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Issue 4

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DIACONAL

May 2010

EDITORIAL 2

Deacons & Virtue Ashley Beck and Tony Schmitz

DIACONAL SPIRITUALITY 4

The Spirituality of Diaconate Raniero Cantalamessa

DIACONIA OF WORD 14

Opening up the Scriptures: Key moments on the journey in Gospel of Luke Paul Watson

DIACONIA OF ALTAR 18

The Liturgical Role of the Deacon in Constantinopolitan Tradition, Part II David Kennedy

DIACONIA OF CARITAS 24

The Theological Challenge of Caritas in Veritate Robert Imbelli

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Introduction to Lithuania Paul Wennekes

THEOLOGY AND HISTORY OF DIACONATE 34

Humble waiting-on-tables or missionary going-between? John N. Collins & the nature of ‘diakonia’ in the New Testament

Contents

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Klaus Kiessling 40

Perception of the Diaconate in Early Middle Ages: Some Evidence from Canon Law Thomas O’Loughlin

DIACONAL FORMATION 48

Developing Talents: How diaconal students have been discovering their strengths Louisa Warren

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International Research Consortium on the Diaconate in Rome: an Update Bill Ditewig

DOCUMENTATION / RETRIEVING THE TRADITION 52

International Theological Commission Tony Schmitz

REVIEWS 59

Philosophy and Catholic Theology, A Primer,

by Philip A. Egan Ashley Beck

NEWS 60

Fifth National Assembly/IDC-NEC: June 25/6, 2011 Twickenham

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Ashley Beck and Tony Schmitz

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DIACONAL

Published November & May each year by: International Diaconate Centre – North European Circle (IDC-NEC) 77 University Road, Aberdeen, AB24 3DR, Scotland.

Tel: 01224 481810 (from outside UK: +44 1224 481810) A Charitable Company Registered in England In association with The Pastoral Review, The Tablet Publishing Company Ltd, 1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London, W6 0GY, UK. Website www.idc-nec.org Board of the IDC–NEC Tony Schmitz (Chair), Ashley Beck, John Traynor, Nelleke Wijngaards-Serrarens, Rob Mascini, Wim Tobé, Paul Wennekes, Göran Fäldt Editors Tony Schmitz tony.schmitz@gmail.com Ashley Beck ashleybeck88@hotmail.com Contributions are welcome from readers. Please send material to the editors at the e-mail addresses above.

For style details please consult the website of The Pastoral Review www.thepastoralreview.org/style.shtml Editorial consultants Dr John N Collins (Australia) Rt Revd Gerard de Korte (Netherlands) Revd Dr William Ditewig (USA) Rt Revd Michael Evans (England) Revd Dr Michael Hayes (England) Revd Professor Bart Koet (Netherlands), Rt Revd Vincent Logan (Scotland), Most Revd Sigitas Tamkevicius (Lithuania) Designer James Chasteauneuf © The Tablet Publishing Company Limited ISSN 1759-1902 Subscriptions and membership of IDC-NEC 1 year - £15 / 20 euros (or equivalent in other currencies) By post: IDC-NEC, 77 University Road, Aberdeen AB24 3DR, UK Online: www.idc-nec.org (in all main currencies)

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t the time of writing this leader column, a General Election in Britain will certainly be held in early May this year, as we go to press, and almost certainly in the same month there will be one in the Netherlands as well: so many of our readers in different countries will be considering how to vote in the light of the Catholic faith and the ministry we are called to follow in the Church. In recent years particularly the pastors of the Church have taken care to give guidance to the faithful – not to tell them how to vote, but to remind Catholics and other Christians of the basic principles of Catholic social and moral teaching which should give guidance. Sometimes this guidance hits the headlines: in Britain in late 1996 the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales document The Common Good, now a standard text in the teaching of social doctrine, did more to publicise ‘the Church’s best kept secret’ than any other initiative in recent times.

The print run was 60,000 and courses about it were put on all over the country and in different denominations; things were never the same again and Catholic Social Teaching was placed very firmly at the centre of Catholic identity in Britain.

At the same time it caused anger: because the government of the day was weak after many years in power, it was wrongly perceived to be an attack on them; similarly a good many prominent (and rich) Catholics were annoyed that they had not been consulted.

In Britain this year, in a political situation which seems very reminiscent of those days (but with the other big party in power) the Bishops’ Conference of

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and Virtue England and Wales has recently issued another teaching document in a similar vein, Choosing the Common Good1, as have the Bishops’ Conferences of Scotland and the Netherlands. These are designed to help us prepare not only for the election but also for the visit in September this year of the Holy Father – to help us reflect more about our faith and about our engagement with wider society. Deacons are expected by the Church to be specialists in Catholic Social teaching2 so the documents merit study by our readers. The bishops are not concerned to deal very much with specific issues – although some are alluded to, such as marriage, abortion and immigration – rather, the central part of the English document explores the traditional idea of virtue. At one point the bishops say: ‘The practice of virtue helps to shape us as people. By the pursuit of virtue we act well not because of external constraint but because it has become natural for us to do so. The virtues form us as moral agents, so that we do what is right and honourable for no other reason than that it is right and honourable, irrespective of rewards and regardless of what we are legally obliged to do. Virtuous action springs from a sense of one’s own dignity and that of others, and from self-respect as a citizen. It is doing good even when no one is looking.’(p. 11) Deacons and others engaged in diaconal ministry, because of what the Church expects and because they are often working in secular employment, are in a strong position to help to teach virtue, especially

in relation to the Church’s ministry to the poor and marginalised and the ways in which this should have a bearing on how Catholics vote. The document draws heavily on Pope Benedict XVI’s recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate. The guidance the Church tries to give in relation to social teaching is important for Catholics in all the countries of northern Europe in which our readers are found. One common issue all over Europe is immigration and the rise of sinister far right political parties: the Church’s call to stand by and support migrants is a challenge to this disturbing development and the bigotry behind it.

In this fourth issue we continue to cover a variety of topics relating to diaconal ministry and formation, ranging from psychometric appraisal methods which help us grow in self-knowledge, to pioneering charitable work being done in the Church’s name in Lithuania, and what Irish Canon Law had to say about deacons in the ‘Dark Ages.’ There are also details of the combined National Diaconate Assembly for England Wales and the first International Diaconate Centre – North Europe Circle Conference which will be taking place in June 2011 at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham. We hope many of our readers will be able to come. Finally, we are pleased to announce that it will now be possible for you to renew your subscription to our journal online at www.idc-nec.org if you have not already taken out a standing order.

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1 Available from Alive Publishing, Graphic House, 124 City Road, Stoke on Trent or from www.catholic-ew.org.uk 2 Congregation for Catholic Education Basic Norms for the Formation of Permanent Deacons (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1998) section 81, subsection (e).

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Editorial

Ashley Beck and Tony Schmitz

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Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap

The Spirituality Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap is the Preacher to the Papal Household. He leads retreats and formation sessions throughout the world. He is the author of Life in the Lordship of Christ amongst many other titles. This talk was given to the National Conference of the Communità del Diaconato in Italia which took place in Assisi in August last year. We are most grateful to Deacon Enzo Petrolino, president of the Communità del Diaconato in Italia and Italian delegate to the IDC for permission to publish this talk in this issue of the NDR. The talk has been translated

by Prof. Maria Cataleno and Tony Schmitz, which translation the author has not yet had a chance to review.

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ho was the first deacon in the Church? St. Stephen? Or was it St. Lawrence? Everyone of you here knows the answer very well, and I can hear it thrilling in your hearts: the first deacon was of course Jesus the Lord! And as his disciples, you indeed have the honour of making yourselves his imitators.

But in order to begin well, we first need to make a preliminary remark, one that is essential to changing the mindset and attitudes of all hearers: when speaking of Jesus, we are not in fact referring to One who is absent, but to Someone present right here, amongst us, right here in this hall. We are not at all speaking of someone abstract, but of One who is here, in front of us, really listening to us, in that He is the Risen One, ever standing “where two or three are gathered in his name” (Matthew 18:20). And there is no doubt that you are here really gathered in his name. So He’s here, amongst you, amongst us! This is then the very first passage that creates the “short circuit” between past and present that is necessary to give us a right start to our reflection.

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But how can we know for certain that Jesus Christ was the first deacon in our history?

Well I am very grateful to you today because your invitation was a good occasion for me to seek for the answer to this and to discover that it is right that He described himself as “a deacon”. And now we are going to see the place where he did that: “When the other ten heard this [that John and James wanted to sit one at his right hand and the other at his left in his glory], they became angry with James and John. Jesus called them and said to them: You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions use their authority over them. But it is not to be so among you. Instead whoever wants to be

... whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant (in the original text we read “your deacon”) great among you must be your servant (in the original text we read “your deacon”) and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of all” (Mark 10:41-44): here we find the word “doulos” which is rightly translated as “slave”).

It is worth attending to the first part of this passage, since it focuses on the foundations of the Gospel’s ethics, asceticism and spirituality. You can also note this in the

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parallel texts by Matthew and Luke: “When the other ten heard this, they were angry with the two brothers. But Jesus called them and said: You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions impose their authority over them. It must not be this way among you! Instead, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant

... service – or diakonia, had a servile status and was a humiliating activity in the pagan Greco-Roman world (deacon), and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served – the right translation would be “to be diaconised” – but to serve – that is “to behave as a deacon” (Matthew 20:24-28). Let us read the parallel text in Luke as well: “Not so with you; instead, the one who is greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the one who serves – the deacon. For who is greater, the one who is seated at the table, or the one who serves – “who deacons”? Is it not the one who is seated at the table? But I am among you as one who serves – a deacon (Luke 22:26-27).

Have you ever thought of this? Sometimes going back to the Greek text is really enlightening, since it conveys in the simplest and truest way things unfortunately trivialised by the various translations, as

happens to the term “servant” which for us is much more generic in its use and meaning and in a sense prevents us from realising that it precisely to Christ’s diakonia that it refers.

The same thing is differently but wonderfully described in John’s Gospel after the washing of the disciples’ feet, when Jesus says: “Do you see what I have done to you?

You call me, ‘Master’ and ‘Lord.’ You say so correctly, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (13:12-15). Now this is surely one of the most revolutionary and innovative assertions in the Gospel, since service – or diakonia –, which had a servile status and was a humiliating activity in the pagan Greco-Roman world, has now been definitively transformed into an entirely new condition and become a living sign of greatness!

This inversion of values does not emerge in a random way, simply because one particular term or expression begins to be used rather than another. It is in fact necessary for something to have occurred, an unexpected “jolt”, which has changed the meaning of words and the whole of human life by introducing a totally new scale of values. This same vision is found in Paul who, after encountering Christ’s light, bears witness to complete transformation that has occurred when he says: “What were once assets to me, I now through Christ Jesus count as losses” (Philippians, 3:7). Francis of Assisi will later say the same – namely that things can fully

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of the Diaconate

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The Spirituality of the Diaconate – Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap

change direction – by employing different words: “What seemed bitter to me (observing lepers) was changed into sweetness of soul and body” (from The Testament). Such a revolution, universal in its significance, gave birth to a new conception of service that first appeared with Jesus Christ’s coming into the world. Still, before proceeding, we must bear in mind that his words are addressed to all his disciples without distinction. And yet though throughout the Gospel there are words that are addressed to everyone, these same words have been taken on by the Church as a “rule”, a “ministry”, a very “special task”, and this is particularly true of you, deacons, because what is meant to be a charge for all Christians, it is in fact a “mission” for you, a special “choice” – or better – a special “calling”, to take participate in and to carry out Christ’s diakonia.

In other words, you are called both to make this good news clear within the Church, and to extend this revolution to everybody without. The better to appreciate the revolutionary character of this new word Jesus speaks about service we might try to make a comparison with Nietzsche’s thought. It happens that we often hear about this man’s ideas precisely because he represents the pagan point of view about human life and conduct. He wanted mankind and culture to return to the preChristian age. Paradoxically, if this is the main reason for considering him as indeed one of the fathers of the post-Christian era, this also precisely provides us with a key that allow us to enter into the very newness of Jesus’s word. We all know that Nietzsche was engaged in a frontal attack against both Christians and against Christ himself, although some try to make a sort of prophet of him by maintaining that his was an attack directed not at Christ but simply at Christians. Now that is simply not true as he claims quite explicitly that Christ introduced into the world the “cancer” of humility and service.

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I wish to read you a text written by Nietzsche’s sister as a Preface to his work Thus spake Zarathustra: “He [Nietzsche] assumes that Christianity, as a product of the resentment of the botched and the weak, has banned all that is beautiful, strong, proud, and powerful, in fact all the qualities resulting from strength, and that, in consequence, all forces which tend to promote or elevate life have been seriously undermined. Now, however, a new scale of values must be placed over mankind – namely, that of the strong, mighty, and magnificent man, overflowing with life and elevated to his zenith – the Superman, who is now placed before us with overpowering passion as the aim of our life, hope, and will.” It must be said that, for Nietzsche, to exalt service, humility and meekness is the morality of the slave, the final outcome of the resentment of the weak against the power of the strong. In other words, the need of the weak to exalt such attitudes as service, humility and mildness derives from their inability to dominate, to make themselves be served and to do great things. It was just in this

Nietzsche says – that Jesus introduced a cancer into the world, since He fully debased human power and clipped humanity’s wings by preventing human beings from doing great things way – Nietzsche says – that Jesus introduced a cancer into the world, since He fully debased human power and clipped humanity’s wings by preventing human beings from doing great things. The ultimate consequence of this process is that, if men no longer wish to do things according to their native power, the very progress of humanity is destined to fail.

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Nietzsche, paradoxically, is right when he says that the Gospel subverts all values obviously provided mankind with a much greater benefit than Nietzsche’s philosophy. And yet Nietzsche, paradoxically, is right when he says that the Gospel subverts all values. Yes it certainly does, but far from preventing human progress such a revolutionary inversion is, on the contrary, the lifeblood of progress, to such an extent that the match point in this new civilisation will precisely be the taking care of the weak, of the last, of the disabled, of the needy – in other words, siding with the weak instead of with the strong. And that comes directly from Jesus!

Today there are some who awkwardly claim the right to be recognised as the founders of this new culture based on the care for the poor. But the truth is that it was Christ’s Gospel that first gave light to the idea that the victim is greater that his executioner, when Jesus offered Himself

to be killed as the first voluntary Victim in history. St. Augustine affirms Victor quia victima, because Jesus inaugurates a brand-new type of victory, which He achieves by not causing other victims but – on the contrary – by making himself a victim. And we must keep in mind that Christian faith does not clip our wings by preventing us from doing great things or being first; it just shows a new and different route for reaching this just end!

Once this basic point is clear, we can go on with our reflection. After outlining this rule, Jesus in truth gives us the very foundation for it: diakonia – the servant’s attendance or waiting on – which was a contemptible and humiliating thing in the pagan world now turns out to be the “pass” to greatness. And the reason for such a change is not – as Aristotle would have said – a principle based on recta ratio, because the attitude of diakonia is not reasonable at all. No, the true reason is a Person, more than this, an event: the Son of God did not come to be served, but to serve (to be a deacon) and give his own life as a ransom for many. Remember?

Who is greater, the one who is seated at table, or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is seated at table? But I am here among you as one who serves!”

So the basis, the very foundation, of the diaconate is Christological, not just an abstract principle nor just fine words drawn from theology. And the consequence of this change is that either the deacon has a personal relationship to Christ or he is totally on the wrong track; either the diaconate is the way to follow Jesus – and becomes a bright witness to Him – or it is nothing more than a job like any other. In other words, you are called to choose Christ, and your ministry, your diakonia, is simply serving with Christ and for Christ.

A student of the Summa Theologiae of St

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Well, what riposte can be given to Nietzsche’s argument? That his is a sham premise: Jesus never said that you cannot do great things, or that it is wrong to wish to be first. On the contrary, he said “whoever wants to be first ...” and this means that it is a legitimate desire. However, this desire must be realised in a way that is new and quite different: whilst for Nietzsche whoever wants to be first has to crush others under himself, for Jesus the only right way is to be humble and “to sub-mit” to all your brothers in order to lift them up. Now there is no doubt that this is much more useful to mankind, since it allows everyone – the humblest as well as the greatest – to be raised! Mother Theresa, who served on her knees washing the feet of the poor,

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Thomas is asked to to go far beyond the notion of the virtues as based on Aristotle’s philosophy, since virtues are now to be rooted in Jesus and founded on what He did. St. Paul says as much in his Philippians hymn: “Make your own the mind of Christ Jesus.” What mind? Here is the foundation of obedience, as He was obedient and servant. Here is the foundation of humility, too, as “existing in the form of God, He did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, yes, the death of the cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8) Yes, the foundation of obedience is right there.

Aristotle would have said, following its etymology, “obedience” – ob, “for” and audire, “to listen to” – is based upon the principle of ratio recta, suggesting that the inferior is bound to obey the superior. But Christ made himself obedient and saved us through his obedience. The same is said in John: “I, the Master, have given you the example, so you must do the same”. Thus the diaconate and the entirety of service in the Church – that of all Christians as well as the deacons’ more specific one – have a Christological foundation. The motivation for diakonia does not emerge from a merely sociological need (just because there is a demand for people of good will who show some readiness to carry out practical services). No, it is a much deeper and more meaning-filled motivation! Historically it is true that the institution of deacons seems ti be due to a contingent need, as the community was continually enlarging and this growth brought increasingly heavy burdens upon the Apostles. But this was in fact the very ready motivation, the ultimate one, displaying rather the true nature and the aim of the diaconate: to bear witness to Christ, who made himself the model to be followed and imitated.

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But there is also a pneumatological dimension to Christian service, a dimension based on the Holy Spirit’s action. St Paul uses the expression Diakonia Pneumatos – the Spirit’s diakonia – in a context where you understand that the Spirit is not only the object, but also the subject of true service. If you consider the Spirit only as the object, then diakonia could seem to be only the service given to the Spirit and to spiritual things such as preaching and the Eucharist, and the Pauline expression could be misunderstood as referring exclusively to the ministry of priests and bishops, directly concerned with the spiritual dimension of life more than with “serving tables”. Rather, the word Pneumatos refers also to the Spirit as the subject of diakonia, to convey the idea that diakonia is in itself a service offered in the Spirit and with the Spirit: finally, a spiritual service not only for its object (the Word, the Eucharist) but especially because done in the Spirit, so that it is rightly He who serves through you and your ministry.

Herein is the quality leap! If Christian service is rightly that, namely a service done

... divine in origin because it is Jesus himself who is serving and who is still washing your brother’s feet whenever you do that by the “spiritual man” who lives from Christ’s Spirit, then this service is not only human, but firstly, divine in origin, because it is Jesus himself who is serving and who is still washing your brother’s feet whenever you do that.

There are texts where St Paul describes this wonderfully. In his Second Letter to

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... when a “spiritual” Christian, namely one who deeply lives his faith, embraces a sick person, it is God himself embracing him or her by really comforting them with the same comfort God has given us.

