Deacon Day: ‘You, like Joseph, are obedient’
Homily of
Cardinal Justin Rigali
Mass during
Deacon Day
Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary
March 15, 2008
Dear Deacons and Wives,
Dear Friends in our Lord Jesus Christ,
Once again I have the joy of gathering with you on this annual Deacon
Day. I am so pleased to be with you and your wives here at Saint Charles
Borromeo Seminary, where most of you were formed as deacons and most of
your pastors were formed as priests. It is good to come back to where
we began, in order to reflect and to be renewed. Each year this is an
important celebration and opportunity for me as your bishop. Just as there
is no such thing as an isolated priest or bishop—we all are in union
with one another—there is also no such thing as an isolated deacon.
You have a special relationship to me as your bishop and I too have a
special relationship to you as deacons of our local Church. Today we celebrate
our unity and shared ministry in the name of Jesus and for the good of
His Church.
But this is also an opportunity for me to express my gratitude to you
and your wives for the service you give to the People of God. This year
we are celebrating the Bicentennial of the Church of Philadelphia as a
diocese. One of the important events in the history of our diocese was
the ordination of the first permanent deacons a little over twenty-five
years ago. Since then, the deacon community has been a great blessing
to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, offering dedicated service in so many
ways. As teachers and catechists, as ministers in hospitals, nursing homes
and prisons, ministering to children, engaged couples, new parents, the
aged and the bereaved, you serve the Body of Christ as you yourselves
embody Christ the Servant of all. For all of this, I thank you!
Saint Joseph and the Life of a Permanent Deacon
Our Holy Father spoke recently to his own permanent deacons in Rome. At
that time he thanked them for their ministry and expressed gratitude to
the Second Vatican Council for proposing the restoration of the diaconate
as an expression of the sacramental life of the Church. As deacons you
form a unique sacramental link between the laity and the ordained since
you very often continue to carry out your profession even as you minister
in the Church. Above all, you remain dedicated to your families and with
them you seek to imitate as closely as possible the life of the Holy Family
of Nazareth.
That is why it is a happy coincidence that this year’s Deacon Day
falls on the feast of Saint Joseph. The traditional feast day of Saint
Joseph, March 19th, falls during Holy Week this year, so the Church has
transferred the feast to today. We cannot omit celebrating such a significant
feast day in honor of a man so important to our faith. Saint Joseph models
for all Christians how we can live a just and upright life, dedicated
to Christ and his Church. In a special way, Saint Joseph is a model for
permanent deacons as they seek to live out their vocations as husbands,
fathers and servants of God.
Joseph the Carpenter
Saint Joseph is an excellent model for permanent deacons because he knew
what it meant to serve the Lord while working in the world. While the
Gospels do not give us a full and detailed biography of Joseph, we know
that he did not leave his work as a carpenter when he became the foster
father of Jesus. After all, even when Jesus returned to Nazareth as an
adult to preach in the Synagogue, Saint Luke tells us that the townspeople
asked, “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” Joseph modeled
for Jesus and for us the importance of working hard to support a family
and to contribute to the common good. As participants in the working world,
you too know how to work hard and contribute to the betterment of society.
Pope John Paul II called work a “sharing in the activity of the
Creator” for we are called, acting in the image of God, to sustain
by our efforts the world that he called into being from nothing (Laborem
Exercens, 25). As such, work has a dignity that is often unrecognized
by our society. You, as permanent deacons in the workplace, bear witness
to the dignity of work regardless of what type of jobs you have.
Joseph, as a just and righteous man in the marketplace, is a model for
all deacons. It is imperative for permanent deacons to conduct their business
affairs with the highest degree of honesty, integrity and fairness. The
Church’s teachings on social justice should be enfleshed in the
work of permanent deacons; this adds authenticity to your preaching and
to your ministry in the Church. By the way you model Christian virtues
in the work place, you not only contribute to the good of society but
also bear testimony to our faith and to the grace of God in the world.
