdes (today, September 15^th, we celebrate Our Lady of Sorrows). But that is not why Bernadette became a saint. It is said she exercised great charity and kept her eyes fixed on the crucifix: “That is where I find my strength”, she said. Deaconate, service, is a way of being with God by taking up the Cross, renouncing ourselves, as the Gospel tells us today, and going out to see Jesus in those who are suffering, in need, waiting for our response. Sometimes it is said that diocesan clergy only take promises of celibacy and obedience. As if that gets them off the hook regarding poverty! But, of course, all the three evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience, are presumed essential for all Christians, including diocesan priests. The poverty manifest in the Cross is a way of following Christ in service.

There is one detail here I would like to emphasise. And what I am going to say echoes the Second Reading. The Second Vatican Council emphasised that deacons are above all ‘dedicated to the tasks of charity and administration’ (Lumen Gentium, 29). We know that in the early centuries of the Church, deacons looked after the needs of the faithful, especially the poor and the sick, in the name and on behalf of the bishop. In the great imperial city of Rome, for example, seven places were organised, distinct from the parishes and distributed throughout the regions of the city, where deacons carried out work for the benefit of the entire Christian community, especially the ‘least of these’, so that, as the Acts of the Apostles say, no one among them would be in need (cf. 4:34).

In last year's Synodal Assembly in Rome that I had the grace to participate in, the social aspect of the diaconate was emphasised several times. The Synthesis Report states that instead of expressing their ministry primarily in the liturgy, deacons are called rather to express it more in service to the poor and needy in the community. While you are not today being ordained to the permanent deacon and it’s more a step towards priesthood, nevertheless, there is, today, a specific invitation for you today, Tim: with new determination, decide in your heart to focus on looking out for the various faces of suffering in our world and turn your ear to the different cries of humanity so that you can offer many the tender closeness and compassion of Jesus.

As you look around you with the desire to serve, you’ll discover many sisters and brothers, as well as spiritual mothers and fathers. Yes, be a deacon who builds a community spirit by being the first to serve, serving everyone, serving Christ in your neighbour. Never see yourself as an isolated minister. You come from the People of God to serve the People but always in and among the People, starting with your fellow clergy and lay ministers with whom you work.

As the First Reading reminds you, the Lord will come to your help, so that you will be untouched by insults or condemnation. We all need to ask for the grace of perseverance, to be able to keep going when there are troubles. We here today assure you, Tim, of our prayers that you may always be faithful and that, finally, on the last day, when you go to meet the Lord, you will hear him say “well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord”.