Which means that when a “spiritual” Christian, namely one who deeply lives his faith, embraces a sick person, it is God himself embracing him or her; yes, it is God, the first Paraclitus, who took a human face in Christ to become a “human” Paraclitus and then sent us the Holy Spirit, the great Paraclitus, who however has no hands to embrace our brothers nor feet to walk along our roads, and therefore needs ours. And thus we all are paracliti. You deacons are paracliti. This is a splendid vocation for the deacon: to be a comforter, a listener, a supporter; to be comforted and supported by his wife to comfort and support then anyone else. It is rightly this pneumatological source that places all the services carried out by a mature Christian

on a different plane from the merely sociological one, making them no longer simply human actions but rather human-divine operations inspired by the Holy Spirit and achieved through His holy gifts.

Such closeness between the diaconate and the Holy Spirit is pointed up in different ways throughout the Scriptures: all the gifts (charisms) given to the Church are destined to diakonia. In his Letters to the Romans and the Corinthians, St Paul says that they all are given for the profit of all, and calls Christ “deacon of his people in the Spirit”. Each believer has in Christ the model to follow to make the community the very “place” of diakonia, where each member serves the others. Here are the charismata of diakonia: “Whoever serves (diakoneo), let him do so as by the strength which God supplies” (1 Peter 4:11), which means: “Whoever is given a ministry, let him practise that ministry”, or in other words: “Whoever is given a diakonia, let him fulfill that diakonia”. Diakonia is always a charisma!

In the Letter to the Ephesians (4.12) we read: “The gifts are given to knit God’s holy people together for the work of service”, that is precisely for diakonia. There is, thus, a very close connection betweeen the Spirit’s work and this charisma which is “the gift of all gifts”. If kept out of the wave of the ever-new Pentecost which enlivens the Church at any time, the whole of the Christian diaconate would be reduced to a sociological service, which would make it only a product of human action. On the contrary, everything is possible if you open yourselves to Pentecost’s ever new grace; and surely there is no cause for saying that if you focus on the Spirit’s action you diminish the importance of Christ, as some theologians would perversely assert.

Instead, the truth is that the more you insist on the Spirit, the more you insist on Jesus himself, since it is the Spirit that in fact makes Jesus present in our history.

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the Corinthians, he says: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God”. Now the first thing to note is that “comfort” is a term behind which we always find the word paraclitus, and once more the Greek text here opens our eyes to inconceivable horizons, since it literally means that you are enabled to become in your turn paracliti for those in trouble, not by addressing good words to them – as one usually does with people in distress – but

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In the Letter to the Romans you find an exhortation to humility, and shortly afterwards to charity: “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil.” The same is to be found in the Letter to the Philippians, precisely in the famous hymn where Paul draws out some model attitudes that are expected to be in the community, saying where to take them from: “If there is therefore any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercy and compassion, make my joy complete, by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind” (2:1-2). This is what Paul is telling us just now. Once I read out this text to the pontifical household, the Pope being at my side and the cardinals in front of me. And I dared to ask the Holy Father for permission to speak to the Roman Curia in his name. This was precisely the text I read out. After listening to it, John Paul II exhorted his cooperators to do “nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself; each of you not just looking to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others” (Phlippians, 2:2-4). He was visibly moved, because those were really his sentiments, as they must be ours today! Humility and charity are what in music are the harmonic notes, namely, the notes which join the fundamental note to form the chord. Humility and charity are the two harmonc notes in the full chord of diakonia.

Let us see, then, how these virtues – humility and charity – are expected to shine in the deacon’s service. First of all humility, because a service given with conceit, far from being true service, is just using others for your own profit, which inevitably humiliates: while offering them a material service, you hit them with spiritual humiliation, deprive them of their dignity and make them slaves. What, then, is true humility? It is everything, but it 10

could also be nothing. If you want to serve as Jesus did, you must learn humility from him, who says: “Learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29). But be careful, as the very essence of humility does not consist in considering yourself small and petty (such an attitude could come from a state of depression or a poor self-image, and so on). On the contrary, humility consists in making yourself small so as to serve your brothers. That is true humility!

Service is then the ultimate – the brightest and surest – form of humility, since this humility is that of Jesus who did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped but made himself a slave. It is the divine virtue par excellence and St Francis of Assisi, who had fully understood this, untiringly repeats in many letters “Look, brothers, at the humility of God”, of the thrice-holy and very humble God. Because humility consists in descending, coming down to meet and favour others.

Now God surely cannot rise up, he can only come down: He does so when He

The whole history of salvation is indeed the history of God’s humiliation creates the universe, when He inspires the holy Scriptures, when He becomes incarnate, when He becomes the Eucharist upon the altar. The whole history of salvation is indeed the history of God’s humiliation. Here is true humility: “whoever wants to be first must make himself last, the servant of all” now. You deacons can practise humility in its truest and surest form, that is, not longing for high things or prestigious offices, but bending down to the least and humblest

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tasks. Whilst speaking of gifts, St Francis exhorts us not to search for conspicuous charisms, but to choose the simplest services which are the surest also. I think that St Francis called Sister Water pure, precious and humble, because he had realised just that: water ever runs down, always, until it reaches the lowest level.

Here we have the model of humility.

Nowadays everyone speaks of service: and service has thus become a dangerously positive word. In the pagan world it was negative, since it meant slavery; today it has instead taken on an opposite meaning, which may make it even more dangerous.

But what then is distinctive about Christian service?

Motivation! Not money, but gratuitousness and free giving. And this is what no one is willing to do today Today it would seem as if anyone does his own service when on duty: the policeman, the trader serving you as his customer … it’s like “a label” employed to say that one is helpful to society. There is no doubt that these all are useful services for society and for community. But what then is distinctive about Christian service? Motivation!

Not money, but gratuitousness and free giving. And this is what no one is willing to do today, not even political ministers who, according to the etymology of their names, should precisely be the citizens’ servants.

Being a servant and fulfilling a service today is thus “dangerously positive” just because the true sense of serving has become lost. Motivation is, then, the characteristic of Christian service, that which makes it distinctive and true: serving and promoting human dignity, and doing so as a witness to Jesus and his Gospel.

Now let us consider the second harmonic note in the chord of diakonia, that is, charity. And we can do so correctly by starting with the word of Paul’s we’ve already read: “Let love be without hypocrisy”. Anyone reading Chapter 12 of his Letter to the Romans is tempted to position this line on charity alongside many others. But au contraire, this initial statement is the basis for everything else.

You will understand this better by returning to the original text, where the whole sentence is made up of just two words: agape and anupocritos. Agape, as you know, means love. But if we consider that the “a” at the beginning of a Greek word means “without”, then what does the term anupocritos stand for? That charity needs to be without hypocrisy! And this is like a key word in Paul, since Christian charity must always be true; it cannot only be “the charity of hands”, it has instead to be “the love of the heart”. In other words, before benefaction there must always stand benevolence. That is why, whenever he speaks of charity, St Paul hardly ever speaks of the charitable deeds, but of attitudes and the feelings expected to accompany those deeds. “Love is always patient and kind, love is never jealous, love is never rude or conceited”, love is without hypocrisy and always merciful, because only in this way can it reflect God’s charity. You often hear it said that God is the totally Other. Well I would complete this statement by saying that God is the totally Other in love. His love is a completely different thing, and it is precisely to get nearer to this charity that St Paul tells us that charity (especially for you who serve the poor in particular) needs a mood of mercy and comfort and, if you haven’t such attitude yet, it’s important that you borrow it from God! Of course, one can fulfill the “charity of hands” for many different reasons: a big part of the charity we offer to the poor in the Third World does not spring from love,

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Diaconal Spirituality

The Spirituality of the Diaconate – Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap

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The Spirituality of the Diaconate – Raniero Cantalamessa OFM Cap

but from other feelings like remorse or even shame in some cases. Yet there may be even worse reasons for that kind of charity, such as the wish to be considered as benefactors by offering large sums of money.

Paul says that charity must move from the heart because only in this way does an act of charity – even the smallest one like offering a glass of water to a poor person – take on great value, a divine value, since it is God who is offering it through you.

Paul says that charity must move from the heart because only in this way does an act of charity – even the smallest one like offering a glass of water to a poor – take on great value, a divine value, since it is God who is offering it through you We can explain this better by taking further examples. First of all, what is the enemy of this diakonia as outlined, in imitation of Christ? The first enemy is authoritarianism, that is, the will to make our authority over others felt. Perhaps this is a less serious risk for deacons than for the higher ranks of the hierarchy, to the extent that Paul feels it necessary to state that “we do not have lordship over your faith, but are fellow workers with you for your joy” (2 Corinthians, 1:24). And Peter, too, recommends the elders not to lord it over others.

In fact, in each ministry contains the risk of being turned into power, which Jesus himself denounces when he says “the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them”. I wish to offer you, then, one more suggestion: the diaconal service you are entrusted with is to become an example or the epiphany of a fully diaconal Church, a merciful Church, 12

a servant-Church – in other words, not a Church using the world but serving it, a Church able to live closely alongside humanity.

You have many occasions, surely more so than priests, to offer Jesus this service, to make his proximity real just as when he walked in this world and extended mercy and made himself close to those in sorrow.

For example, on the occasion of funerals it is extremely important for the family to feel the Church close to them. You can be the “link” needed, you can make the Church present in situations of pain, illness, dismay; and especially with the poor the whole of your potential is being empowered, since they are the disadvantaged of life who are the first in God’s heart. Service rendered to the poor, moreover, is rendered directly to Jesus: “You did it to me”.

Finally, I would like to leave with you a sentence of the late Cardinal Van Thuan, a holy man, a Vietnamese cardinal who spent thirteen years in a Communist regime’s prison. During the spiritual exercises he led in the Vatican during the Jubilee Year 2000, he said the following words that I am now entrusting into your hands: I dream of a Church that is the Holy Door: always open, embracing all, full of compassion that understands the pains and sufferings of humanity, protecting, consoling and guiding all people to the Loving Father. I wear this cross and chain daily not because they remind me of prison, but because they represent a profound conviction and a constant reference point for me: only Christian love can change hearts.

May this also be the service that you give to Jesus and the world in the everyday conduct of your ministry.

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2010 National Conference of Priests and Permanent Deacons of Scotland Seamill Hydro, 39 Ardrossan Road, Seamill, North Ayrshire KA23 9NB

4pm Tuesday 21st September – 6pm Thursday 23rd September 2010

Fr Raniero Cantalamessa (Preacher to the Papal Household)

“Preaching God’s Word” Fr Raniero Cantalamessa is a Franciscan Capuchin, Catholic Priest.

Born in Ascoli Piceno, Italy, 22 July 1934, ordained priest in 1958.

Divinity Doctor and Doctor in classical literature. Former Ordinary Professor of History of Ancient Christianity and Director of the Department of religious sciences at the Catholic University of Milan. Member of the International Theological Commission (1975-1981).

In 1979 he resigned his position to become a full time preacher of the Gospel. In 1980 he was appointed by Pope John Paul II as ‘Preacher to the Papal Household’ in which capacity he still serves. He is frequently invited to speak at international and ecumenical conferences and rallies.

He has been a member of the Catholic delegation for the Dialogue with the Pentecostal Churches for the last ten years. He runs a weekly programme on the first channel of the Italian state television (RAI).

2010 National Conference of Priests and Permanent Deacons of Scotland

D E L E G A T E

B O O K I N G

F O R M

We are expecting a large attendance at this year’s conference so please return your booking form with conference fee, payable to NCPPDS, by 1st July, 2010 to: The Treasurer, Rev Jamie Boyle, Catholic Presbytery, 52 Quakerfield, Bannochburn FH7 8HZ £280.00 (includes: dinner, bed & breakfast and all conference facilities).

Name ................................................................................................................

Address .............................................................................................................

Telephone .........................................................................................................

Email .........................................................................................................

The executive would welcome suggestions of any topic of ‘National Interest’, for inclusion in the general business matters for discussion at the conference.

Please enclose any suggestions with your application details and £280.00 fee.

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Paul Watson

Opening up the Scriptures – Engaged in the ministry of the Word, in teaching and preaching, for the last thirty-five years as a priest and more recently as Director of Maryvale Institute, responsible for a variety of programmes, including one contributing to the training and formation of candidates for the Permanent Diaconate, questions about the ministry or diakonia of the Word, and in particular, questions about the engagement with Sacred Scripture and Tradition in order to discern and ultimately to communicate the Word of God, have been a continual subject of reflection for Mgr Paul J Watson, a regular contributor to NDR.

A

t the heart of the ministry of the Word for me, and a place of continual return in the Gospels, is the account of the meeting between Jesus and the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24). I was always struck by the reaction of the two disciples to Jesus’ explanation of the Scriptures when they said to each other, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us as he opened the Scriptures to us on the road” (Luke 24:32).

I have always thought that this is a key text for those of us who are commissioned to proclaim the Word of God – to preach and to teach the Word. The question has always been at the back of my mind: can we expect to explain or open the Scriptures in such a way that those who listen will find that their hearts also burn within them?

And if so, how do we go about it? If my understanding of the Emmaus incident is correct, it appears that the disciples experienced an encounter with Christ in two principal ways. One, which they reported later to the Apostles, was that they recognised Christ in the “breaking of the bread”; the other was in the way in which Jesus interpreted for them “in all the Scriptures” the things concerning himself. Surely, this captures, not only a historical encounter, but also the very essence of the Liturgy of 14

the Eucharist and the Diakonia of the Word which ordained ministers are to exercise within the Liturgy?

Formation for the Diakonia of the Word If we recognise that the two disciples travelling to Emmaus not only experienced a heart-warming encounter with the Risen Lord, but were also transformed by it and became witnesses of it (they reported what had happened!), then we might consider the whole incident as a sort of school for ministers of the Word and use it as a starting point for reflecting on our own diakonia of the Word and for reflection on our formation for this ministry. Indeed, we might want to reflect on the fact that the Church throughout her history has sought to establish, taking Christ as her model and teacher,

Church throughout her history has sought to establish, taking Christ as her model and teacher, schools for the diakonia of the Word schools for the diakonia of the Word – in the form of seminaries, formation programmes, courses of study and so on. While these have been places of training in the study of theology, as Dei Verbum (the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on Divine Revelation) reminds us, it is Sacred Scripture and its interpretation that must be the “soul of theology”.

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Key Moments of the Journey in the Gospel of Luke

The Benedictus With the remarkable event of the angel’s appearance to him in the Temple and the subsequent conception of his son, Zechariah begins to reflect on the Scriptures, seeing in them a progressive revelation of the coming of the Messiah. It will be the role and function of John the Baptist to prepare the way, to be a prophet of God the Most High, and to make known to his people their salvation. The Benedictus makes reference to several Old Testament passages from Genesis 3:15 – the seed of woman who is to crush the head of Satan, through the promise of a seed to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-8, and on through Genesis 49:5-7 whence it becomes clear that the seed will be from the line of Judah. In 1 Chronicles 17:1-15 we learn that the seed will be a descendant of David and a king, while in Isaiah 9:5-7, the child

will be called “Mighty God”. Micah 5:2 speaks of his birth in Bethlehem, but his “origins” are from the distant past.

The Magnificat In Mary’s song, modelled on the song of the mother of Samuel, Luke shows that the promises made to our fathers, to Abraham and his sons, are coming to completion in the handmaid of God. This will be her blessedness and also the source of her joy.

Mary thereby becomes an embodiment of the Old Testament, for within her the Word of God is tabernacled.

The Nunc Dimittis For Simeon, to touch and see the historical reality of the child Jesus is to see salvation, the salvation “which you have prepared for all nations, the light to enlighten the Gentiles and give glory to your people Israel.

In Simeon, Luke provides us with a foretaste, a type, of the opening of the Scriptures that will become a reality for all with the death and resurrection of Jesus at the end of the Gospel.

The Baptism of Jesus The Holy Spirit reveals Jesus as the Suffering Servant in whom God delights. At his Baptism Jesus assumes the mantle of the Old Testament – taking as his own commission the Old Testament role of Messiah and Suffering Servant, who will justify many. There is a sense in which at the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus begins to take the Old Testament to himself, by accepting the role of the Suffering Servant. It is, as it were, the beginning of his fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies. However, as the Gospel continues, Jesus does much more than fulfil the

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Diaconia of Word

While it was suggested that the road to Emmaus might be considered as a school for the Diakonia of the Word, further reflection might lead us to conclude that for Luke, the road to Emmaus is the end of a journey – a journey that actually began at the beginning of his Gospel. We might like to trace some elements of that journey in order to explore with Luke what might be described as his school for ministers of the Word, in which, ultimately, Christ himself is both the Exegete and the Exegesis. We shall briefly touch on and explore a few key moments in Luke’s Gospel that seem to take us on a journey through the interpretation of Scripture, a journey that begins just before Christ’s birth and takes us through the key moments of his Baptism, his Transfiguration, his death on the Cross and on to the road to Emmaus.

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Opening up the Scriptures – Key Moments of the Journey in the Gospel of Luke – Paul Watson

prophecies; he transforms the whole of the Old Testament into a prophecy of himself.

This is seen most clearly in Luke’s account of the Transfiguration.

The Transfiguration There are at least three important elements in Luke’s account of the Transfiguration that pertain to our understanding of the Scriptures. In the first place, the presence of Moses and Elijah is seen as the fulfilment of their individual lives since they were two in the Old Testament to whom God partially revealed his glory. However, the partial nature of this revelation looked forward to a time when both would be permitted to see the full glory of God – shining through the humanity of Jesus. At the same time, Moses and Elijah are seen as representatives of the whole Old Testament – the Law and the Prophets. Luke alone notes that Moses and Elijah are also transfigured in the presence of Jesus. The implication seems to be that at this moment a turning point has been reached. It is not simply a matter of opening up the meaning of the Scriptures but rather of transforming them, transfiguring

All of the Evangelists note that when the disciples look up “they saw no one but only Jesus”. From now on, Jesus carries, as it were, the whole Old Testament, within Himself them. This notion of Jesus transforming the Scriptures is one which was dear to many of the Fathers of the Patristic and Medieval Ages. Without losing anything of their significance as progressive revelation of God and his unfolding plan of salvation, the Scriptures (i.e. the Old Testament), in the presence of the historical reality of Jesus, become changed from letter to spirit. In 16

other words, the whole Old Testament is transformed into prophecy, into type or typology, of Jesus Himself. It is at this moment that that Old Testament becomes one with Christ Jesus. The Old becomes part of the New Testament – together they form a unity. There is a sense in which Moses and Elijah have become one with Jesus. All of the Evangelists note that when the disciples look up “they saw no one but only Jesus”. From now on, Jesus carries, as it were, the whole Old Testament, within Himself.

The Cross of Jesus Moses and Elijah now accompany Jesus to the Cross – to the moment of “his passing which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem”.

At the moment of Jesus’ death, Luke records that the veil of the Temple is torn from top to bottom and Jesus cries out in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”. Jesus’ death is precisely a passing through the veil of the Temple – the symbol of the barrier of sin separating God from humankind – and taking the Old Testament with Him, enters into the Holy of Holies, the very presence of the Father.

