Originally posted by Eric:
I hate to be a "downer" but...
What I mean is this: in the mass the deacons have such a small role that they usually don't participate liturgically w/ the priest. In EC this is different as the deacon has a role.
Since the deacon is often married and usually has a secular job then he (in the USA anyway) only spends about 10 hours a week doing church related business/ministry. This has led me to observe that in the latin rite lay men can do as much ministry as deacons with the exception of administering baptism, matrimony, and burying people - things which deacons here don't spend much time doing anyway.
Father Deacon Piotr - Many years! Sto lat!
Good evening Eric,
I`m sorry to hear that you live in a diocese which does not fully employ deacons in the roles for which they are ordained. In my diocese, our bishop grants deacons faculties to preach and while some pastors are not terribly forthcoming in this area, our deacon preaches every Sunday, and he preaches well. He performs all of the other duties for which he was ordained. He performs baptisms, witnesses marriages (which, to the best of my knowledge, deacons in the Churches of the various Eastern traditions do not do), and presides at wakes. He spends much more than 10 hours per week in parish work and he has a full time job, as a deputy sheriff. In another parish with which I am familiar - and which has four deacons - the deacons also preach and are essential to the life of the parish (as is our deacon) - both liturgically and in their other ministries. When the bishop is supportive of the diaconate, deacons prosper spiritually, often in spite of their pastors. BTW, I`m not speaking about mine - present or past.
I am familiar with only one parish in Kentucky, one where my mother was a parishioner, and I recall that the pastor there did not allow the deacon to preach, but he did assign him to ministry to the sick and homebound. When deacons are treated as little more than grown-up altar servers or extraordinary ministers of holy communion, the ultimate fault lies with the bishop, to whom is given the responsibility for the good order of the liturgy in his diocese. I am thankful that my diocese has a bishop who loves and cares for all of those committed to his care - ordained and lay alike.
Sorry to have gone off on a tangent.
Peace!
Charles
