As I write this, I'm at our January formation weekend, and the focus for this weekend is prayer and spirituality. Our instructor and spiritual guide for the weekend is Father Michael Cummins, who also happens to be our diocesan vocations director. Those of you who are from Johnson City or who may have attended East Tennessee State University might be familiar with Father Michael, because he is also the campus minister at the Catholic Center at ETSU, and he has a big challenge-as he told us "I'm a staff of one."
I have a special place in my heart for campus ministry, because I was baptized as an adult in a campus ministry setting, and I know that Catholic campus ministries can be an island of spiritual serenity in a sea of secular doubt and social disorder on our campuses today. One of the things thus far which impresses me about Father Michael is that he has such a deep and abiding spirit of humility about his ministry. I have gotten to the point where I daily pray for an increase in humility, because it is something that I always struggle with. Thinking you are being more humble is one thing, but when I see the humility and the spirit of peace with which Father Michael teaches and carries out his ministry, I know that I still have some way to go in that department. In observing Father Michael, I see that this is a spirit that I want to further cultivate in my own life and ministry in the days, weeks, and months ahead, and I would ask for prayers from all reading this for a great increase in humility in service.
One of the things we've talked about thus far are the positives and negatives in the Church and society today, and how these various factors impact our prayer and spirituality. I've talked about the negatives quite a lot on this blog in recent weeks, but there are also lots of good things happening in the Church that can aid our prayer and spiritual life. One of these is that the development of new media communication, with all of its inherent social baggage, can also be a tremendous aid in the spread of the Gospel and in aiding the faith of people who are already living lives of faith in Jesus Christ, but they need resources made available to them in order to better apply that faith to their prayer life and to daily work and life in the world. New media makes this kind of ministry much more available to people who need it. In thinking about this, I am reminded that I started this blog to be a ministry, even though it admittedly also acts as a vehicle for me to journal a bit about my own formation and spiritual development. If you are blessed by what you find here, how can this blog better serve you?
Reflections of a Deacon in the Diocese of Knoxville in Tennessee. The opinions expressed here are my own, but the Glory is the Lord's
Could we please have more of the same?
ReplyDeleteThe videos and pictures are especially good!
We enjoy hearing about your progress in your aspirancy to the deaconate and about your wife.
Right now, you are reading a lot of heavily scholarly materials, and so some of your articles are a little above the heads of average folks like some of us are.
Personally, I have found that the priests and deacons, whose homilies have most deeply touched my life, were the ones who would talk to us, while with deep respect and with much fatherly love, like we were children. People at any age, long for the love of a Father, and so your words do not need to be scholarly to reach us, but we do need words of love and understanding, words of encouragement and hope.
This is the perfect place to practice being a deacon, because you are already teaching and leading people in their faith journeys, much as you will, once you are ordained as a deacon.
You could approach your work on this blog by asking yourself, "What are the spiritual needs of the people reading this blog?" Hopefully, that is how you will approach your homilies and speaking engagements, later on.
These next two to three years are a time for self examination, as to your speaking skills, writing skills (do my words really reach and help people who are reading them), as well as things like making sure your social skills are all they need to be, in order to reach others.
The thoughts you've shared about Father Michael Cummins' wonderful humility are similar to my own. I try to be humble, and all of a sudden find myself trying to prove my superiority to others through my arrogance and condescending ways. Like you, I am trying to become humble.
Please know that people out here, following your blog on a regular basis, are rooting for you, interested in reading about your spiritual development and plans for how you can serve the people of God by using your thoughts and words to reach their many spiritual needs.
Bless you for this admonition! I find that I sometimes do tend to over-intellectualize things, ad I have to guard against that. There is a difference between preaching to a room full of people who have had a similar academic or spiritual experience (or both) to you and those who haven't. The latter group are not less intelligent or less blessed, but they have been called to a different vocation.
ReplyDeleteIt is the job of deacons and priests is to help the laity as their servants to foster their vocations in a way that both nurtures their spiritual life and relationship with Christ, as well as builds up the Kingdom of God. I want what teaching and preaching that I do to be a blessing to others so that they are enriched-that they should increase and I should decrease.
I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say "people who have had a similar academic or spiritual experience...and those who haven't." You definitely don't want to be condescending, if you plan to become a deacon! I thought you said you were working on humility...
DeleteMy degree is in Catholic Theology, and my post-graduate work was in pastoral ministry. You need to know that it isn't my lack of education or spiritual experience which causes me to encourage you to attempt to speak to the spiritual needs of those you wish to serve. I have, for many years, been in the company of people of our faith who have all kinds of degrees in theology, etc., and it seems that the more they know, the more they speak with simplicity.
I speak from many years of experience, when I say that, what I have found most effective in trying to serve and help others, is not the use of big words and trying to win them over with my intellectual ability. What has been effective was when I listened with great understanding and great love, and when I spoke with people with great kindness, simplicity, and love.
Had I been using some grandiose intellectual approach with people, all of these years, I would have run everyone off!!! That simply turns people off! The reason we go to school and learn all this about what the sacred scriptures teach and what the Church fathers teach, is so we will have the wisdom to be able to speak to people at a level of understanding which will be meaningful to them.
Being a deacon is about loving people. Maybe you might wish to write articles for Catholic publications, instead of being a deacon! If your gifts are purely academic, you might need to accept that as your calling instead.
I think if my gifts were "purely academic," I would probably have as many letters after my name as you have after yours! (No, by the way, those degrees are not a bad thing at all, please don't take it that way..I am a humble pilgrim, and my words are meant to speak the truth in simplicity and love, not with hurt.)
ReplyDeleteI was certainly not blessed with such advanced theological education. Indeed, I think it is fair to say that prior to entering formation what spiritual and theological I received was education I had was that which I pursued out of my own interest, and not for academic reasons per se, simply out of a deep desire to know my faith and grow closer to Christ.
It is not my aim to use some "grandiose intellectual approach," and I do agree with you that such an approach would almost certainly drive folks away. What I was attempting to point out was something very obvious-that I'd very likely preach a little differently to a room full of deacons or priests than I would to a room full of people who were not.
I also agree that being a deacon is about loving people, and I will be the first to admit that part of my personal lessons in humility are learning how to tolerate all kinds of things and all kinds of people that I might otherwise not be inclined to do except that I know that Christ is calling me to embrace all kinds of people in the name of love in order to spread His Good News.
It isn't just being a deacon that's about loving people-being a Christian is about loving people. Being a deacon is a sacramental expression of service to Christ and an expression of Christ's love through service.
As for your final point about accepting some other calling, writing, for example, instead of being a deacon. I wrote long before I entered formation, and I expect I will be writing after my formation is finished. I will say that if I am ordained, I would much prefer that if I am writing, that it should be about spiritual and ecclesiastical things. I would hope that what I write would bless someone.
Formation is about discernment, and I long struggled with my own worthiness even to be in formation-I have often felt that some of the other men are much holier than I...it was the Holy Spirit who has shown me that I truly belong there. I know that being ordained a deacon isn't something I am entitled to. It is a calling from God to which I am unworthy and blessed to be a part of. I came to formation with no expectation but that God was calling me to formation. In my humanity, of course, I aspire to be ordained...but if I am not, it is well with my soul, because I am the Lord's servant, imperfect and unworthy that I am. I accept his will, whatever that may be.