In this way, Luke is telling us that the Old Testament has reached its fulfilment. The deeper significance of this is that, from this moment on, the whole of the Old Testament has become something that it was not, an anticipation of Christ and the passing through the veil into union with the Father. While there were always particular prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament, now the whole OT – persons, events, Law, Wisdom – has become prophecy of Christ.

Like the human nature of Christ, which is the vehicle for and the means of manifesting the divine person of Christ, the second person of the Trinity, so the Old Testament has become the “letter” in which the “spirit” is both enclosed and manifested. The unity and content of the Old and New Testaments is now simply “Christ”. It is for this reason and with this understanding that the Old Testament is now read in the

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Liturgy of the Church – most especially at the Liturgy of the Eucharist – the Paschal Mystery, in which the “heart of Jesus” is opened up. As St Thomas Aquinas states in his Exposition on the Psalms (referenced in the Catechism paragraph 112) – “the phrase ‘heart of Jesus’ can refer to Sacred Scripture, which makes known his heart, closed before the Passion, as Scripture was obscure. But the Scripture has been opened since the Passion; since those who from then on have understood it, consider

Jesus takes the Old Covenant and shows that it has now become a prophecy of himself, a shadow pointing to the reality of the new Covenant in Christ and discern in what way the prophecies must be interpreted.

The Road to Emmaus It is after the Passion, and because of the Passion, that Jesus is now able to open the minds and hearts of the disciples on the road to a full understanding of the Scriptures – the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms. Luke tells us that Jesus explained the Scriptures to them, “interpreting in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

The road to Emmaus incident is, perhaps, a climax point in the Gospel of Luke. It makes clear that the opening of the Scriptures (the Old Testament) is ultimately the fruit of the Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In a very real sense, the Old Testament is now transformed by Jesus into the New Covenant or New Testament. It is important that we

remember that phrases “the Old Testament” and “the New Testament” are not, in the first place, descriptors of two written texts, but rather refer to two dispensations – the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The written Scriptures are a testimony to the Old Covenant between God and the people of Israel. With the coming of Christ and the accomplishment of the Paschal Mystery, a new Covenant is established. A significant element of this new Covenant is the fact that Jesus takes the Old Covenant and shows that it has now become a prophecy of himself, a shadow pointing to the reality of the new Covenant in Christ. This transformation of the Old Covenant, and the new explanation and interpretation of the written texts of the Scriptures, indicate and imply that these texts of Scripture (what we call the Old Testament) are now in fact part of the New Covenant. And it is as an element of the New Covenant that we continue to read the Scriptures (the Old Testament) in the Church, and especially in the Liturgy.

For Deacons and those responsible for the ministry of the Word in the Liturgy, the implication is that it is important to interpret the Old Testament readings as Jesus did on the road to Emmaus, i.e. “interpreting in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself”. The challenge for all ministers of the Word is to have our eyes opened to Christ in those Old Testament readings, and to appreciate more fully the extent to which the New Testament authors themselves understand Jesus Christ within the framework of the Old Testament concepts, persons and events.

Our own journey of faith should mirror the journey outlined in Luke – a progressive opening of our eyes to the reality of Christ hidden in the texts of the Scriptures – an opening made possible by the “passing that he (Christ) was to accomplish in Jerusalem”.

For it is in turning to Christ and his Cross that the veil is removed!

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Diaconia of Word

Opening up the Scriptures – Key Moments of the Journey in the Gospel of Luke – Paul Watson

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David Kennedy

The Liturgical

Role of

David Kennedy, Protodeacon of St Elias Parish, Eparchy of Toronto (www.saintelias.com) gives the second and concluding part of his paper on the role of the deacon in the liturgy of the Byzantine rite.

L

itanies are very characteristic of the deacon’s involvement in Byzantine liturgical prayer. The litanies are corporate and hierarchical in structure revealing the corporate and hierarchical nature of the Church. Generally, the petitions are fixed and thus are well known to all. The familiarity of the petitions together with the common response allows the whole body of the faithful to participate with ease in this type of prayer which focuses on the needs of the Church, the world and the assembly.

The petitions enunciated and articulated by the deacon focus on peace, the salvation of souls, the good of the Church, the unity of all, the worshipping assembly, the hierarch of the Church, the civil authorities, the armed forces, the city and home of the faithful, seasonable weather, abundance of food, those who are travelling, those who are captives, deliverance from all affliction, that the day or evening may be peaceful and without sin, that each of the faithful may be guarded and guided by an angel of peace, the pardon and remission of sins, what is profitable for soul and body, a life of peace and repentance, a Christian ending to life, a good judgement before Christ, the departed, catechumens, and various other needs.

The litanies are sung in a style known as ekphonesis. Johann von Gardner describes ekphonesis as: “[A] constant level of pitch with likely deviations at the beginnings and especially the ends of phrases and texts; a level of median pitch somewhat higher than in psalmody; a more extensive elon-

gation of vowels but still without a clearly distinguishable rhythm; small changes in dynamics possible; occasional short melismas, especially at ends of phrases.”1 Von Gardner also says that the litanies are “a point of repose” in services, except for the Litany of Fervent Supplication (and I would add the litany, “O God, save Thy people…” which is sung in an ascending style where the musical scale is chromatic).2 These periods of repose provide a familiar calm in the services. When no deacon is present, the bishop or priest must sing the litany and silently recite the accompanying prayer (usually at another part of the service) or make the prayer out loud. This tends to create a liturgical disharmony and ignores the litanic structure both from a literary and more importantly an ecclesial perspective for it distracts the bishop or priest from his role of presiding. The point is that when a deacon is not present, there is a liturgical lacuna in the assembly’s prayer. And this results in both a liturgical and ecclesial dysfunction.

We can summarize the structure of the litanic prayer: 1. A series of petitions, usually addressed to the assembly, but at times to God, by the deacon.

2. A response to each petition by the assembly, e.g. Lord have mercy.

3. A presidential prayer by the bishop or priest usually recited silently with the doxology of the prayer aloud.

4. A response to the prayer by the assembly, i.e. Amen.

1 Russian Church Singing. Volume I, Johann von Gardner, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980, p57.

2 Russian Church Singing, Volume I, p75.

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the Deacon in the Constantinopolitan Tradition Part II

The reading of the Gospel is the high point of the Liturgy of the Word in the Divine Liturgy. It is preceded by a censing done by the deacon of the Gospel Book on the Holy Table, the icons in the altar, the iconostasis, the bishop or priest, and the assembly. At the Divine Liturgy, the deacon sings the Gospel as well as at the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. However, the bishop or

The deacon is the herald of the Good News, the angel that brings the glad tidings of salvation priest reads the Gospel at all other services.

Among Orthodox Russians and Ukrainians when more than one deacon serves at the Divine Liturgy, the Apostolic reading (usually a New Testament letter or a reading from the Acts of the Apostles) is sung by the second deacon. The deacon receives a solemn blessing from the bishop or priest before reading the Gospel. He is given the Gospel Book by the priest. (This book contains only the four canonical Gospels and is bound in metal and decorated with icons.

It is usually quite large in size and visually impressive.) The deacon is the herald of the Good News, the angel that brings the glad tidings of salvation. The Gospel is sung according to a prescribed intonation.

Once the Gospel is sung, the deacon presents the Gospel Book to the presiding bishop or priest for veneration and it is returned to the Holy Table. At this point the homily is given. While a deacon may act as the homilist, this is not a usual practice. Typically, the presiding bishop or priest gives the homily. This action appears to be liturgically a presidential function and therefore more suited to the one who presides. In practice, many deacons simply have not received the theological education and homiletic training to enable them to preach well.

While the Typikon usually prescribes that the cantor/reader sings the prokeimenon (a scriptural verse and response, similar to the Gradual in the Roman Rite), in practice at Vespers and Matins the deacon usually sings it.

One of the most characteristic functions of the deacon is to be the minister of incensing. In current practice the deacon censes at the Divine Liturgy, Vespers, Matins, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, Baptism & Chrismation, the Betrothal & Crowning, the Anointing with Holy Oil, the Blessing of Waters, the Funeral Offices and Moliebens.

If the deacon does not cense, he accompanies the bishop or priest who does by preceding him while holding a large candle (about a metre in length) in his hand.

The use of incense in Christian worship

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Diaconia of Altar

The deacon does not serve when the litanic prayer structure is absent. This is the case at the First, Third, Sixth and Ninth Hours, as well as at Small Compline and the Midnight Office. Although Small Compline, the Midnight Office and the Royal Office at the beginning of Matins all have litanies, these litanies have no presidential prayer. They do not follow the structure of the litanic prayer.

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The Liturgical Role of the Deacon in the Constantinopolitan Tradition (II) – David Kennedy

usually serves one of three purposes: the domestic use which is chiefly fumigatory in nature, i.e. to create a pleasant odour; the honorific which is to ‘honour’ either a person or a thing; and the sacrificial, as an oblation or offering to God. Besides these three common uses a fourth also takes place. This is as a demonifuge which is used to purify the place of evil spirits.3 These censings are done in a prescribed hierarchical order: first the holy table, then icons, then clergy according to order, and then the laity. Usually nothing is said during the censings. However, at the incensing following the Rite of the Proskomeidia at the beginning of the Divine Liturgy, and at the Transfer of the Gifts, the deacon recites Psalm 50 (51), Have mercy on me O God… which clearly gives these censings a penitential tone. In the Rite of Ordination for a Deacon, after the newly ordained is vested by the bishop with the orarion (stole) and epimanikia (cuffs), the bishop presents him with a censer, and a ripidion (which is used by the deacon to fan the Holy Gifts).

(Unlike the Latin Rite, the Book of the Gospels is not presented.)4 The deacon also functions as the master of ceremonies of the liturgical services.

Throughout the liturgical services the deacon prompts the principal bishop or celebrant with imperatives, e.g. “Master, give the blessing.” “Master, command.”

“Master, proceed.” “Master, cut.” “Master, pierce.” During the Anaphora (Eucharistic Prayer) the deacon prompts the celebrant at the epiclesis: “Bless, Master, the holy bread.” “Bless, Master, the holy cup.”

“Bless both, Master.” He commands the attention of the assembly and the reader/cantor with phrases such as “Let us be attentive” and “Wisdom.” He reminds the assembly of the proper postures for prayer by commanding them to stand, bow

their heads, or bend their knees. In this role of master of ceremonies the deacon has a responsibility for the assembly, for its good order and its piety. A deacon needs to know the order of service so well that he knows not only his own role but also that of everyone else.

A good deacon can anticipate what will come next, and he can anticipate the needs of the celebrant even before the celebrant can anticipate them himself. This function of master of ceremonies is probably the most challenging and difficult of all the diaconal liturgical roles to master. It

Let us be clear, however, this was not a restoration of the diaconate but of the diaconate as a permanent rank requires an excellent memory not only of the structure and content of the liturgical texts but also of the way in which the liturgical actions are best carried out. The deacon needs to be able to visualize in his mind not only what is to be said and done but how it is to be said and done, not only for himself, but also for all other ministers including the assembly. This can be a very daunting task especially for a newly ordained deacon. This is only compounded when a deacon serves with an impatient, intolerant or arrogant bishop or priest, especially one who has very little understanding of the deacon’s liturgical role.

Unfortunately, this is a serious pastoral liturgical problem for many deacons in the

3 The Shape of the Liturgy,2nd Edition, Gregory Dix, A&C Black, 1979, p429.

The Great Entrance, Robert F. Taft, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 200, 1975, p151.

4 Roman Pontifical, Rome, 1974, p 242.

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The Liturgical Role of the Deacon in the Constantinopolitan Tradition (II) – David Kennedy

What makes all of this an even greater challenge is that the deacon is a minister of the assembly’s prayer. He must pray with the assembly as we have seen in his role in the synaptes. During the Divine Liturgy, the deacon says or sings aloud five to six times the amount of text that is allotted to the presiding bishop or priest. (Some celebrants and concelebrants resent the deacon’s role and would rather serve without a deacon for this would give them more to say and do. Of course this is reflective of a dysfunctional understanding of liturgy and church.) The deacon must be able to execute his functions well and this includes being able to sing his parts in such a way that leads the assembly in prayer. He must be a man of prayer for he must himself be praying whilst he serves. He must also be able to direct the service and to attend to the celebrant, to the assembly, and to the other liturgical ministers while he prays.

It is essentially important to keep in mind at all times that the deacon’s liturgical functions always take place in conjunction with the rest of the assembly’s liturgical life. The liturgical assembly should consist of a bishop (or his representative a priest) who presides, deacons who serve and assist, subdeacons (or altar servers) who serve and assist, readers/cantors, and the

assembly of the baptized communicants who act through and with Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father. The deacon’s liturgical functions are not to be analyzed outside of the liturgical assembly which is the Church, the Body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit.

The liturgical diaconal roles in the Roman rite and the Byzantine tradition One of the most fruitful reforms of Vatican II was the restoration of the diaconate as a permanent rank in the hierarchy of the Church. Let us be clear, however, this was not a restoration of the diaconate but of the diaconate as a permanent rank. In the communion of the Catholic Churches this has had a far reaching effect not only on the Roman Rite but also on the Eastern Catholic Churches. What comparison can be made between the liturgical functions of the deacon in the Roman and Constantinopolitan traditions? The Byzantine deacon can be said to serve and assist whilst the bishop or priest presides.

The current liturgical texts as well as those of the past exhibit a common consensus and witness to this. Quite simply, the Byzantine tradition has never known a presidential role for the deacon. When a priest is not present, the deacon does not serve. The deacon never substitutes for the bishop or priest. The tradition is patent, the Eucharistic or Divine Liturgy is not celebrated without a bishop or priest who presides. And this is true of all other Byzantine rite services.

Yet there is an exception, for a liturgical president is not always available and it appears that only a bishop or priest can function as such. The Praises or Liturgy of the Hours found in the Horologion may be celebrated without a bishop or priest. The presidential prayers that are recited by the

5 “The Deacon in the Orthodox Tradition”, Distinctive Diaconate Study 13, no date, p2.

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Eastern Catholic Churches. Bishop Basil (Osborne) of the Exarchate of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Western Europe comments on this: “…In fact there are very few good deacons. It is much easier to be a priest than to be a deacon. This is because to be a deacon you not only have to know what is going on but you also have to be ahead of the game. While the priest is doing one thing, you have to be aware of what he should be doing next. Thus you have constantly to be a bit ahead. This is a very difficult thing to do well. There are few good deacons liturgically speaking.”5

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bishop or priest are not said. This means that the synaptes so characteristic of the services are also dropped. They are replaced by cantor/reader chanting “Lord, have mercy” 40, 12 or 3 times. The presidential ecphoneses are replaced with the following: “By the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord, Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us. Amen.” This is spoken by the senior person present but this person is not presiding since no presidential prayers are said. In monasteries and convents when there is no priest, and in the homes of deacons or of any of the laity, this is the manner in which the Liturgy of the Hours is celebrated.

The only sacrament that a Byzantine Rite deacon may perform is baptism and that only in case of necessity: “In case of necessity, baptism can be administered by a deacon or, in his absence or if he is impeded, by another cleric, a member of an institute of consecrated life, or by any other Christian faithful; even by the mother or father, if another person is not available who knows how to baptize.” Canon 677 §2. It would be extremely rare for this to happen, and of course the chrismation which is to accompany baptism would need to be completed by a bishop or priest as soon as possible. The Roman Rite deacon, like the Byzantine Rite deacon, assists and serves. But following the Second Vatican Council, he also presides in certain circumstances. When no bishop or priest is available the Roman Rite deacon presides i.e. he represents the bishop in his role of liturgical presidency. This may occur at baptism, marriages, funerals, burials, the Liturgy of the Hours, services of the Liturgy of the Word, as at various blessings of persons and objects.

6 7 8 9

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Why these differences? A careful scrutiny of liturgical texts prior to the Second Vatican Council will show that the Roman Rite deacon did not preside.6 Very simply, it was the desire of the fathers of that Council, for pastoral reasons, to allow a limited role of liturgical presidency to the deacon in the Roman Rite.7 However, this was not their desire or intention for the Eastern Catholic Churches.8 The Pontifical Commission for the Interpretation of the Decrees of Vatican Council II wrote in a commentary found in Notitiae 11 (1975) pp 36-39, in reply to a query on the powers of the deacon regarding blessings and sacramentals (we quote in part): Admittedly, with the reform of the liturgy, profound changes have come about relative to earlier discipline: deacons have been placed on a par ritually with priests in regard to the administration of some of the sacraments and sacramentals. Even for Baptism, the deacon has become an ordinary minister, whereas before he was the extraordinary minister. On the other hand, there are some sacramentals that it seems a deacon cannot administer: for example, the blessing of an abbot, consecration to a life of virginity, institution to ministries.

This is because of the status of the persons who through these blessings are consecrated to divine worship and to the Church’s worship. The tradition of the Eastern Churches contrasts sharply with the concessions made in the Latin rite to deacons: blessings are reserved exclusively to the bishop and the priest; the deacon assists the priest at the Eucharist and – except in an emergency – is not the minister of Baptism, since its administration is conjoined with that of Confirmation.”9

The Office of the Deacon in Ecclesiastical Law, Richard E. Zenk, Rome, 1969.

Lumen Gentium, 29.

Orientalium Ecclesiarum, 17.

Documents on the Liturgy, 1963-1979 Conciliar, Papal and Curial Texts, The Liturgical Press, 1982, pp 803-804.

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The Liturgical Role of the Deacon in the Constantinopolitan Tradition (II) – David Kennedy

How does the deacon’s liturgical role reveal and determine what the deacon is? We have seen him performing a variety of functions.

He can be styled the angel of prayer for it is his duty to invite the Church to pray. As the regular minister of the litanies, he articulates in prayer the needs of the Church and acts as the voice of the assembly suggesting the petitions. He is the general sacristan of the Church and the keeper of its vessels. As master of ceremonies, he oversees the ritual action, maintaining good order and a rhythmic flow throughout the service. He directs and sets the mood of prayer, both by

A theology of the diaconate which fails to make the Eucharist the basis of its reflection cannot be considered within the given framework of the Constantinopolitan tradition words and actions, shaping the piety of the assembled community.

The deacon is the personal assistant to the bishop, functioning as his valet. By extension he assists the presbyter. The deacon can be described as a hinge or link. He addresses the assembly on behalf of the presiding celebrant and the presiding celebrant on behalf of the assembly. He admonishes and directs the liturgical assembly, and at times his role as master of ceremonies is extended even to that of choir director.

Through his exhortations and commands, he orders the service and keeps it moving.

He is a link between the presiding celebrant at the altar and the assembly in the nave.

In the Constantinopolitan tradition, the liturgical role of the deacon is explicitly clear: the deacon is the attendant to the

president of the liturgical assembly. The deacon serves the bishop or priest so that the bishop or priest might preside at the Church’s liturgical prayer. The prayers assigned to the liturgical president are generally in the plural and thus are the prayers of the whole assembly. They are usually addressed to God the Father. They receive the consent of the whole assembly by means of its Amen. The deacon’s voice is generally directed not to God but to the assembly.

