RC Diocese of Argyll & the Isles

Our faith in God as Trinity comes from the mind of Christ himself. It is Jesus who presented God to us as Father, himself as Son and  the outpouring of their love as Holy Spirit. He tells us in today’s gospel that “everything the Father has is mine”, bringing us to know of the  communion of life he shares with the Father. By the gift of the Spirit we share in this  communion with the Father through the person of Jesus himself, the mystery of life in the Trinity coming alive for us through the sacramental grace of baptism, confirmation and holy communion. Our being as Christians is always in the mind of Christ, and through this communion in him our sense of the mystery of God and his presence within us grows and matures as we come to him in prayer, listen to his Word, and hear his call to each one of us.

Being in the mind of Christ means listening to the Lord, hearing what he has taught us, especially taking to heart the Gospel he preached and which has been transmitted to us by those who lived with Him and believed Him to be the Son of God. We all listen and grow in Christ as members of his Body, but some also feel a special calling to serve the Lord as his ministers, to transmit to others the faith and love of God they have experienced in their own hearts and which they now feel called by the Lord to pass on to others.

This ministry in the Church is a gift given by Christ to those he has called to preach his Word – through their ordination deacons are to proclaim the Gospel for the people of God and to preach the message of Christ coming from that Gospel. In today’s ceremony those ordained deacons are presented with the Book of the Gospels representing the preaching and teaching ministry they will live and breathe for the whole of their lives as they strive to bring the mind of Christ to the people they serve.

Jesus in his own mind presented himself as the servant, or slave, of God, who came “to serve and give his life his life as a ransom for many”. The ministry of deacon, which is carried into priesthood, lays strong emphasis on this serving of God and his people in imitation and communion with the Lord’s own life of self-giving, indeed self-sacrifice, brought to its climax in his giving of his life for all on the cross of Calvary.

At their ordination as deacons today our brothers, who hope also to serve as priests, make their commitment to live a life of celibacy, which is their personal offering of their bodies and their whole lives in a complete giving of self to the Lord and to his Body the Church. In this offering of self these men our brothers enter in a new more committed way into the mind of Christ, being conformed to his person as servants who offer themselves in love to the Lord and to his people, especially the weakest and most needy.  

The sacrificial love of the Lord is made present for us, in accord with his mind and will, in the gift of the Eucharist, his Body and Blood by which we are fed and are thus sustained in our Christian lives here in this world and in the hope of eternal life. The deacon is one who is drawn closer to the Lord’s table – as he stands close by the bishop or priest at the altar, he is invited to share in a deeper and more personal way in the mysteries celebrated and made present for us on the altar.

It is his ministry to bring these holy gifts from the altar to God’s people, sharing in the ministry of feeding God’s people with Christ’s Body and Blood, and carrying the same holy sacrament to those unable to attend, the old and infirm. This feeding of God’s people spills over then into the works of pastoral charity and practical care, a necessary part of the deacon’s ministry from their first commissioning by the apostles in the Acts of the Apostles.

It is in the mind of Jesus then that his own ministry of spiritual and pastoral care of his flock should be carried on by those who respond to his call and are ordained in his name. It is therefore a great privilege for me to pass on this ministry to those eight men present before us and to ordain them as deacons by the laying on of hands and the prayer of consecration, following the ancient tradition given to us by the apostles, asking the Lord that they may always be true believers, and authentic heralds of his word and mind. We pray that the Holy Spirit may be poured out upon them and so that they may be worthy ministers of word and sacrament, and true servants of the Lord who came to give his life for us all.