In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “In this way, you give witness
in the world of today, as well as in the working world, of the presence
of faith, of the sacramental ministry and the diaconal dimension of the
sacrament of Orders” (Rome, February 7, 2008).
Joseph, Husband and Father
Our feast day today is not specifically in honor of Saint Joseph the Worker.
That feast day is May 1st. Today we celebrate Joseph for his more primary
role as Husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus. As Catholics, we place
a strong emphasis on the family as the primary unit of society, a model
of the Church—sometimes even called “the domestic Church”—and
a way for human participation in the life of the Most Blessed Trinity.
The Church honors all families as they seek to be like the Holy Family
of Nazareth, serving God and one another. Saint Joseph dedicated himself
to the care of his family even under frequently difficult circumstances.
Likewise, permanent deacons are dedicated to the care of their families,
in good times and bad. In fact, for a married permanent deacon, his first
realm of diaconal service is under his own roof. It is to his own wife
and children that he models both God as loving Father and Jesus as Servant
washing His disciples’ feet. Just as Saint Joseph is a universal
model for husbands and fathers everywhere, so the married parish deacon
should be a model of a good and loving family man for those of his local
community.
While the Church recognizes this priority of a deacon’s responsibility
to his family, we also recognize the sacrifices your families often make
to allow you who are deacons to minister in the Church. Hence, this is
also an opportunity for us to renew gratitude to your wives, whose support
is so important to your ministry as deacons, and who themselves contribute
a great deal to the life of the Church. The presence today of so many
of you, wives of our deacons, bears witness to the support you give to
your husbands in their sacred ministry.
Joseph, Obedient and Responsive
Of course, we celebrate Saint Joseph for more than simply the titles that
come after his name—Joseph, the carpenter or Joseph, husband and
foster father—but most especially for the title that comes before
his name—Saint Joseph! Our scriptures today tell us that, even before
Joseph became the husband of Mary, he was already a righteous man. Righteousness,
according to Saint Matthew, means not only being a good person but, even
more, being faithful to the Law and obedient to the inner promptings of
the Holy Spirit. In the Gospels, Saint Joseph’s righteousness was
expressed not by words but by his obedient response to God’s invitation
to service.
Notice that in today’s Gospel, Joseph’s obedience to the angel
is a freely given response. The angel tells him “not to be afraid”
to take Mary into his home and explained to him the importance of Jesus
for the salvation of the world. Joseph did not speak, but rather listened,
and silently responded to the will of God by adopting Jesus as his son.
Saint Matthew shows us that Jesus came into the world through a double
act of obedience: through Joseph’s obedience to the angel, Jesus
became a son of David and through Mary’s obedience, Jesus was born
as the Son of God. All of this sets the stage for Jesus Himself, whom
Saint Paul says, “obediently accepted death—death on a cross”
as we will celebrate during Holy Week.
As deacons, you too, dear brothers, have freely promised to be obedient
as a way of conforming your life to Christ. Just as it was for Joseph,
the obedience of a man in Holy Orders is a free response to the laws of
God—especially the law of love. Obedience is a free and generous
response to the needs of the Church, great or small, wherever and whenever
they arise. Since you, like Joseph are obedient, listening to the promptings
of the Holy Spirit, you find that there is no act of service that is beneath
you because you know that you are serving Jesus, the carpenter’s
Son, in your brothers and sisters, including those who are on the margins
of our society.
Joseph expressed his faith through his obedience to the will of God, and
his faithfulness led him to be a righteous and just man in the marketplace,
with his family—Jesus and Mary—and in his service to God.
It is my prayer for you who are permanent deacons and for all of us, that
for the glory of the Most Blessed Trinity we may imitate Saint Joseph
with our own faithful and obedient response to service in the Church.
Saint Joseph, pray for us! Amen.
Great Saint Patrick, intercede that we always may be
devoted and loyal, true children of thee! Amen!