As an attendant and assistant to the bishop, the deacon’s ministry of service is also extended in a diakonia to the Church and to the world. Let us look at this as a cosmological vision in which it is the nature of the Church to reflect divine or heavenly reality.

Within this cosmology the deacon is the sacramental image of Jesus Christ who is the diakonos of his Father. He also is a type of the angel, the heavenly servitor, the messenger of glad tidings, the creature whose entire life is given over completely to praising, adoring, and singing the glory of, God, the Holy One. The Eucharist makes the Church, just as the Church makes the Eucharist. It is the summit and source of its life. If we are to have an understanding of diaconal ministry, we must see that ministry within the context of the Church’s liturgical celebrations. A theology of the diaconate which fails to make the Eucharist the basis of its reflection cannot be considered within the given framework of the Constantinopolitan tradition. Although the Church is only a faint reflection of the Heavenly Kingdom, during the Divine Liturgy the Reign of God becomes present in a mystical reality. In this reality, the deacon reveals the diakonia of Christ to the Father: the Only-Begotten Son, the eternal Word of the Father is the diakonos of the Father. As the personal attendant of the president of the liturgical assembly, the deacon in the Constantinopolitan liturgical tradition sacramentally manifests the hierarchical Divine relationship of the Son to the Father.

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A theological reflection

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Robert P. Imbelli

The Theological From 1986 to 1993 Father Robert P Imbelli was Director of the Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry at Boston College and is currently Associate Professor of Theology at Boston College. An earlier version of this article appeared in the English Weekly edition of the Osservatore Romano

P

ope Benedict’s recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, has received a great deal of attention, with particular interest focused upon its implications for economic matters in a time of economic turmoil. Without denying the importance of such considerations, it is crucial not to ignore the strictly theological challenges that the Encyclical poses. For, in the Pope’s view, economic concerns cannot be divorced from what concerns mankind ultimately: God’s economy of salvation.

Thus I suggest three features of the Encyclical that present challenges to Catholic reflection.

The first feature of the Encyclical may seem entirely self-evident. Yet, I think it is crucial to underline it and not take it for granted. The Church’s social teaching is ecclesial –- its basis and matrix is the Good News of Jesus Christ entrusted to and proclaimed by the Church.

Pope Benedict writes: “Social doctrine is built upon the foundation handed on by the apostles to the Fathers of the Church and further explored by the great Christian doctors. This doctrine points definitively to the New Man, to the ‘last Adam who became life-giving spirit’ (1 Cor 15:35), the principle of the charity that ‘never ends’ (1 Cor 13:8)” (#12).

Indeed, this conviction is already clearly enunciated in the very first section of the encyclical. Here Benedict writes: “All people feel the interior impulse to love 24

Challenge authentically: Love and truth never abandon them completely because these are the vocation implanted by God in the heart and mind of every human person. The search for love and truth is purified and liberated by Jesus Christ from the impoverishment that our humanity brings to it, and he reveals to us in all its fullness the initiative of love and the plan for true life that God has prepared for us. In Christ, charity in truth becomes the face of his person, a vocation for us to love our brothers and sisters in the truth of his plan” (#1).

Now an implication to be drawn from this Christological orientation, given to the entire Encyclical, is that the Church’s social teaching is rooted ultimately in the Gospel, not in “natural law.” In saying this

... the Church’s social teaching is rooted ultimately in the Gospel, not in “natural law” I do not mean to rule out all appeal to “natural law” reasoning which is, of course, a characteristic aspect of Catholic reflection on social issues. There are certainly specific contexts of cultural and political dialogue in which such an appeal is appropriate and even necessary.

However, the well-intentioned desire to find common ground with all people of good will, can unintentionally uproot the Catholic appeal to natural law from the

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rich theological soil which alone can nourish and sustain it.

the horizon of hope that it proclaims and the scope of transformation to which it summons.

In other words, natural law discourse is an “abstraction” from a far thicker and more comprehensive Catholic language that articulates a vision for humankind and the world: the integral humanism, so dear to Paul VI and confirmed by Benedict XVI in his Encyclical.

This vision of the human that the Pope sets before us, this theological anthropology of the Catholic tradition, is ultimately rooted in Christology. Pope Benedict’s persuasion faithfully reflects the teaching of Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the

Indeed, unless that richer Catholic language is invoked and drawn upon, as the Pope does throughout the Encyclical, one risks reducing religion to ethics, personal relationship and fraternity to the promotion of a cause (however just and desirable).

... one risks reducing religion to ethics, personal relationship and fraternity to the promotion of a cause (however just and desirable)

A second feature of the Encyclical is the need, precisely in order to foster authentic development, to have recourse to an integral vision of the human, one whose concern embraces “the good of every man and of the whole man” (#18, quoting Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, #14). This “truly integral humanism” (#78) weaves into a seamless garment the individual and the social, body and soul, effective concern for the earthly city and fervent hope for the heavenly city.

It is noteworthy that Benedict XVI brings together in one over-arching vision aspects of the magisterium of Pope Paul VI that are too often kept apart in Catholic circles, contributing, in no small part, to our present polarization: namely, Populorum Progressio, Humanae Vitae, and Evangelii Nuntiandi. Together, these documents bear powerful witness to a vision of human being and destiny that is awe-inspiring in

Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes, which affirms “The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light … Christ, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear (Gaudium et spes, #22; cf.

Caritas in Veritate, #18).

Hence, the Encyclical issues a further challenge to Catholic thought and action.

It is a pressing need in contemporary Catholic life and theology to promote an integral reception of Vatican II. In this effort we must seek to appropriate the four conciliar constitutions: for each illuminates the other and each must be accorded its full due. We cannot afford to be cafeteria conciliarists.

Thus the proponents of Gaudium et spes

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and its social concern must develop its Christological underpinnings in the light of the Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum. The advocates of the liturgical reform, initiated by Sacrosanctum concilium, must in turn see the Church’s worship to be intimately conjoined with the witness demanded of it by Lumen gentium’s teaching regarding the Church as “sacrament of salvation” for the whole world.

... since conversion is not a once and for all affair, but an ongoing imperative, the Church’s social teaching is only complete when embodied in a spirituality that nourishes and sustains its commitment to charity in truth A final consideration can take its point of departure from some words of the President of the United States, Barack Obama. In a speech marking the anniversary of the collapse of the Wall Street firm, Lehman Brothers, the President attributed the financial crisis to “reckless behavior, unchecked excess, and an appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses.” Then he added: “this was not merely a failure of regulation or legislation; not merely a failure of oversight. It was a failure of responsibility!”

Of course, the President could not use the “C-word” on Wall Street – the word “conversion.” But popes can proclaim what presidents can only whisper. Structural change, however necessary, can never substitute for authentic conversion of hearts and minds.

In the concluding section of Caritas in 26

Veritate Benedict XVI writes: “Development requires attention to the spiritual life, a serious consideration of the experiences of trust in God, spiritual fellowship in Christ, reliance upon God’s providence and mercy, love and forgiveness, self-denial, acceptance of others, justice and peace. All this is essential if ‘hearts of stone’ are to be converted into ‘hearts of flesh’ (Ez 36:26), rendering life on earth “divine” and thus more worthy of humanity” (#79).

And, since conversion is not a once and for all affair, but an ongoing imperative, the Church’s social teaching is only complete when embodied in a spirituality that nourishes and sustains its commitment to charity in truth. Such a spirituality will daily “place man before the astonishing experience of gift” and foster the realization of “the gratuitousness present in our lives in many different forms that often go unrecognized because of a purely consumerist and utilitarian view of life” (#34). For Catholics such spirituality is always rooted and centered in the Eucharist in which the body of Christ is received for the nourishment of the Church and the well-being and salvation of the world.

If these remarks suggest that Catholic social teaching derives from and depends upon the Catholic tradition’s ecclesial and liturgical matrix and its dogmatic affirmations, then I have been understood correctly. Someone may object: does this reading of the Encyclical impede dialogue with other traditions, perspectives and stances? Does it bespeak a narrowly sectarian attitude? I think not. It may however, spur those who share certain of the concrete values and proposals set forth in Caritas in Veritate to consider the basis for their own claims and convictions. In this way real dialogue and discernment can only be deepened (cf. #55).

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Paul Wennekes

General figures Lithuania is the southern-most country of the three Baltic nations and borders on the Baltic Sea, and on Latvia, Belarus, Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast, that small part of Russia which until 1945 used to be part of German East Prussia. Lithuania itself has 3,350,000 inhabitants of whom 84% are Lithuanians, 6% Poles and 10% Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and others. The capital city Vilnius has a population of about 558,000; the second city Kaunas has some 352,000 inhabitants; and the port town of Klaipeda has 183,000. The remaining population is divided over 65,300 square kilometres which is about twice the size of the Netherlands. For Western Europeans it is always surprising to learn that the geographical centre of Europe lies 24 kilometres to the north-west of Vilnius. Traditionally Lithuania was an agricultural nation but under Soviet rule and as a result of forced industrialisation a strong shift from the countryside to the (provincial) cities occurred. This process still goes on together with a high rate of emigration. It is estimated that in the last ten years about 350,000 people have left the country, mainly for Great Britain, Ireland and the United States1.

Some history Lithuania was first mentioned in 1009 in the Annales Quedlinburgenses. In 1253 the various tribes united into one kingdom and Mindaugas was crowned the first king of Lithuania. In the Middle Ages Lithuania was a very powerful state covering large parts of present day Belarus, Ukraine and Poland. At its peak it even stretched as far as the Black

Our journal aims to support not only ordained deacons and students for the diaconate but others who are engaged in ‘diaconal’ work, in the Church’s ministry of service and charity. Paul Wennekes works for the organization Communicantes based in the Netherlands which supports this sort of work and he is also a student for the diaconate for the diocese of s’-Hertogenbosch. From its inception IDC–NEC has embraced the Baltic counties and has developed close ties with Lithuania. The Chairman of IDC–NEC and some board members made an early visit to see what could be done to help bishops to restore the diaconate in Lithuania and Estonia.

This article by Paul Wennekes introduces us to the diaconal work of the Church in Lithuania and concludes with an interview with Jurate Matikoviene, a staff member of Caritas Lithuania and responsible for the Sun Groups project.

Sea. In 1385 Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania married the Polish princess Jadwiga, accepted Christianity, and was crowned king of Poland. The following year Jogaila founded the diocese of Vilnius and started a campaign to evangelise Lithuania which was the last country in Europe to accept Christianity. For a long time the Teutonic Order (German crusader knights) had been trying to expand their territory in the Baltics but in 1410 Grand Duke Vytautus, commanding a combined army of Lithuanian, Polish, Russian and Czech forces defeated the Teutonic Order in the famous battle of Grünwald/Tannenberg and thwarted the threat. In the following centuries, the Polish and Lithuanian states grew increasingly closer and in 1569 a commonwealth between the two countries was established.

1 For more information please see the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania http://www.urm.lt/index.

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Introduction to Lithuania

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Introduction to Lithuania – Paul Wennekes

This however also meant a long and continuous process of polonisation of the Lithuanian state and society. In 1579 Vilnius University was founded and for two hundred years remained Europe’s most easterly university.

In 1795 the third Polish partition was imposed and the Polish-Lithuanian state was absorbed into Czarist Russia and polonisation was replaced by russification. From 1864 till 1904 even the Latin alphabet was proscribed.

Books in Lithuanian were printed in nearby East Prussia and smuggled into the country.

During this period the local clergy in rural parishes played a decisive role in the preservation of the Lithuanian language and culture. The Russian occupation lasted until the end of the First World War. In 1918 Lithuania was one of the new states to appear on the European map as a result of the various peace treaties. The Lithuanians however did not succeed in keeping their capital Vilnius, with its large majority of Polish inhabitants. Between the two World Wars the city of Kaunas functioned as the capital. In 1940 as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the secret treaty in which the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany divided Europe among themselves, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union. The Soviets immediately installed a communist regime and the first of thousands of officers, teachers and intellectuals were deported to Siberia. The German attack on the Soviet Union and the occupation of Lithuania by the Nazis was originally greeted by many Lithuanians as a sort of liberation but it soon became clear that the Nazis had no intention of restoring Lithuanian independence. Nazi terror grew steadily, especially against the Jewish population and only very few Jews survived the war.

In 1944 the Soviet Union reconquered Lithuania and tens of thousands of Lithuanians, recalling the earlier Soviet occupation, fled to the West to join the emigrant communities of Lithuanians, especially in the USA and Canada. In Lithuania the sovietisation of society began all over again and tens of thousands of Lithuanians were 28

deported to Siberia as “Nazi collaborators”, as enemies of the state or simply as “bourgeois elements”. From 1944 until the early fifties many partisan groups took to the woods and fought the Soviet forces in the attempt to free their country and to put a stop to communist policies which included among other things the collectivisation of the country and deportations. It was only as late as 1954 that the last partisan groups gave up the fight.

On March 11th 1990 Lithuania was the first country within the Soviet Union to

The state permitted very few students to enter the sole seminary that was allowed to function and the state selected the least able students to serve in the largest and most lively parishes declare its independence. Unfortunately Soviet security troops killed fourteen and injured some six hundred participants in a peaceful demonstration at the television tower in Vilnius. Professor Vytautas Landsbergis, the leader of the reform movement Sajudis which was founded in 1988, was elected as the first president of the re-established independent state of Lithuania. In 1993 the last Soviet troops left the country and in 2004 Lithuania joined both NATO and the European Union.

The Catholic Church in Lithuania Lithuania is a predominantly Catholic country. At the time of the Reformation Lutherans and Calvinists had some success but the Counter-Reformation, strongly supported by the Polish state, made Roman Catholicism the predominant Church again. During the Soviet era churches were left open but

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ever, thanks to a large network of mainly underground women religious and layfolk sympathisers who kept on printing and distributing it. Again, the Catholic Church played an important role in the preservation of the Lithuanian language and culture.

After independence, the Church regained her full rights and initiated an impressive reconstruction of its internal and external structures. Finally seven dioceses were established. There are now three seminaries (Vilnius, Kaunas and Telsiai) with altogether 100 students. After high numbers of seminarians in the beginning, numbers have been tailing off rapidly more recently and Lithuania is now facing a shortage of priests.

The same goes for male and female congregations of religious. Jesuits, Franciscans and Marianists are well-known but are few in number. The twenty women religious congregations, which co-operate in a conference of superiors, number about six hundred members. In most congregations one will find a larger numbers of elderly sisters with only some younger members; the in-between generation is for the most part missing.

Members of congregations work largely in parishes and in social organisations for which they generally receive very modest salaries.

The financial position of the congregations is dire and many rely on foreign aid for all costs apart from everyday living costs. Many Catholic organisations were founded in the past twenty years. Every diocese has its own youth centre, Caritas and family centre and all three organisations also have national centres. The pre-war youth organisation Ateitis has been revived. There are some Catholic magazines but these have a very hard time trying to survive the competition from secular magazines. The internet news service Bernardinai in Vilnius, founded by the Franciscans, attracts many readers because of the quality and the impartiality of the information (www.bernardinai.lt). There are some Catholic schools, of which the Jesuitrun gymnasia of Vilnius and Kaunas are the most well-known, but these schools also face

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priests and church-goers were strictly controlled by the secret service. Catholic youth work and social organisations were proscribed, Catholic publishing was rendered impossible. The state permitted very few students to enter the sole seminary that was allowed to function and the state selected the least able students to serve in the largest and most lively parishes. All seminarians and priests were under pressure to become informers for the KGB. Religious orders and congregations were driven underground where they survived as best they might. In the seventies a group of five priests, amongst them Father Sigitas Tamkevicius SJ, the present archbishop of Kaunas (and now an editorial consultant to this journal) and Father Jonas Kauneckas, the present bishop of Panevezys, founded the Catholic Committee for the Defense of Believers’ Rights which published the Chronicle of the Catholic Church of Lithuania, an underground journal on human rights violations. One of the members, Father Zdebskis, was murdered by the authorities and Father Tamkevicius was expelled for twenty years to Siberia. The publication of the Chronicle never ceased, how-

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many financial and organisational problems.

The social situation and the Church’s response Forty-five years of communism have left scars in the hearts and minds of many people. Since the Communist Party claimed a monopoly in the running of all social affairs, people had little to no experience of voluntary social work. The involvement of the Church with social issues, based on the social teaching of the Church, had to be rediscovered. After independence the Church in Lithuania, as in all other Eastern European countries, had to renovate rundown churches, create new communities, educate hundreds of volunteers, catechists and youth leaders and incorporate the theological changes that followed the Second Vatican Council, and all this in but a couple of years. Nevertheless, once the basic structures were re-established, the Lithuanian Church found the resources to deal with social problems as well. In all of Eastern Europe alcoholism is a colossal problem, resulting in all kinds of social problems such as violence in families, social orphans (children fleeing their homes, preferring to live on the street), and unemployment. In due course drug and gambling addiction supervened. The situation of prisoners, both whilst in custody and after their release, needed attention. Special consideration needed to be given to the victims of trafficking. Many women were lured to Western countries with promises of a job but then forced into prostitution. One of the greatest problems is the ongoing emigration of younger, well educated people. Many emigrants leave with the aim of working abroad for a number of years and then returning home. But once abroad they integrate into their host societies, find partners and stay on. Or else upon return they simply cannot find work in Lithuania such as would support a family. The vast majority of emigrants do not return, thereby leaving behind growing numbers of relatives.

Often grandparents have to take care of children ‘temporarily’, but are effectively aban30

doned with the children. The pensions these people receive are hardly sufficient for their own survival, let alone for raising children.

Parents of emigrants, even without the problem of having to raise grandchildren, too often face psychological problems. Lithuania has the largest number of suicides in Europe and lately the number of suicides among pensioners has risen sharply. Sick people and handicapped people find it very hard to survive on the minimal social insurance money they receive and generally face loneliness and a loss of meaning in life. This problem is especially urgent in rural areas where the state, constrained by the financial crisis, has closed almost all social institutions such as schools and hospitals. Often the local parish is the only social institution surviving in the countryside and this imposes a heavy burden on the local clergy.

One of the church organisations which attempts to address the social needs is Caritas Lithuania. A small office in Kaunas co-ordinates a programme called the Dignity of Children which focusses on all issues in respect of family and children. A second programme is directed at the victims of trafficking. The Caritas programme gives medical, psychological and judicial aid to these victims, helping them re-integrate into society by assisting women in their search for housing and employment. Besides that, a lot of attention is devoted to prevention and to influencing public opinion which all too often still sees victims of trafficking as ‘women who asked for it’. A third programme relates to prisoners and their relatives. Caritas staff and volunteers visit prisoners, re-establish contact with relatives, try to improve living conditions in prison and help released prisoners to re-integrate in society. Increasingly Caritas succeeds in reaching prison guards as well, who also live under a huge strain. One final example is the large programme for sick, handicapped and lonely people. This programme is being run by Mrs. Jurate Matikoviene. An interview with her follows this article. It remains

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the hope of IDC–NEC to arrange a study trip to the fascinating and wonderful country that is Lithuania.

