Mass for the Ordination to the Deaconate of Peter Gbertyo and Vinh Hien Tran

Our Lady Help of Christians Church, Corpus Christi, 11 June 2023

It has been said that Christianity is “subversive” because its Founder is a revolutionary – he, the Lord of History, became a deacon, a servant. Indeed the early Church writer Polycarp stated it clearly: the Lord made himself servant of all.

The Gospel for today’s Feast Day puts before us just how radically he did this. We know that in his public life, Jesus performed many humble services of reaching out, healing, advising, consoling. But he didn’t just perform these gestures of closeness. In a stunningly concrete manner, he loved us to the point that he made himself spiritual food so that he could reach the deepest hungers of the human heart and nourish us from within with the bread of Life. Yes, the living bread come down from heaven came ultimately to let himself be consumed, literally “eaten” in sacramental form by humanity.

He tells us: “As I, who am sent by the living Father, myself draw life from the Father, so whoever eats me will draw life from me.” Here we find a dynamic into which all of us who are baptised are all called – the Father sent his Son for us. Jesus gives up his life for us. And now, we who receive him in the Eucharist, with his life in us, are to give up our lives for others so that they may have life and have it in abundance.

Peter and Vanh, two young men, one from Nigeria and one from Vietnam, have experienced this dynamic in a particular way. At a certain point in their lives, they have encountered Jesus the Servant looking into his eyes, and in their heart have heard him calling: “Peter, Vanh, humanity does not live on bread alone, on the vanities of a world that passes, a world that so often is experienced as a wilderness, but on everything that comes from the mouth of the Lord…. I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever… Come, follow me, offer your life so that many will find life, the true life of the world.” And so they have set out in the Salesian family on a journey of holiness, both personal and communitarian, learning the servant spirituality of Don Bosco and daily offering themselves out of love as they prepare for the ordained ministry of priesthood.

Today is an important step along the way. Shortly we will see Vanh and Peter declare publically their “yes” to the Lord’s invitation. Before our eyes, they will prostrate themselves on the ground. This is a sign of their total readiness to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit so as to become instruments of Christ the Servant who gave his flesh for the life of the world, in the exercise of the ordained diaconal ministry.

We know the service deacons perform can take many forms. Stephen became a martyr, Lawrence of Rome was a tireless servant of the poor, Ephrem Nisibis, a Syrian deacon established a school of biblical and theological studies, a true servant of the Word, Alcuin of York was involved in liturgical renewal, St. Francis of Assisi promoted peace and contemplation of the beauty of creation. Yes, many different forms of deaconate. A constant, however, is that the service must be concrete, practical, real.

Here I would like to quote Pope Francis speaking about what it is to be a deacon. He says: “Those who proclaim Jesus are called to serve, and those who serve proclaim Jesus… A servant daily learns detachment from doing everything his own way and living his life as he would. Each morning he trains himself to be generous with his life and to realise that the rest of the day will not be his own, but given over to others. One who serves cannot hoard his free time; he has to give up the idea of being the master of his day. He knows that his time is not his own, but a gift from God which is then offered back to him. Only in this way will it bear fruit. One who serves is not a slave to his own agenda, but ever ready to deal with the unexpected, ever available to his brothers and sisters and ever open to God’s constant surprises. One who serves is open to surprises, to God’s constant surprises” (Pope Francis, Homily 29 May 2016).

In time, God willing, Peter and Vanh, you will go on to be ordained priests. But, in a way, we could say that it’s as if the Church, in first ordaining you deacons, is giving time for this ministry of service to sink into your mind and heart and soul. It’s a reminder to you: this is the basis. Get this right, service, and all will be right. Get this wrong and all will be out of kilter. To live like Jesus the Servant is to love, to serve, to let yourself be consumed, “eaten” by others as you take the initiative, being the first to love, not waiting to be loved.

Of course, to love, to serve isn’t just a one-way track. It isn’t just about doing things for others. It is about letting others enter into you. It is about receiving those you meet into yourself, opening inner space for them. You in them and they in you. A deacon is to be a person of communion, a builder of communion. And this is so important in a world where there is so much spiritual homelessness and a hunger for relationship and truth, peace and communion. Not only will you, therefore, do the tasks of a deacon – distributing Holy Communion, bringing God’s word to others, presiding over public prayer, baptizing, assisting at marriages and blessing them, giving viaticum to the dying, and leading the rites of burial. Your life is to be one continuous act of love and service generating communion among people day by day. In this way you are to be a living “icon” of Christ the Servant alive in his Church. We remember Vincent de Paul’s advise – every neighbour I meet is my Lord and I am his servant.

Being a person of communion means you can never be a solo runner. Your ministry is in communion with the Bishop and priests, your community and those with whom you minister. We remember the great image of St. Ignatius of Antioch: our ministry is to be carried out in harmony just like the strings of a harp forming a harmony of sound that sings Christ.

Dear Peter and Vanh, we are praying for you today, through the intercession of Our Lady Help of Christians (she who was the exemplary servant of the Lord), that you may always have the grace to act as Christ the Servant did, “merciful, zealous, walking according to charity” (Polycarp) and so on the last day, when you go to meet the Lord, you will hear him say: “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.”