Paul Wennekes: Jurate, tell us about yourself?

Jurate Matikoviene: I am Jurate Matikoviene. I am 32 and I’m a professional social worker. I began my studies at the Kaunas Medical University, within the Faculty of Public Health. Since I wanted to become a social worker in the area of health and since social work as a profession was still not very well known at that time, after graduation I entered Vytautas Magnus University to gain a master’s degree in social work. At the time it was the only way to obtain an education in social work. During my studies I started to work as a social worker in a large institution: part

orphanage, part rehabilitation centre for families that had children with disabilities.

I began my work for Caritas Lithuania almost seven years ago as a social worker, working with victims of trafficking. After some years of working in that department – and after earning my master’s degree in social work – Caritas Lithuania asked me to become head of the Care and the Apostolate department, a post I happily accepted, given my background as a public health specialist. I had already had experience of this field during my studies at Kaunas Medical University as I had opted to do my elective placement in the primary care hospital. But at the time I had thought that this area was not for me – I was too young, too inexperienced and so on.

But now I came to see that Providence has a nice sense of humour – I finally ended up where He planned me to be.

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Introduction to Lithuania – Paul Wennekes

Paul Wennekes: Could you inform us about the work of Caritas Lithuania in general and about the Sun project in particular?

Jurate Matikoviene: Caritas Lithuania is one of the biggest charititable organizations in the country. The organization aims to support diocesan Caritas organizations and to offer so-called “model projects” to be implemented at local level. The activities of Caritas Lithuania are directed towards a wide range of clients – street children, exconvicts, victims of trafficking, poor families.

Our Sun Groups project derived its inspiration from the original Zonnebloem (sunflower) organization in Holland. The name was invented by a couple of volunteers at local level discussing the significance of their activities helping single or lonely people in the parish. They where reflecting one elderly lady’s opinion that usually lonely people stayed at home, waiting for someone to visit them. And when the volunteers come along they were like small “suns” for the ones they helped – they shone and made life warmer. Our plan for Sun Groups was not only to support people in need but also to improve community life.

The usual cycle takes one year – we start in the autumn with a public invitation to anyone interested in offering help for elderly and willing to participate in long-term training. With those who come forward we make an agreement: the training we offer is provided by professional trainers – psychologists, social workers, doctors – and consists of forty hours of theory and forty hours of practice. After training, each participant receives a Certificate. Since the training for participants is free of charge we do ask participants, in exchange, to help us, during the training period, in the provision of assistance to the lonely and housebound. Most of the participants are only too eager to help. During their training, which takes some seven to nine months, it is our task to help participants develop a feeling 32

of community and belonging to their parish. We also ask the local priest to participate in our meetings. We try to ensure that the training takes place in church premises and in this way people get used to being part of the local Church. After a while, people come to hear not only from their trainers but they also come to see and spend time with each other. After the training is completed we invite those who are willing to stay and to join a local Sun Group.

Once a year we organize a special pilgrimage for volunteers from different cities to one of the special places in Lithuania.

During this pilgrimage there is the opportunity for volunteers to meet others from other cities, to make contacts, to pray, to support each other and to experience a community of people sharing the same ideals.

Paul Wennekes: Please describe the specific social background of this project.

Jurate Matikoviene: When I was working with victims of trafficking I used to think that this is the most marginalized group of clients due to the peculiarity of the problem.

If someone who had been addicted to drugs or to alcohol managed to quit he or she could stand in front of people and proclaim: “Look, this is me – I was at the bottom and now I’m back on top,” and everyone would applaud and congratulate him or her. But a woman involved in prostitution – willingly or not – would never dare to reveal this in Lithuania. It’s too big a shame – the picture of Mary Magdalene as a sinner is very alive in our country. Such a woman would put herself and her children in danger. But when I started to work with the elderly I really was shocked. Our clients – single, lonely, ill or handicapped people – are simply erased from society. No one wants to talk with or think about them. The government is only tokenly supporting NGOs’ activities in this field because economically it is of no interest. The mass media do not give news of it because it has no scandal attached to it.

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Introduction to Lithuania – Paul Wennekes

Paul Wennekes: Why was it Caritas that started this project?

Jurate Matikoviene: Caritas in Lithuania often acts like a firefighter. We see and experience existing social problems at a very grass-roots level. And usually we are the first to see the new needs and new dangers facing communities. It was the same when Lithuania became part of the EU and the trafficking problem arose; it was the same with ex-convicts released from prisons into nowhere. The same is true today in the matter of assistance to the sick and elderly. The system of social help for elderly dependent people remains woefully inadequate.

Principally it is the family that has to arrange all care. When a person is ill, according to our laws, he or she is supposed to be treated in a hospital for a period of up to 54 days. If someone needs further rehabilitation there is a rehabilitation period in other institutions for up to two months; or if he or she needs care, then there are care and nursing hospitals where someone may stay for up to four months per year. But after that, in every case it is up to the family what they will do with their relative. There is still no functioning home care system. Care homes and homes for the elderly have very basic facilities and a very limited number of places and that is why dependent persons are usually taken home for family or neighbours to nurse him or her. But after a while relatives can become terribly exhausted and need the support of others. That is where we intervene.

Paul Wennekes: How is this project going so far?

Jurate Matikoviene: One of the obvious features of our work is that we don’t have to advertise our services. Many people know that if they need help, they need to

contact Caritas and they will receive it.

One of the signs of trust on the part of the government is the financial support given by the structural funds resources to organize services for people of working age who take care of children up to ten years old or of elderly dependent family members.

Speaking of local volunteer groups – we already have around twenty places all over Lithuania where we work. In some places (like Marijampole and Panevezys) groups consist of forty to fifty members. These are huge numbers for us. But a new demand is arising. The pattern of family life is changing: children no longer wish to live with their parents. To devote part of one’s young life to taking care of ill parents or grandparents is no longer taken for granted as the thing to do. And with a high rate of emigration – people of working age leaving Lithuania to work and live abroad – their elderly parents and small children get left behind. This situation causes new problems and demands new solutions from us.

Paul Wennekes: What role does faith and the teaching of the Church play in this project?

Jurate Matikoviene: The social teaching of the church is very important for our activities. Illness and suffering can leave us in a very vulnerable position where the only remaining hope is faith.

Paul Wennekes: Is there anything further you would wish to add?

Jurate Matikoviene: I have to say that sometimes I too fear ageing. When I see illness, suffering, unfairness – it’s really frightening. But the bright side also comes from the people we help. As one of our lady clients from Kaisiadorys says: “I’m so amazed to see how many good people there are on earth. And they care about me … .” I would like to be able to say that when I’m seventy years old.

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Diaconia of Caritas

Even on our national television broadcasts there are only two presenters who are aged over fifty. Growing older is a subject we do not want to face and is best ignored.

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Klaus Kießling

Humble waiting-on-tables or John N. Collins and the

The current President of the International Diaconate Centre and Head of the School of Religious Education and Pastoral Psychology at the Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule of Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt am Main, in this article advances the on-going Hermann Wolfgang dialogue with John N Collins in Beyer’s notion of New Diaconal Review and elsewhere

“waiting on tables”

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hat the meanings of the word group diakonia / diakonein are difficult to locate within a common perspective is not something that has only recently emerged with the appearance, in the post-conciliar Church around the world, of the different forms taken by diakonia, in the sense of the social welfare work of the Church, on the one hand, and diaconate, in the sense of the ecclesiastical order of deacons, on the other.1 Already in the New Testament we find the distinction between a “material” diakonia of “waiting on tables” (Acts 6:2), the “spiritual” diakonia of preaching the Word (Acts 6:4) and the Pauline “diakonia of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18).

What is it, then, that constitutes the essence of diaconal activity – back then and in our own days?

The first volumes of the Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament appeared in the 1930s. There, Hermann Wolfgang Beyer – making no effort to hide his anti-Jewish bias – formulated a notion of diakonein that has endured up till the present day and which can best be described as “waiting on tables”, i.e. “providing for the meals, for the feeding, and for the sustenance” of others. In this view, diakonein refers to services performed towards other people. In profane Greek, as anyone can read in a dictionary, diakonein means some lowly activity beneath the dignity of the normal citizen; it is an activity performed by those who have to do with the lowly and the lowliest in society and who perform actions which are not befitting to those who look for success and respect in any conventional form.

In a biblical sense, diakonein means a freely chosen service, a free commitment

1 German makes a clear distinction between „Diakonie“ and “Diakonat”. The term “Diakonie” was used originally in Protestant circles to designate the social welfare work of the Church, for which male “Diakone” and especially feminine “Diakonissen” were often set apart by a “blessing” and organized into “mother houses”, comparable in many respects to active religious congregations in the Catholic Church, but who were not regarded as holding an ecclesiastical office conferred by ordination. The term “Diakonat”, by contrast, was used mainly in Catholic circles to designate the ecclesiastical office conferred by ordination, which in practice, however, was reduced to a mere transitional step to priestly ordination with predominantly liturgical functions. With the rise of the movement, in both Catholic and Protestant circles , for the renewal of a permanent diaconal office conferred by ordination and endowed with both liturgical and charitable functions, both terms have now come into common use by both Catholics and Protestants. In English, usage is not so clear, but increasingly “diakonia” is coming to be used to designate the social ministry of the Church in general, and thus, in this paper, it will be used to translate “Diakonie”, while “diaconate” will be used to translate “Diakonat”. ”Diaconal” is used to translate the German adjective “diakonisch”, which can refer to either of the two noun usages.

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missionary going-between?

in contrast to douleuein, which is done under coercion and signifies slavish subjugation. Thus a person can be called a diakonos, who does not belong to the class of slaves and who freely enters into a servant relationship to another person. So understood, the biblical term diakonos is used in a gender-neutral way for both men and women.

John Neil Collins’ notion of “mediating activity” John Collins questions this widespread interpretation (see also Terttu Pohjolainen and Bart J. Koet). Collins asserts that the semantic field of diakon- in the biblical texts does not stand in contrast to its meaning in the profane Greek usage.

Quite the contrary! He locates the concepts based on diakon- precisely in the discourse used in (other) religions. The diakonos of the word becomes the “mouthpiece” of God, God’s “spokesman” and “messenger” – and in this sense stands in continuity with the cynic philosopher who called himself the diakonos of Zeus, the god’s “world-wide missionary”.

Collins concludes that the semantic field of diakon- especially refers to “gobetween” functions, e.g. the function of a “middleman”, who brings agricultural products from the countryside into the city or the function of a commissioned “agent”.

This view shifts the weight of the meaning from “serving” in the sense of exercising social or charitable responsibilities to mediatory activities exercised in diverse areas of social, political, cultural, and religious life. Most recently, Anni Hentschel has called attention to the fact that such mediatory activity is never undertaken on the basis of personal initiative; it always

supposes a commission received from someone else. In this sense, diaconal activities are not primarily services performed for others, but rather actions undertaken in the name of another person.

This understanding of a mediating role is reflected – as Jürgen Roloff likewise points out – in the language of St. Paul, who uses the semantic field of diakon- to describe preaching the Gospel and delivering messages and collections (e.g.1 Cor 3:5; 2 Cor 3:5f and 8:19; Col 1:7 and 1:23ff; 1Thess 3:1ff; Rom 16:1f). What is characteristic here, is the activity of a messenger, who sees himself to be commissioned for missionary preaching and to act as a “gobetween”.

In this view, diakonia as waiting on tables (Acts 6:2) and diakonia as preaching the word (Acts 6:4) can no longer be played off against each other (Bettina Eltrop).

They show themselves to represent a false alternative, when both mediation and commission are put in central focus, for with them it is possible to describe both evangelization as diakonia in the sense of preaching the word and serving at tables as diakonia in the sense of social ministry.

Admittedly, Collins does not see the latter as the principal meaning of diakonein, but he does include it as a possible activity of the “go-between”, for someone who waits on tables moves back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room. Here a question arises for me: Is it not so that the person who acts as an intermediary in fact very often acts for the sake of the person to whom his mediation is addressed, so that his mediation in practice becomes a matter of service? In any case, what is

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Humble waiting-on-tables or missionary going-between? – Klaus Kießling

decisive for the diakonos is not his servility but rather his mobility. In this sense, what is at stake is that Christian men and women see themselves first and foremost as commissioned persons. And when and because they take their commission seriously, they can do nothing other than to let themselves be taken into service, not only at tables, to be sure, but also in a diakonia of reconciliation (Kjell Nordstakke and Hans-Jürgen Benedict).

From one human being to another, but also in a world-wide perspective, in the face of growing globalization and escalating violence, such diakonia becomes more and more urgent.

In reverse, Beyer also makes expressly clear that diaconal activity must take place out of a power given by God, a power going out from God and returning to God.

Beyer and / or Collins Collins has noted that Beyer’s interpretation of diakonia goes back to a study by Wilhelm Brandt from 1931; Stefan Dietzel and Ismo Dunderberg likewise point in this direction. Brandt maintained close relations with the diaconal institutions in Kaiserswerth and Bethel. This leads one to suspect that the development of diakonia and diaconate in German Protestantism of the 19th Century exercised a decisive influence on Brandt’s judgments about the semantic field diakon- and thus had a strong influence also on Beyer.

Reading the texts, I notice that in dealing with the New Testament understanding of the semantic field diakon-, Brandt begins with the Gospels before he consults the Pauline sources, whereas Collins proceeds in just the opposite manner, treating the Gospels only after the epistles. In the Gospels, Lk 22:27 plays a prominent role: “…who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”

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“As one who serves” For Collins, this motif stands in the context of the eschatological banquet and reminds one of the practices among the Greeks, that on festive occasions, masters would wait on their slaves. Collins sees this idea of reversing the relationships as being restricted to the situation of the ceremonial banquet, in which Jesus, like an ancient dignitary, assumes the role of one who serves – again in continuity with religious practice in the surrounding culture. Such an exchange of roles is in fact well attested to in the framework of carnival events, whose exceptional character is clearly delineated as a temporary break with the practice prevailing before and after.

However, I cannot find such a context in Lk 22:27. For Luke, Jesus’ word to his disciples in the context of their argument about their ranking, “But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves” (Lk 22:26), has clear consequences. The immediately following statement in Luke connects up with the theme of temptation, “You are those who

For Collins, this motif stands in the context of the eschatological banquet and reminds one of the practices among the Greeks, that on festive occasions, masters would wait on their slaves have stood by me in my trials” (Lk 22:28), and with the eschatological reference to the Last Judgment and the Kingdom of God (Lk 22:29f). It likewise points to the enduring seriousness of this scene, whereby the Matthew text on the Last Judgment (Mt 25) explicitly refers to the semantic field diakon-.

Collins proposes that Lk 22:27 implies a comparison: “as one who serves” would

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then indicate a restriction of the meaning, to be like a servant without really being a servant. Personally, I see more in this metaphor and would give it a different twist: Out of the playful exchange of roles, a new horizon opens up; out of the metaphor a new idea. Just as Jesus, in this scene, becomes a servant toward his disciples and acts for their sake, so also will it be in the eschatological perspective: Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection benefit all of us human beings, and he becomes for us our representative and proxy.

Elsewhere I have written on the diakonia of representation, therefore so much for that: For the reasons mentioned, I hold the word “as” to be more than a mere particle

Collins proposes that Lk 22:27 implies a comparison: “as one who serves” would then indicate a restriction of the meaning, to be like a servant without really being a servant indicating a comparison; I see it rather as a sign of a strong metaphor; Jesus establishes a new reality here, regarding which.

I refer also to Mk 10:45 (recalled by Thomas Söding): “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

In this sense, it is possible to distinguish between a tradition in the Gospels, which emphasizes the service character of diaconal activity, and the Pauline manner of speaking, which emphasizes mediation, with all the accruing political and provocative connotations. But the Gospels also address the relationships between power and powerlessness, provided we do not reduce the semantic field of diakon- to a small-minded, subservient attitude, but rather recognize therein the opportunity to shape anew the network of our relationships to God and to other people.

Humble waiting-on-tables or missionary goingbetween?

I see no reason to play the one insight off against the other, contrasting the Pauline notion in the context of mission and the Gospel’s notion in the context of the table fellowship. Everything indicates that both of these biblical traditions – both likewise reflecting Jewish traditions – should be taken seriously, precisely in their diversity. It is precisely the socially motivated “gobetween”, who can act out of solidarity and who can establish solidarity. And “serving” should not be reduced to mere charitable action – that, one should note, has its own proper motivation – and it should not be pushed off into an unpolitical limbo. In German, the term for humility, Demut comes from Dien-mut (= to serve bravely) and combines serving with courageously intervening. From each element, specific challenges emerge. According to the New Testament, Jesus, who is the Lord in the Kingdom of God, appears as the one who freely does service, and thus, in the scene of the washing of the feet (Jn 13), turns the human ranking order upside-down, literally putting the head where the feet are.

I do not mean, in this way, to push the motif of the “go-between” into a corner; on the contrary, I find the discussion of Collins’ research very stimulating, because it shakes up what at first glance appears to be self-evident, because it irritates and for this reason carries the discussion forward. I am happy about the broader and deeper meaning of the semantic field of diakon- which emerges from Collins’ lexical analysis and contrasts with the notion based exclusively on Brandt and Beyer and the tradition resting on their work. Likewise, I value the theological pluralism often contained in biblical texts and I hold it to be indispensable. This pluralism itself requires a “go-between”, a “bridgebuilding” between the texts which emphasize the one aspect and the texts which emphasize the other aspect.

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Humble waiting-on-tables or missionary going-between? – Klaus Kießling

For their contributions to carrying the discussion further, I express my gratitude to Nelleke Wijngaards Serrarens and Esko Ryökäs.

Selected literature on the topic that I refer to in this paper: • Hans-Jürgen Benedict, ‘Die größere Diakonie.

Versuch einer Neubestimmung im Anschluss an John N. Collins’, in: Wege zum Menschen 53 (2001) 349 – 358.

• Hermann Wolfgang Beyer, ‘diakoneo, diakonia, diakonos’, in: Gerhard Kittel (Ed.), Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, Vol. II, Stuttgart 1935, 81 – 93.

• Wilhelm Brandt, Dienst und Dienen im Neuen Testament (Neutestamentliche Forschungen, Zweite Reihe: Untersuchungen zum Kirchenproblem des Urchristentums, 5th issue), Gütersloh 1931.

• John Neil Collins, Diakonia. Re-interpreting the Ancient Sources, Oxford 1990.

• John Neil Collins, Deacons and the Church.

Making connections between old and new, Harrisburg 2002.

• John Neil Collins, ‘A German Catholic view of Diaconate and Diakonia’, in: New Diaconal Review 2 (2009) 41 – 46.

• Stefan Dietzel, ‘Zur Entstehung des Diakonats im Urchristentum. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit den Positionen von Wilhelm Brandt, Hermann Wolfgang Beyer und John N. Collins’, in: Volker Herrmann, Rainer Merz & Heinz Schmidt (Eds.), Diakonische Konturen. Theologie im Kontext sozialer Arbeit (Veröffentlichungen des Diakoniewissenschaftlichen Instituts an der Universität Heidelberg; Vol. 18), Heidelberg 2003, 136 – 170.

• Ismo Dunderberg, ‘Vermittlung statt caritativer Tätigkeit? Überlegungen zu John N. Collins‘ Interpretation von diakonia’, in: Volker Herrmann, Rainer Merz & Heinz Schmidt (Eds.), Diakonische Konturen.

Theologie im Kontext sozialer Arbeit (Veröffentlichungen des Diakoniewissenschaftlichen Instituts an der Universität Heidelberg; Vol. 18), Heidelberg 2003, 171 – 183.

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• Bettina Eltrop, ‘Biblische Grundlagen zum Diakonat’, in: Richard Hartmann, Franz Reger & Stefan Sander (Eds.), Ortsbestimmungen: Der Diakonat als kirchlicher Dienst (Fuldaer Studien; Vol. 11), Frankfurt am Main 2009, 91 – 99.

• Anni Hentschel, Diakonia im Neuen Testament. Studien zur Semantik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Rolle von Frauen (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 2. Reihe; Vol. 226), Tübingen 2007.

• Klaus Kießling, ‘Spiritualität der Stellvertretung’, in: Klaus Kießling (Ed.), Diakonische Spiritualität. Beiträge aus Wissenschaft, Ausbildung und Praxis (Diakonie und Ökumene / Diakonia and Ecumenics; Vol. 3), Münster 2009, 36 – 55.

• Bart J. Koet, ‘International Conference on The Sources of the Diaconate. How it came about and how it turned out: A first Report’, in: New Diaconate Review 3, Nov. 2009, pp 29-32.

• Kjell Nordstokke, ‘Der theoretische Rahmen der Diakoniewissenschaft’, in: Theodor Strohm (Ed.), Diakonie an der Schwelle zum neuen Jahrtausend. Ökumenische Beiträge zur weltweiten und interdisziplinären Verständigung (Veröffentlichungen des Diakoniewissenschaftlichen Instituts an der Universität Heidelberg; Vol. 12), Heidelberg 2000, 394 – 406.

• Terttu Pohjolainen, Rezension zu John N. Collins, ‘Diakonia. Re-interpreting the Ancient Sources’, und John N. Collins, ‘Deacons and the Church. Making connections between old and new’, in: Diaconia Christi 41 (2006) 137.

• Jürgen Roloff, Die Kirche im Neuen Testament (Grundrisse zum Neuen Testament; Vol. 10), Göttingen 1993.

• Thomas Söding, ‘Nicht bedient zu werden, sondern zu dienen’ (Mk 10,45). Diakonie und Diakonat im Licht des Neuen Testaments’, in: Klemens Armbruster & Matthias Mühl (Eds.), Bereit wozu? Geweiht für was? Zur Diskussion um den Ständigen Diakonat (Quaestiones Disputatae; Vol. 232), Freiburg i.Br. 2009, 30 – 62.

This article was translated by Thomas Riplinger, Germany.

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Thomas O’Loughlin

The Perception of in the Early

Little academic work has been done on the place of the diaconate in the history and development of Canon Law. In the first of two articles Tom O’Loughlin, Professor of Historical Theology in the University of Nottingham, looks at the early medieval picture

T

he history of the diaconate in the Latin church is a complex affair. On the one hand, this is one of ‘the major orders’ and as such merits consideration in legislation on clergy, the priesthood, and the legal consequences of ordination, so there is a wealth of material to examine. On the other hand, probably by the time of Gregory the Great (pope: 590-604), or, certainly, very shortly after that, the missa priuata become the most common form of Eucharistic celebration, in monasteries at least.1 From this development flowed two consequences: first, the possession of the ‘power to consecrate’ became the cornerstone both of ministry and of the theology of the Eucharist, and so no young monk/cleric wished to remain ‘below the bar’, and, secondly, in this form of celebration the deacon was not a practical necessity, which meant that the deacon’s actual role was confined to community Mass and became an addition to what was ‘necessary’ and, therefore, someone whose presence was seen principally as indicating added solemnity on particular occasions. This situation is further complicated in that virtually all our evidence comes from monastic, or monastic-affected, sources, hence we do not know what was happening in the average village where often earlier patterns were continuing. Moreover, our legal evidence cannot be taken at face value as indicative of the practice of any particular time or region. Almost all legal collections recorded earlier laws as precedents or sim-

ply as part of the body of law – seen to stretch back to Moses the legislator – without necessarily seeing it as part of their dayto-day needs. Therefore, any assumption that one can relate actual practice, or actual difficulties, as a mirror image of the legislation then being enacted in synods – who repeated earlier legislation to demonstrate that they stood in orthodox continuity with the earlier fathers or mentioned in collections of law which often sought to gather as many sententiae as possible – is wide of the mark.

However, if we are to have a history of the diaconate, and in a church which sees itself in historical continuity with its past in matters relating to Holy Orders having such a history this is desirable, then we must search that canonical record for whatever light it can throw on how Christians in various places and times viewed this matter. In looking at the legislation we cannot assume that it is a ‘snapshot’ of the past nor that it is guide to some ideal of the diaconate nor a body of precedent, but rather that it may throw light on how what happened, happened. In this the historical theologian is the antithesis of the canonist: the canonist looks to the past for precedent or decision one way or another; the historical theologian looks at the past in order to understand more accurately how the churches’ perceptions of various matters has altered over time and how those changes have had long-term consequences, with the underlying hope that by knowing the past more fully we are enabled to situate ourselves more accu-

1 See T. O’Loughlin, ‘Treating the “Private Mass” as Normal: Some Unnoticed Evidence from Adomnán’s De Locis Sanctis.’ Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 51(2009) 1-12.

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Middle Ages – Some Evidence from Canon law: Part I rately, and look towards the future with a clearer vision of what is possible.

So where should one begin? The usual answer to this is with the earliest documents: those from the first and second centuries, some of which are in the canon-

The terminus ante quam must be the canonists of the Carolingian period, for it was from them and their accompanying theologians that the debate on ministry in the Catholic Church took on its familiar parameters ical collection such as 1 Tim, which are used in investigations of the ‘church order question’ by scholars engaged in the early Christian and New Testament studies.2 However, while this may throw light on origins, it is often so far away from the actual practices of the later churches that it bears little relationship to the key factors that have shaped practice down the centuries and which are still influential today. For

instance, the debate about the relationship of the diaconate to the sacerdotium (seen as including bishops and presbyters because both groups as sacerdotes could offer sacrifice, i.e. confect the Eucharist) is a major issue still today in the Catholic Church where a deacon is an ‘optional ‘ minister while a priest is not. But this issue has no counterpart in the evidence for four to five hundred years after ‘the threefold ministry’ becomes the norm sometime in the second century.3 Hence, our investigation must be focussed on a later period that can be seen as both early enough to exhibit variations from the later normality, but sufficiently late to manifest the beginnings of later attitudes and concerns. In historical evidence that has this Janus-quality, we have the best chance of understanding crucial moments in theological evolution. Where can one find such materials? The terminus ante quam must be the canonists of the Carolingian period, for it was from them and their accompanying theologians that the debate on ministry in the Catholic Church took on its familiar parameters.4 The paradigm was established sometime between 800 and 900, and refined and developed by the canonists of the twelfth century and the

2 See T. O’Loughlin, Shaping Disciples: The Didache and the earliest Christians (London 2010), ch. 6, for a discussion of this approach.

3 This evolution is not nearly so neat when described by scholars working on early Christian documents, than it appears in many doctrinal histories: see F.A. Sullivan, From Apostles to Bishops: The Development of the Episcopacy in the Early Church (New York, NY 2001) for a survey. There is no history of ministry that takes full account of the work produced over the past thirty years by those working with early texts: it is an area that is crying out for examination in a series of doctoral dissertations.

4 See R.E. Reynolds, ‘Unity and Diversity in Carolingian Canon Law Collections: The Case of the Collectio Hibernensis and Its Derivatives’ in U.-R. Blumenthal ed., Carolingian Essays (Washington, DC 1983), 99-135.

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The Perception of the Diaconate in the Early Middle Ages: Part I – Thomas O’Loughlin

theologians of the thirteenth,5 and it is that shape, with some minor refinements that we still have. The terminus post must be after, firstly, the rise of the clergy as an established part of the social stratigraphy of the Roman empire, when they became part of the ordo – hence our term sacra ordo for the collection of ministries that go to make up the clergy – and, secondly, after the emergence of the notion that the Eucharist is a power-filled sacrifice. Since the Dialogi of Gregory the Great the basis for multiple ‘Gregorian Masses’ [for the recently deceased] until recent times are our best evidence for this approach to the Eucharist (in a document that was rapidly diffused throughout the West, and which was even translated into Greek) we can take Gregory’s death in 604 as a starting point.

Hence, any document that comes from approximately the mid-point between 600 and 800 is especially deserving of our attention, and the Collectio canonum hibernensis must date from the closing decades of the seventh century or the first decade of the eighth, as it was being copied on the continent in the second decade of the eighth century.6 This collection has two further advantages for the historical theologian as a source for understanding Latin theology over the whole spectrum of the Christian life. First, it is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, systematic collections of canon law.7 In contrast to the earlier ‘historical collections’ which simply arranged the canons, decretals, and other ‘judgments’ in chronological order, the revolution of the systematic collection was that the material was arranged topically.

This meant that the collection formed an

overall picture of each issue, and its relationships with other matters covered by the law came into focus. While to need to concord various decisions produced a jurisprudence that would eventually become a central part of scholastic theological method. So while the actual content of the law may or may not reflect the concerns of the church that produced it, the way it was put together, its arrangement, and the matters it did not make into topics are all specific to particular theological situations. In the editing, even more than in the actual sententiae, we see an operative theology laid out. This would not necessarily be true to later collections because later collections copied their form and arrangement from earlier ones, but in

... in a systematic arrangement of the early collections we do have fleeting glimpse at how one generation of canonists actually saw the world a systematic arrangement of the early collections we do have fleeting glimpse at how one generation of canonists actually saw the world. The second advantage is this: although the Collectio canonum hibernensis was produced in the insular region, it rapidly diffused into England and the continent. It played a major role in the evolution of Carolingian law,8 and its influence can be traced from collection to collection down to the time of Gratian. In examining this collection, therefore, we are not engaging with a text of antiquarian interest, but looking at initial state of a document that is truly representative of the

5 See S. Kuttner, Harmony from Dissonance: An Interpretation of Medieval Canon Law (Latrobe 1960).

6 For dating, background, and a guide to further reading, see T. O’Loughlin, Celtic Theology: Humanity, World, and God in Early Irish Writing (London 2000), 109-27.

7 See A.M. Stickler, Historia Iuris Canonici Latini (Rome 1950), vol. 1, 93-5 8 See Reynolds, ‘Unity and Diversity.’

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canonical / theological tradition of the Latin church over a considerable duration.

The diaconate within the structures of the law The Collectio, in the form most commonly found in the manuscripts, is divided into sixty-seven books: each of which corresponds to what the compilers saw as a major theme found within their legal inheritance.9 Within this arrangement, and reflecting the importance attached to such matters in the compliers’ minds, the first ten books are devoted to the clergy, their origins, their status within the church, their qualifications, powers, duties, and rights. The Collectio was made, although most probably in a monastery,10 by clerics for clerics. So, apart from those first ten books, many other books are solely of concern to clerics11 or else are written from the cleric’s perspective looking at the laity in the church.12 The first seven books are devoted to what they saw as the seven grades of order: bishop, presbyter, deacon, subdeacon, lector, exorcist, and porter. These were the most significant men in the world of the compilers, and these were the human groups that had attracted the greatest amount of canonical attention in the laws they were presenting systematically. So the deacon takes his expected place, third in line of importance within the church, and with several lesser forms of ministry between that of deacon and that of the ordinary Christian.

However, a better appreciation of the place

of deacons within these lawyers’ firmament can be obtained by noting how many headings (capitula) are devoted to each of the orders, because each heading related to an actual legal situation upon which the law might need to be consulted and then used in forming an actual judgement.

There is a direct relationship between the number of headings and the significance of an issue within the law, and so within the historic life of the church, which these compilers are at a particular moment seeking to arrange and study.

The amount of attention is: Bishop: 22 headings; Presbyter: 27; Deacon: 10; Subdeacon: 4; Lector: 4; Exorcist: 1 Porter: 3 While deacons received more attention than lesser orders, when we consider that for all but the exorcist, the first two headings concern the meaning of the name and then ‘the origin’ (de exordio) of the order in a biblical event, we see that deacons received less than a third of the coverage devoted to presbyters, and barely a sixth as much as sacerdotes,13 i.e. bishops and presbyters combined. Deacons within this clerical world may be located near the front of the queue, but they are of very minor importance in the overall scheme.

This is significant because in the same insular culture, one hundred a fifty years earlier, the most significant theologian of the period, Gildas, who saw himself fulfill-

9 The edition being used is that by H. Wasserschleben, Die irische Kanonensammlung (Leipzig 1885). It will be cited by book, heading, and sentence; all translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own.

10 There is only one book devoted explicitly to monastics, book XXXIX, de monachis.

11 For instance, book LII, on the tonsure.

12 For instance, book XVIII on who can be buried where.

1314 For the use of sacerdos as a generic word encompassing bishops and priests in the culture of the Collectio, see Adomnán, De locis sanctis, exordium.

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ing the role to his church like that of the prophets in Israel preaching before wicked kings, and whom later generations, including the compilers of the Collectio would cite as an authority14 and sometimes refer to as ‘Gildas Sapiens,’ was prepared to carry out his ministry and write his great work, the De excidio Brittanniae while a deacon.15 While still earlier, probably in the fifth century, Patrick, a bishop, remarks that his father was Calpornius, a deacon, and his grandfather, Potitus, was a priest.16 Both examples indicate that at a time before that of the compilers of the Collectio, the diaconate was a distinct and significant order within the clergy to which individual clerics were proud that they or their relatives belonged.

The content of the law The first heading in Collectio III has this title: ‘Regarding the word deacon.’17 And under this heading falls a single sentence: ‘Deacon is a Greek word, and in Latin we would use minister [servant] because he ministers at the altar’; and another manuscript has this addition ‘because he ministers at the altar and to the priestly grade.’

This is typical of the introductions found across the theological works of the Latin west in the early Middle Ages. It is not a definition of terms in the scholastic sense, for there the aim was to remove as much ambiguity from debate as possible by

ensuring that all knew the value of words in a particular discourse. This is based on a notion of an intimate extra-mental interconnection between the nature, purpose, inner reality of an object and the name by which it is known. It is an assumption of most writers in the period that by being able to analyse names, one can gain an insight into the object named. Hence the great popularity of the encyclopedia by Isidore of Seville entitled the Etymologiae.

His etymologies were ‘real’ rather than ‘verbal’ etymologies: by finding the meaning in the original language, the student one was discovering the original and fundamental basis for understanding the reality. We may think this a trivial game or imagine its intellectual basis ludicrous (contrast the names we give to computer parts: ‘mouse’ for example), but without

Deacon is a Greek word, and in Latin we would use minister [servant] because he ministers at the altar acknowledging its role in pre-scholastic theology many later theological disputes become inexplicable.

This explanation of ‘deacon’ is, as we should expect, derived from Isidore’s Etymologiae.18 However, while Isidore is

14 For the use of sacerdos as a generic word encompassing bishops and priests in the culture of the Collectio, see Adomnán, De locis sanctis, exordium.

15 For example, Gildas is cited as an authority at I,16,b.

16 This was first suggested by O. Chadwick in ‘Gildas and the Monastic Order,’ Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 5(1954)78-88; my own recent research has put the matter of his status as a deacon beyond dispute; see ‘Gildas the Deacon’, Journal of Celtic Studies, forthcoming.

17 See Confessio 1, in T. O’Loughlin, Discovering Saint Patrick (London 2005).

18 The Latin reads: de nomine diaconi which some might translate ‘regarding the name deacon’ but while this would be accurate as regards a dictionary, it is also false. It is not simple the name deacon nor the noun /d e a c o n / that is being referred to be the reality as addressed by a particular sound which is recording in writing with these marks: d i a c o n u s. Hence, what we are translating is a word which is both a sound and sign. This complex hermeneutic needs to be kept in mind in translating all Late Latin texts.

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But inherent in the notion of ‘servant’ is that of serving someone or something.

Here the Collectio adds to a further explanation to that given in Isidore: ‘because he serves the altar.’ The significance of this addition shows that at the time of the compilation of the Collectio the only service that could be imagined for a deacon was liturgical, and apparently nothing beyond that. The deacons have a liturgical role at the altar, i.e., at the Eucharist, and apparently this liturgical role exhausts his purpose. When we relate this limited understanding of the diaconate to the state of the development of the practice of the missa priuata in the same ecclesiastical culture, we can see that the eclipse of the deacon is already an established fact by the end of the seventh century. This blunt conclusion will be corroborated by the rest of the headings in Collectio III.

ing. This is not, in the context, a historical question about origins, but a legal question about its mandate, and its authenticity in the Christian scheme as coming from God. In the terminology of the Council of Trent this is the question: is the diaconate a iure diuino? In the early medieval context it is framed in this form: De exordio diaconorum in utraque lege (Regarding the basis of the diaconate in both laws). Since the diaconate is a Christian ministry, that it should be seeking for its origin in the New Law, i.e. the New Testament writings, is not surprising: such searches for its ‘scriptural mandate’ would be a feature of disputes about ‘the three-fold ministry’ until well into the twentieth century. What may be surprising is that they also wanted a mandate from the Old Law. This reflects both the older patristic notion that everything in the new law had an anticipation, an antetype, in the old, but it also represents a growing aspect in Latin Christianity in the early middle ages of seeing the Old Testament as a direct source for precedent and regulation for the Church. We see the beginnings of this tendency in works such as the Collectio where, for example, the regulations regarding the ‘cities of refuge’ in Nm 35 and Jos 20-21 were taken as having a direct bearing on the granting of sanctuary/amnesty after a crime,21 and in the steadily growing habit, in the same culture as that which produced the Collectio, to view Sunday through the lens of the Law’s regulations for the Sabbath.22

Accepting that the diaconate was an order, it must then have a moment of institution, and this is the subject of the second head-

We shall look first at how the diaconate is imagined in terms of the Old Testament.

The origins lie in the event of Moses

the formal source – as he is for virtually every Greek word that was carried into Latin, with its ending appropriately changed, as a technical Christian usage – of this sentence, the information was widely diffused. Augustine, preaching on Stephen the Protomartyr, had written: ‘Now the word which we use in Latin [for Stephen] is ‘minister’ while in Greek it would be ‘diaconus,’ for in reality the Greek word ‘diaconus’ is ‘minister’ in Latin.’19 So the core of the notion that any Latin speaker was to think, upon hearing the sound ‘diaconus,’ was that it meant ‘a servant.’20

19 Etymologiae VII,12,22.

20 Sermo 319,3,3 (Patrologia Latina 39,1441).

21 This can be seen in the Vulgate in Rom 16:1 and 1 Tim 3:10 where variants of minist- are used when the Greek uses variants of diakon-.

22 See Collectio XXVIII: de ciuitatibus refugii; and for commentary of this, see T. O’Loughlin, ‘Map and Text: A Mid Ninth-Century Map for the Book of Joshua,’ Imago Mundi 57:1(2005)7-22 and pl. 1.

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selecting the tribe of Levi, as the Lord commanded him, and his selection of the sons of Aaron as priests when they were ordained for the service of the divine cult.

This statement is based on the conflation of several texts relating to the Aaronic priesthood found in the Pentateuch, but especially Ex 28: 1-4 and Num 3:6-8 which is echoed in the language of the Collectio.

Collectio III,2,a Num 3:5-8 Diaconorum ordo a tribu Leui accipit exordium; Precipit enim Dominus ad Moysen ut per ordinationem Aaron sacerdotis et filiorum eius rursus Leui tribus in diuini cultus ministerio ordinarentur … locutus est Dominus ad Moysen dicens adplica tribum Leui et fac stare in conspectu Aaron sacerdotis ut ministrent ei et excubent et obseruent quicquid ad cultum pertinet multitudinis coram tabernaculo testimonii et custodiant uasa tabernaculi seruientes in ministerio eius The Collectio continues by noting that that tribe were to be consecrated to the Lord in order to serve God on behalf of Israel as substitutes for all the firstborn of the Israelites, which is a statement closely following the prescriptions and view of the role of the priesthood in Num 3:12-5. This group, specially segregated from the rest of the people and acting on their behalf, were to carry the ark and the tabernacle and all its vessels. This statement is a summary of instructions found in several places in the Pentateuch (most especially Num 1:50 and 3:31) and with a more elaborate place in the memory from references elsewhere to the carrying of the ark (for example: Jos 3:3). And the members of this group have been given an order (mandatum) to serve in the tabernacle from the time that they reach the age of twenty-five; this statement

is based on Num 8:24, which is verbally echoed in the language of the Collectio.

This image of the deacons from the Old Law sees them as part of a very clearly defined group – the clergy as the new tribe of Levi – who are separate from the people and act on their behalf; using an explicitly Old Law view of the priesthood rather than that of the ministers being part of the whole priestly people with special responsibilities. Moreover, the only role imagined for the group is liturgical and cultic.

In contrast to the complex picture of the group in the Old Law, the Collectio states that its ‘origin in the New [Law] can be read about in the Acts of the Apostles’ and it quotes 6:2-4: And the twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables.

Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we

... select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint may appoint to this task, while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.”

The fact that this group of seven are never called deacons does not trouble the compilers. The identification of these seven men of good repute as the original deacons was already centuries old by this time – we have already noted a case of the identification by Augustine and Gildas compares himself with this group23 and it is just an

23 See T. O’Loughlin, ‘The Significance of Sunday: Three Ninth-Century Catecheses’, Worship 64(1990)533-544.

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assumed fact, which does not even raise a question, for the compilers. More surprising perhaps is that in this passage from Acts ‘the deacons’ are there to do all the practical acts of service that are needed within the community as distinct from what could be seen as cultic work. This does not bother the compiler, not because there is a tension in Acts in that when we meet these men later they are preaching (Stephen in Acts 6:8 for instance), but because he takes the fact of the actual men he meets who perform a liturgical function and are called ‘deacons’ as his starting point, and then seeks in the past for a mandate for this group. It is agreed in the tradition that the text in Acts appoints deacons, and this is sufficient.

It is worth noting how different this theological hermeneutic is from our own or those of the recent past. The compiler is not searching the history / experience of the church looking for original identity, vision, or ‘job description’ for these deacons; nor is he seeking to establish them as part of scripturally defined universe. The compiler’s experience of the present is simply accepted: the church’s behaviour is not being queried or doubted nor is a reform being suggested; rather he looks in the New Law and finds a basis that locates the basis of the practice in the mind of the divine lawgiver. This is neither the Reformation’s quest for ‘a sure warrant of Scripture’ nor the near contemporary search for an ‘original purpose’ or ‘foundational insight’ about the nature of the diaconate.

and so belong to the ordo, the next question is how are they ordained: Collectio III, 4. The heading has only one sentence: the statement from the Statuta ecclesiae antiqua24 that a deacon is ordained by a single bishop imposing hands on the candidate with the proviso that he is not consecrated for priesthood but for ministry (non ad sacerdotium sed ad ministerium).25 This is sufficient information to answer the question and so there is nothing further said.

That the sententia’s explanation of the difference between the sacerdotium (bishops and presbyters) and the diaconate is actual empty, a mere verbal quibble: non ille sed hic, does not trouble the compiler. The

... a deacon is ordained by a single bishop imposing hands on the candidate with the proviso that he is not consecrated for priesthood but for ministry compiler knows, firstly, how the ordination is done, and, secondly, has an authority say that this is ‘not for priesthood but service’ and that is enough. To suggest that ordination to priesthood might also involve ordination to service, assumes a degree of critical distance between his questioning and his authorities that is wholly foreign to him.

■

Once the compiler has established that that group are part of the Levitical class, 24 The Statuta ecclesiae antiqua comes from southern Gaul, but was cited in the Collectio as a canon from a Synod of Carthage. The sententia cited is Statuta, n. 92 (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 148, p. 181).

25 See De excidio Brittanniae 1 (H. Williams ed., Gildas (London 1899-1901); early medieval writers such as Gildas believed that that there was a basis for the identification of the seven as deacons from a supposed reference to one of them in Apoc 2:1-7.

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Louisa Warren

Developing Talents – have been

In this journal we aim to share good practice within various programmes for diaconate formation in northern Europe: these include tools which we can use in the process of the ‘human formation’ of those intending to become deacons. Louisa Warren is Senior Consultant with Gallup and for the last five years has been involved in running their ‘Strengthsfinder’ assessments for students on the diaconate formation programme for the dioceses of Southwark, Westminster, Cardiff, Arundel and Brighton, Brentwood, East Anglia, Northampton, Plymouth and Portsmouth.

Background As a rule, we are not brought up to spend our time most of our time on developing our strengths. A common experience of schooling is where teachers (and often parents) focus their attention on the subjects where we are struggling. We do of course need to reach at least minimum standards in key areas, and it may not be until we choose further study (at A level and beyond) that we start to be offered opportunities to do what we do best. Up to that point, we may well have been exhorted to ‘fix our weaknesses’. But Gallup’s research over the past 40 years – including interviews with well over two million people – has demonstrated that we will be most successful when we build our lives around our innate strengths. Of course we have weaknesses – and we need to know what they are, but not to correct them – more to adapt strategies for coping in situations which require us to use them.

But first of all we need a tool which enables us to discover our strengths. The Strengthsfinder does just that. We describe a strength or talent as a recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behaviour. When you have a strength in a particular area, it is hard to stop yourself from using it – an indi48

cation of the extent of its power. In order to be successful, we need to add skills and knowledge into the picture – without them, a strength remains untapped potential.

The difference is, we can enhance our skills with practice, and we can acquire more knowledge. But a talent is something innate, which cannot be learned, no matter how much we feel motivated to do so. We may become slightly better at demonstrating the behaviour in question, but it would not become the ‘recurring pattern of thought, feeling and behaviour’ which typifies a true talent or strength.

So what is the Strengthsfinder?

The Strengthsfinder is an online assessment that measures thirty-four attributes, and presents them in rank order. The first five are described as our ‘Signature Strengths’ – usually this means that they are particularly dominant and observable in our daily behaviour, and in how we react to various situations. We are confronted with many different challenges and circumstances every day, and we react to them based on who we are. For example, let us consider St Paul prior to his conversion on the road to Damascus – he was a stubborn and single-minded individual, zealous in his attacks on Christians. And after the conversion? He was just as stubborn and single-minded, but now his zeal was directed towards promoting Christianity. His conversion did not change his talents – but it did change his values.

By concentrating on our strengths we are accepting that we are, fundamentally, unlikely to change – at least, not in the core of our being. However, this does not mean

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How diaconate students discovering their strengths

We started our work with the diaconate in 2005. Father Ashley Beck, a priest in my parish of Beckenham, knew of our work and approached us to work with the students. We usually work with one year group at a time; they complete the Strengthsfinder assessment online, then the consultants meet one-on-one with each student at a residential weekend.

Those who come to the Strengthsfinder for the first time are often unsure of how it works, and what it can do for them. Over the years the reaction from the students has been very positive – they are often surprised by the accuracy of the tool, and the positive nature of the feedback sessions.

We often find in our work that people do not get enough opportunities to talk about what they are really good at. The patterns laid down in childhood of trying to develop weaknesses are hard to put aside. The Strengthsfinder gives people a vocabulary to talk about their strengths.

Recurring strengths amongst the students Before we began this work, we reflected on which of the 34 strengths might be most prevalent in a group such as this. Whilst people are of course immensely individual – and there are over 33 million possible combinations of the Top 5 strengths alone – when they are united around a common purpose some commonalities can arise.

There are three of the Strengthsfinder themes which have the most potential to reflect spirituality and values – they are called Belief, Connectedness and Responsibility.

Those who are strong in Belief are very clear about the values they stand for – and those values are unchanging; they provide the individual with a very strong sense of purpose in life. This strength is also often found in altruistic people, who find much satisfaction in giving to others. People with Connectedness have a very strong sense that we are all connected in some way; that there is a reason for everything, and that the impact of our actions can resonate a long way away from where the action starts. It is also often the way people see God’s hand in everything, and that it all makes sense to Him. This theme is often used to ‘connect’ with others at a very human and compassionate level, which takes no account of status or hierarchy.

And Responsibility is a theme which makes people take complete ownership for their actions, along with a commitment to trust, honesty and loyalty. When a job needs to be done, the first to volunteer are those with this theme. Looking at these three strengths in combination, it is not

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that redemption is impossible – because this happens in connection with our values, as opposed to our strengths. Like St Paul, we remain who we are whatever the circumstances. A person with a strength in Discipline, for example, who has a real flair for structuring their time and getting their tasks done methodically and efficiently, is unlikely to become someone who does not need a plan and a ‘to do’ list for the day.

Conversely, an individual who hates routine but who is hugely imaginative and creative, with the strength of Ideation, is unlikely to develop into someone who needs to plan every moment of their day – they would see this as constraining their creativity, which needs space and freedom in order to flourish.

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Developing Talents – Louisa Warren

surprising that they are so prevalent in the group – they reflect the power of vocation, and a need to give of oneself to others, in an environment that nurtures shared values and which is at one remove from the material demands of our consumer society. In the groups we have worked with thus far, the Connectedness theme seems to be the most prevalent, with Belief and Responsi-bility also very common.

Other common themes Other common themes are Learner (which denotes an appetite for gaining knowledge); Input (an interest in collecting all kinds of things, but often knowledge and experiences); Relator (an ability to build close relationships with others, and which demonstrate a deep caring); and a fair amount of Empathy (an ability to take the emotional temperature of a situation, and to feel in a very deep way what others are feeling – this theme is not as widely found in other groups we work with).

Developer was also common – a strong sense of purpose in coaching, helping and encouraging others in the parish; also Harmony – a flair for achieving consensus in a group, and being a catalyst for people to build bridges with one another.

Beyond these themes, there are of course all of the others, and the way the Strengthsfinder is structured, with all 34 themes displayed in an order unique to each person, allows for a richness of interpretation. As we work with the students, we ask them about the challenges they will be taking on after their ordination as deacons, and we link their strengths to those challenges. For example, those with Input and Learner find particular satisfaction in gathering information and then applying themselves into learning more, which means they not only thrive on the academic elements of the course, but they are also laying down a wealth of knowledge on which to draw when it comes to preparing homilies.

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To take homilies as an example: someone with Discipline and Developer (a flair for teaching and mentoring others) will prepare their homilies in some detail, and keep the message in mind which they want to be the ‘learning point’. Someone with Communication (a gift for enlivening presentations and telling stories) and Woo (an ability to capture attention using charm in order to break the ice with others) will weave stories into their homily, and perhaps some humour to encourage people to listen. Whereas someone with Relator and Focus (a need to have a goal, and set priorities) will make sure that they reach out to others, but with a clear goal in mind of why they are making certain points and what they hope to achieve by them. The list of possibilities is endless.

What can we hope to achieve once we know our strengths?

Once we have a better understanding of who we are, we can give more thought to ensuring that we get to use our main strengths every day. We describe strengths as needs – we really do need to use them if we are to feel fulfilled as human beings. As we have seen, they are there to be used whatever the external circumstances. It works even better when we can know the strengths of others around us. For those who are interested in further reading, and a chance to take a sample Strengthsfinder, the books listed below provide you with a code to do an online assessment, and to receive your top five strengths.

My late father, Ray Zacaroli, was ordained a deacon in the diocese of Birmingham in 1989, amongst the first cohort to be ordained there. He had just retired from his job as a solicitor due to ill health; the diaconate provided him with ongoing purpose in his life. He worked very hard at his studies, with my mother alongside him. A naturally gregarious person, he loved meeting with and talking to new people. Insatiably

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curious, he would ask so many questions that my mother had to restrain him at times! He most likely had the strengths of Learner and Woo. Regrettably he never took the Strengthsfinder so I will never know for sure. For those who do have the opportunity to discover and work with their strengths, it can be a very enriching experience. For those of us who come along as consultants to talk to the students, it is a hugely enriching experience for us too – we meet with so much dedication and commitment, it is awe-inspiring. We are very grateful to Father Ashley for getting us involved.

In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl quotes Sigmund Freud, who once asserted: “Let one attempt to expose a number of the most diverse people uniformly to hunger. With the increase of the imperative of hunger, all individual differences will blur, and in their stead will appear the uniform expression of the one unstilled urge.” Victor Frankl, who spent several years in concentration camps in

the Second World War, goes on to say, ‘Thank heaven, Sigmund Freud was spared knowing the concentration camps from the inside. There, the “individual differences” did not “blur” but, on the contrary, people became more different; people unmasked themselves, both the swine and the saints.’ He justifies his use of the word “saints” by reminding us of Father Maximilian Kolbe, who was starved and finally murdered at Auschwitz, and eventually canonized in 1983. The Strengthsfinder celebrates the uniqueness of individuals, and whilst we may not all become saints, it helps us to be the best we can be.

Further reading: • Albert L. Winseman, Donald O. Clifton and Curt Liesveld Living Your Strengths, Gallup 2004 • Viktor Frankl Man’s Search for Meaning, new English ed., Ebury 2004, first published in 1946 under the title ‘Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager’ • www.strengthsfinder.com ■

Bill Ditewig

International Research Consortium on the Diaconate in Rome: an Update

D

eacons Rob Mascini (of the Netherlands), Bill Ditewig (of the USA) and Enzo Petrolino (Italy) continue their project to establish an International Research Consortium on the Diaconate in Rome. The consortium will involve professors from universities around the world, as well as from the various pontifical universities in Rome, who will teach courses and direct research during summer intensives to be offered at various

locations in Rome. During a recent series of meetings in March in Rome, the team again received the enthusiastic support of the Congregation for Catholic Education and the collaborators from the pontifical universities. A proposed catalogue of courses and a schedule is being developed, with the hope that the first round of courses will be conducted at a variety of locations in Rome during the summer of 2011.

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Developing Talents – Louisa Warren

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Tony Schmitz

The Consolidation The NDR presents the next instalment of a fresh and complete translation of the International Theological Commission’s important research document Le Diaconat: Évolution et Perspectives, Les Éditions du Cerf, Paris, 2003. The German, Greek and Latin footnotes are translated for the first time. Deacon Tony Schmitz is Director of Studies of the national diaconate formation programme for the Diaconate Commission of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland and co-editor of the New Diaconal Review. The following is the third part of the Second Chapter.

I

n the life of civil society – as in the life of the Church – there exist, according to Clement of Alexandria, qualifications that aim to benefit us through service both spiritual and practical (therapeia beltiotike, hyperetike). There are also people who of themselves are ordered to the service of those of a higher rank. Priests belong to the former group and deacons to the latter.33 For Origen, the diakonia of the bishop is always considered the service of the entire Church (ekklesiastike diakonia), the bishop being called both “prince” and also, at the same time, “servant of all”.34 Deacons are often criticised by Origen because they are in a particular way contaminated by a spirit of covetousness. On account of their responsibility for charitable work, they made frequent contact with money. Commenting on a text about the expulsion of traders out of the temple, Origen speaks of “deacons who do not administer well the tables of the money of the Church (i.e. the poor),

Diaconate but always act fraudulently towards them.”35 “They accumulate riches for themselves by diverting the money belonging to the poor.”36 In the Didascalia (third century) we find evidence of deacons holding a certain supremacy over priests, for deacons are likened to Christ, whilst priests are likened to Apostles merely.37 On the one hand, however, priests are presented as the senate of the Church and the bishop’s assessors: they stand around the altar and are seated round the bishop’s throne. Deacons for their part are called “the thirds”, which rather suggests that they rank after bishops and priests. On the other hand, deacons undoubtedly seem to have enjoyed a status and a scope of activity that exceeded that of priests. Laity would have had a great confidence in deacons, not constantly having to importune the head, but rather making known to him their desires through the hyperetai, that is through the deacons, since neither can anyone approach the almighty Lord God except through Christ.38 In the Didascalia, the increased status of the diaconate in the Church is quite remarkable, and this will result in a growing crisis in the reciprocal relations between priests and deacons. To their social and charitable service we now find added the charge of providing various services during liturgical assemblies: wel-

33 Strom. VII 1,3; GCS 17,6. [Translator’s note: The French of the Commission’s document is somewhat distant from the exact meaning of the original Greek here.]

34 Comm. in Mat. 16,8; GCS 40,496.

35 Ibid. 16,22; 40,552.

36 Ibid. 16,22; 40,553.

37 Didascalia apostolorum, ed. by R. H. Connolly, Oxford 1969, 89.

38 Cf. A. Vilela, La condition collégiale des prêtres au IIIe siècle (ThH 14), Paris 1971.

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and Development of the in the Third and Fourth coming and ushering to their places strangers and pilgrims, taking care of the offerings, superintending order and silence in the assembly, and ensuring decorum and propriety of dress.

The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus of Rome († 235) gives us the first evidence of the theological and juridical status of deacons in the Church. They are included amongst the group of the ordinati through the imposition of hands (cheirotonein) in contrast to those in the hierarchy called instituti. The “ordination” of deacons was performed solely by the bishop (Chapter Eight). This link determines the scope of the deacon’s tasks since he holds himself at the disposition of the bishop, fulfilling the latter’s orders, whilst being excluded from participating in the council of priests.

... already in the course of the third century, the laying on of hands constituted the distinctive sign of the ritual of ordination for major orders We need to compare the two texts for the ordination of deacons – the Veronense (L, Latin version) and the Sahidic Ethiopian (S[AE]) one, because we find several differences between them. L reads: Diaconus vero cum ordinatur, eligatur secundum ea, quae praedicta sunt, similiter imponens manus episcopus solus sicuti praecipimus. “When a deacon is ordained, let him be chosen in accordance with what has been said above, with only the bishop lay-

ing on his hands in the same manner, as has been laid down.” S(AE) is clearer: Episcopus autem instituet (kathistasthai) diaconum qui electus est, secundum quod praedictum est. “The bishop will institute the deacon who has been chosen, in accordance with what has been said above.”

There remains nevertheless a difference between ordinatio et institutio. Chapter Ten of the Apostolic Tradition – in respect of widows – contributes some significant elements: “Non autem imponetur manus super eam, quia non offert oblationem neque habet liturgiam. Ordinatio (cheirotonia) autem fit cum clero (kleros) propter liturgiam. Vidua (xera) autem instituitur (kathistasthai) propter orationem: haec autem est omnium.”39 “Do not impose hands upon her, for she does not offer the oblation, nor does she have a liturgical duty. Ordination is for the clergy for the purpose of liturgical duty. The widow is appointed for the purpose of prayer, which is a duty for all.” According to this text, if the laying on of hands is absent from the rite then we are dealing only with an institution (katastasis, institutio) and not with an ordination – ordinatio. Thus, already in the course of the third century, the laying on of hands constituted the distinctive sign of the ritual of ordination for major orders. This will be extended to minor orders too in the fourth century.

In respect of the liturgy, the deacon’s task is to take up the offerings and to distribute them. In the administration of baptism his role was to accompany the presbyter and

39 SCh 11 bis, 66.

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to serve him “the oil of catechumens and the chrism as well as to go down into the water with the one receiving baptism (Chapter 21). Another field of activity for deacons was teaching: “Let them come together and teach those who are in the Church” (Chapter 39). In a quite specific way their social activity in close conjunction with their bishop is emphasised.

According to St Cyprian “Deacons should not forget that the Lord himself chose the Apostles, that is the bishops and heads of the Church, whilst, in the case of deacons, it was the Apostles who instituted them to be ministers of their episcopacy and of the Church, after the Lord’s Ascension.

Accordingly, just as we dare not undertake anything in defiance of God who makes us bishops, neither can they themselves dare to undertake anything in defiance of us bishops who make them deacons. ”40 It would seem that even in Carthage, from time to time, deacons wanted to occupy the place of the presbyters. They had to be warned that deacons come in third place in the hierarchical ranking. Whilst a see was vacant they also played an important role in the direction of the Church. From his exile, Cyprian normally addressed himself to “the priests and deacons” in order to deal with any problems of discipline. In Cyprian’s writing, priests together with deacons are sometimes designated by the word clerus, and less frequently they are called praepositi.41 The priest Gaius Didensis and his deacons are both charged with offering the Eucharist, but the fifth letter indicates that in reality it is the priests who offer it, attended by the dea-

cons.42 By contrast, the exercise of charity in the visiting of prisons falls above all to deacons. They are described as being “boni viri et ecclesiasticae administrationis per omnia devoti” “good men devoted to the administration of the Church’s resources in all circumstances.”43 The word administratio is found in the expression sancta administratio as applied to the deacon Nicostratus in respect of hos care of the Church’s money. Thus deacons would have been charged not only with the

Deacons should not forget that the Lord himself chose the Apostles, that is the bishops and heads of the Church, whilst, in the case of deacons, it was the Apostles who instituted them to be ministers of their episcopacy and of the Church, after the Lord’s Ascension exercise of charity towards the poor, but also with the administration of the finances belonging to the community.44 By way of summary, we can assert that, besides the fact that the diaconate existed in all the Churches from the beginning of the second century and that it had the character of an ecclesiastical order, deacons performed basically the same role everywhere even though the different elements of their commitment were emphasised differently in different regions. A sta-

40 Ep. 3,3: “Meminisse autem diaconi debent quoniam apostolos id est episcopos et praepositos Dominus elegit, diaconos autem post ascensum Domini in caelos apostoli sibi constituerunt episcopatus sui et ecclesiae ministros. Quod si nos aliquid audere contra Deum possumus qui episcopos facit, possunt et contra nos audere diaconi a quibus fiunt.”

41 Ep. 15,2; 16,3.

42 Ep. 34,1; Ep. 5,2.

43 Ep. 15,1; 43,1.

44 Ep. 52,1.

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bilisation of the diaconate was reached in the course of the fourth century. In the Synodal and conciliar directives of the period the diaconate is regarded as an essential element of the hierarchy of the local Church. The Synod of Elvira (ca, 306-309) emphasises above all the diaconate’s predominant role in the administrative sector of the Church. Paradoxically, at the same time as this synod imposes a certain restriction on deacons’ liturgical involvement, it awards them the possibility of granting absolution of sins in urgent cases. This tendency to invade the presbyters’ territory of competence, manifested also in the claim to preside at the Eucharist (albeit only exceptionally), is thwarted by the Synod of Arles (314) and above all by the Council of Nicaea (325, canon 18).

The Apostolic Constitutions (CA), which are the most impressive of the juridical collections drawn up in the fourth century, reprise the different parts of the Didache and of the Didascalia relating to deacons in order to comment on them in a way that reflects the points of view of the period.

They also include what St Ignatius affirms in his letters, thereby providing a considerable amount of information. A certain tendency towards historicism characterises the text, especially since the author-editor searches out for prefigurations in parallel passages of the Old Testament. His discourse is introduced with a solemn formula (cf. Dt 5,31 et 27,9): “Listen, O Holy and Catholic Church … For these are your pontiffs; your priests are the presbyters, and your Levites are now your deacons, these are your lectors, cantors, door-keepers, these are your deaconesses, your widows and your orphans … The deacon will attend him as Christ attends the Father …”45 45 46 47 48

His description of the relationship between bishop and deacon is based on the prefigurations of the Old Testament and heavenly models: “For you now, Aaron is the deacon, and Moses the bishop ; if therefore Moses was called a god by the Lord, then amongst you the bishop should likewise be honoured as a god and the deacon as his prophet … and just as the Son is the angel and prophet of the Father, so the deacon is angel and prophet of the bishop.”46 The deacon represents the eye, the ear, the mouth of the bishop “so that the bishop does not have to busy himself with a multitude of affairs, but needs to concern himself only with the most impor-

The deacon will attend him as Christ attends the Father … and just as the Son is the angel and prophet of the Father, so the deacon is angel and prophet of the bishop tant as Jethro established for Moses and his counsel was well received.”47 The prayer of ordination of a deacon by the bishop attests that the diaconate was envisaged as a transitional step towards the presbyterate: “Grant that he may accomplish satisfactorily the service entrusted to him, in a pleasing manner, and without deviation, without blame or reproach, that thereby he may be judged worthy to attain an higher rank (meizonos axiothenai bathmou), through the mediation of your Christ, your onlybegotten Son … .”48 In the Euchologion of Serapion (towards the end of the fourth century) we find a

Const. of Apostles II 26,4.5.6; SCh 320, 239-241.

Ibid. 30,1-2; 249-251.

Ibid. 44,4; 285.

Const. of Apostles VIII 18,3; SCh 336, 221.

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prayer of ordination of a deacon the teminology of which is related to that of the Sahidic version of the Apostolic Tradition.

The text of the prayer alludes to the Church’s canons, to the three ranks of the hierarchy, to the Seven in Acts 6; it uses the verb katisthanai to designate the ordination of a deacon: “Pater unigeniti, qui filium misisti tuum et ordinasti res super terra atque ecclesiae canones et ordines dedisti in utilitatem et salutem gregum, qui elegisti episcopos et presbyteros et diaconos in ministerium catholicae tuae ecclesiae, qui elegisti per unigenitum tuum septem diaconos eisque largitus es spiritum sanctum: constitue (katasteson) et hunc diaconum ecclesiae tuae catholicae et da in eo spiritum cognitionis ac discretionis, ut possit inter populum sanctum pure et immaculate ministrare in hoc ministerio per unigenitum tuum Iesum Christum, per quem tibi gloriam et imperium in sancto spiritu et nunc et in omnia saecula saeculorum, amen.”49 “Father of the Sole-begotten, You sent your Son and You order all things on earth; You gave us canons and rules for the benefit and welfare of your flock; You chose bishops and presbyters and deacons for the ministry of your Catholic Church; through your Only-begotten You chose seven deacons and bestowed on them the Holy Spirit: Institute this man deacon of your Catholic Church and grant him the spirit of knowledge and discernment that he might serve your holy people in purity and without stain in this ministry through your Only-begotten Jesus Christ, through whom be all glory and power to You, in the

Holy Spirit, both now and for all ages.

Amen.”

The prayer of consecration of a deacon in the Sacramentarium Veronense speaks of service of the holy altar and, as in the text of Constitutions of the Apostles, the diaconate is considered to be a transitional step: “Oremus… quos consecrationis indultae propitius dona conservet… quos ad officium levitarum vocare dignaris, altaris sancti ministerium tribuas sufficienter implere… trinis gradibus ministrorum nomini tuo militare constituens… dignisque successibus de inferiori gradu per gratiam tuam capere potiora mereantur.”50 “Let us pray that [God the almighty Father] may graciously preserve the gifts of consecration bestowed … may You grant those whom You deem worthy to call to the office of Levites to fulfill adequately the ministry of the holy altar …. making [them] to serve Your name in the threefold grades of ministers to serve Your name … and that they may they deserve by worthy advances through Your grace to lay hold of higher things.” The Sacramentarium Gregorianum is similar in every point to the text already cited. It also recalls the three grades, and uses the word “constituere” to designate the ordination of deacons.51 Behind their apparent unanimity, the declaration of the Fathers of the Church, in the fourth century, afford a glimpse of certain dissensions which had been well known since the third century, as for instance deacons’ pretentions to the

49 Sacramentarium Serapionis, in: Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum, ed. F. X. Funk, vol. II: Testimonia et Scripturae propinquae, Paderbornae 1905, 188. The citation is reproduced here in the Latin translation of the editor. We find the same use of the word (constituat) in Canon III (XXXIII) of the Constitutiones Ecclesiae Egyptiacae, De diaconis, ibid. 103-104.

50 Sacramentarium Veronense, ed. L.C. Mohlberg, Roma 21966, 120-121.

51 Le Sacramentaire Grégorien I, ed. J. Deshuesses, Fribourg (Suisse) 1992, 96-97.

[Translator’s note: my rendering of the Latin omits, as the current translation of the ordination rite does, the ‘performing like a soldier’.]

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places, rank and tasks that were proper to presbyters.52 The notion according to which the three grades (bishop, presbyter, deacon) were like elements of one and the same order also played a role. Ps.-Athanasius refers to this in his work De Trinitate as being like a “consubstantiality”.53 Moreover, Christi-anity was starting to expand into provincial territory, with bishops or presbyters leaving towns against their wishes, and with deacons doing so more willingly, but these abusing the situation insofar as they used to arrogate to themselves certain of the rights belonging to the presbyterate. The historical context also contributed to this development. In fact the Arians had undermined the standing of

bishops. Alongside bishops and presbyters greedy for power and money, the popularity of deacons grew greatly on account of their closeness to monks and the layfolk. The general fourth century view held that deacons had been instituted by the Apostles, and that the bishop ordained them in the same way as presbyters. Deacons belong to the clergy, but only assist at the liturgy.54 The sources show that even Chrysostom did not manage to place the three degrees of the ecclesial order in a clear historical continuity. There had been Jewish models for the presbyterate; whereas the episcopacy and the diaconate had been established by the Apostles. It is not at all clear what we should make here of these notions.55 Chrysostom

52 Jerome, Ep. 146,1; PL 22,1192-95: “Audio quemdam in tantam erupisse vecordiam, ut diaconos, presbyteris, id est episcopis anteferret. Nam cum Apostolus perspicue doceat eosdem esse presbyteros, quos episcopos, quid patitur mensarum et viduarum minister, ut super eos se tumidus efferat, ad quorum preces Christi corpus sanguinisque conficitur?”

“I am told that someone has been mad enough to put deacons before presbyters, that is, before bishops. For since the Apostle clearly taught that presbyters are the same as bishops, must not a mere server of tables and widows be insane to set himself up arrogantly over men through whose prayers the body and blood of Christ are confected?” Id., Comm. in Ez. VI, cap. 17,5-6; PL 25; 183B: “Quod multos facere conspicimus, clientes et pauperes, et agricolas, ut taceam de militantium et iudicum violentia, qui opprimunt per potentiam, vel furta committunt, ut de multis parva pauperibus tribuant, et in suis sceleribus glorientur, publiceque diaconus, in Ecclesiis recitet offerentium nomina. Tantum offert illa, tantum ille pollicitus est, placentque sibi ad plausum populi, torquente eis conscientia.” “We observe what many are up to: domineering over and oppressing their retainers, the impoverished, the peasants, not to speak of the violence of soldiers and the judges, and those who commit theft, offering the poor such a pittance from all their abundance, and basking in their crimes, whilst in public, in the churches, the deacon reads out their names as makers of offerings. He offers no more than the little pledged. And they preen themselves at the applause of the people, although their conscience torments them.”

53 De Trinitate 1,27; PG 28; 1157 B: “episkopos, presbyteros, diakonoi homoousioi eisin” “bishops, presbyters, deacons are consubstantial”.

54 Origen, Hom. in Jer. 11,3; Concilium Ancyranum can. 14.

55 Hom. 14,3 in Act.; PG 60, 116: “Quam ergo dignitatem habuerunt illi (sc. deacons and bishops)…Atqui haec in Ecclesiis non erat; sed presbyterorum erat oeconomia. Atqui nullus adhuc episcopus erat, praeterquam apostoli tantum. Unde puto nec diaconorum nec presbyterorum tunc fuisse nomen admissum nec manifestum...” “Therefore what sort of office they (sc. deacons and bishops) received … . This did not yet obtain in the Churches.

But administration pertained to the presbyters. For as yet there were no bishops, but only Apostles. Whence I think that at that time the designation neither of deacons nor of presbyters was manifest and accepted … .”

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traces back the diaconate to being instituted by the Holy Spirit.56 In the course of this same century the Latins took up the Greek word “diaconus”, as attested by.57 The fourth century marked the end of a process which led to the recognition of the diaconate as a grade of the ecclesial hierarchy, with a well defined role, and posi-

tioned after the bishop and presbyters.

Closely tied to the mission and person of the bishop, the deacon’s role encompassed three tasks: the service of the liturgy, the service of preaching the Gospel and teaching catechesis, as well as a wide-ranging social activity involving charitable works and administrative action in accordance with the bishop’s direction.

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56 “And rightly so, for it is not a man, nor an angel, nor an archangel, nor any other created power, but the Paraclete himself who has instituted this order, persuading men who are still in the flesh to imitate the service of angels.” De sacerdotio III 4,1-8; SCh 272, 142.

57 “Graecum codicem legite, et diaconum invenietis. Quod enim interpretatus est latinus, Minister; graecus habet, Diaconus; quia vere diaconus graece, minister latine; quomodo martyr graece, testis latine; apostolus graece, missus latine. Sed iam consuevimus nominibus graecis uti pro latinis. Nam multi codices Evangeliorum sic habent: ‘Ubi sum ego, illic et diaconus meus’.” “Read the Greek codex, and you will find ‘diaconus’ (sic).

What is translated into Latin as ‘minster’ is ‘diaconus’ in Greek, just as we have ‘martyr’ in Greek and ‘testis’ in Latin, or ‘apostolus’ (sic) in Greek and ‘missus’ in Latin. But we are already accustomed to keeping Greek words for Latin ones. Many Gospel codices read: ‘Where I am, there will my deacon be also.’ Sermo CCCXXIX, De Stephano martyre VI, cap.

III; PL 38; 144.

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Philosophy and Catholic Theology A Primer Author: Philip A. Egan ISBN: 978-0-8146-5661-7 Price: £15.99 Publisher: Collegeville, Minnesota, Liturgical Press, 2009 This excellent book is based on material Father Egan has produced for the distance learning BPhil degree in philosophy offered by Maryvale Institute in Birmingham. It aims to provide an accessible introduction for students to the relationship between philosophy and theology in the Catholic tradition. The first section is a historical survey of theology down the ages, focussing on the relationship between faith and reason. So it begins with a discussion of Vatican I’s constitution Dei Filius: ‘The council envisaged faith and reason as complementary, that is, mutually and intrinsically interrelated. Human reason was damaged by original sin but not destroyed. The mirror had been cracked, but it was still serviceable.’ (p. 5) This quotation sets the tone for the whole work. One of the most helpful things about the book is the excellent diagrams which illustrate different developments – in the first chapter there is a very clear schematic presentation of the four ‘differentiations of theology’ (experiential, doctrinal, systematic and historical). This chapter is followed by a thorough appraisal of recent theological movements, again with helpful figures.

Egan gives a clear picture of twentieth century movements leading up to Vatican II and gives a good appraisal of the Council itself. One very welcome feature of this section, and of the book as a whole, is that the author avoids polemic and partisan-

ship. Widely differing movements are fairly and accurately described without negative or positive value judgements – this is left to the reader. At a time when many are concerned at growing theological polarisation within the Church this is helpful.

Chapter 3 looks at the different philosophies which relate to theology – it is good that continental movements such as phenomenology, so influential on the thought of John Paul II and not well known in the English speaking world, are properly described. The polarisation to which I referred above is a concern to Egan. Here he reflects on the influence of Marxism, which has resulted in ‘the portrayal of theological arguments in political terms, that is, as a dialectical power struggle between left-wing modernisers or progressives and right-wing conservatives or traditionalists. The outcome of such struggles is not determined by rational argument (truth) but by the imposition of the will of one party over the other (power).’ (p. 101) The final chapter is a detailed discussion of theological method. This is useful because one of the main influences on Egan is the Canadian Jesuit Bernard Lonergan whose writings on theological ‘method’ were very important. Students and others often find Lonergan rather difficult – this is the best introduction to his thought that I have seen. Figure 15 (p.

162) gives a lucid picture of Lonergan’s theory of ‘functional specialisation’, his two phases of ‘retrieving the tradition’ and ‘engaging with culture.’ Fr Egan has performed a great service to those teaching and studying theology and this outstanding primer should be on reading lists for diaconate formation programmes.

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News

Joint National Assembly of Deacons to be at Twickenham in 2011 The International Diaconate Centre – North Europe Circle have announced that the Joint National Assembly of Deacons in England and Wales & International Conference is to be held from Friday 24th June – Sunday 26th June in 2011, at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham.

IDC have confirmed visitors and speakers so far include ... Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Archbishop Vincent Nichols and Professor William Cavanaugh.

Prices will probably be: approx. £150 / = C160 with discounts for married couples.

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More details will be published in the November issue of New Diaconal Review, or can be requested directly from Ashley Beck, e-mail: ashleybeck88@hotmail.com

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DIACONAL

Inviting Authors New Diaconal Review welcomes readers to submit articles with a view to publication ● They should be in keeping with the journal's aims, and mindful of pastoral implications. Ideas or topics for articles can be emailed to the editors...

Tony Schmitz tony.schmitz@gmail.com or Ashley Beck ashleybeck88@hotmail.com who are happy to comment on their suitability and advise about word length. ● Guidelines for house-style can be found at The Pastoral Review website, www.thepastoralreview.org under 'Contact us'.

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