A blessed second week of Advent to all of you! This sacred time of Advent is often, and rightfully so, paired with Marian spirituality, i.e. reigniting our personal devotion to the Virgin Mary. Since Advent is a season in which the act of waiting and expecting is sanctified by Holy Mother Church’s liturgical calendar, we would do well to draw our prayer life into that of Our Blessed Mother’s, who also was in a season of waiting and great expectation. Not only do we find Our Lady close to our side by praying her rosary, but we are also blessed this week with amazing Marian Feast Days and a very special Solemnity, her Immaculate Conception on Monday Dec. 8th, a Holy Day of Obligation, Wednesday Dec. 10th is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Loreto and Friday the 12th is Our Lady of Guadalupe. How wonderful a Mother have we who has visited her children often! She is a gentle Mother who receives all of her children, those close to her and those who perhaps have forgotten that we have such a Mother. Our Lady never forgets one her own, and by the waters of Baptism we have indeed all become her own. Draw close to the Virgin Mary during this season of Advent and let her guide your preparation for the coming of her Son!

This week I will be away for my annual retreat (required of all priests to make in accordance with Canon Law) up in Denmark, WI. There is a wonderful Carmelite Monastery that generously offers a retreat house for priests. Know of my prayers for all of you, as I will ask Our Lady of Mt. Carmel to wrap our parish in her Mantle.

Occasionally, I have the benefit of parishioners asking me questions they are concerned about Church teachings and whispers of change in the management of the Church that they hear about. At other times, like now, I see it fitting to bring up responses to questions that were asked a while ago that are just coming to light. 

One of those topics is the role of women in the Church and, as several parishioners have asked me over time, whether there may be women deacons in the future. The question was particularly heightened over the last few years as it was public knowledge that Pope Francis had assigned a commission to explore the topic of women serving as deacons in the Catholic Church. 

Well, the commission finally gave a response this past week and the response was... "no"... but "maybe"... but "uncertain" and... we need more information. 

Of course this is just the response of a commission. Changes to church doctrines and disciplines are determined by the pope or in some circumstances an ecumenical council or possibly local bishops. So there isn't a final answer to the question just yet and on the surface, the headline reads "no" but there is much more fascinating discussion going on beneath the surface that it warrants us going past the veneer offered by the verdict. 

The response of the commission brought about an admission not stated by the Vatican before that yes, indeed, there were women who served as "deacons" in the history of the Church, but historical precedent was not enough to restore the role in our current expression of God's Church. There also needs to be theological and doctrinal reasons for change which do not currently exist and which fall to the responsible guidance of bishops over and above the report of the commission.  

Could there be change? Who knows? But not now. And more importantly, we should look at the history of change in the Church and what else is being discussed by the commission as their report becomes public. 

Even as the commission indicated that there could not be women deacons at this point in time, they also overwhelmingly recommended to "expand women's access to ministries established for community service" and questioned whether the role of deacons, as we are experiencing it in the U.S. Church today, is manifest as it should be. Could more precision in what the role of the deaconate fulfills lead to women and men co-equally filling a role suited to both? This is an active question that they did not have the charge to answer. 

Two points I'd like to share with you as the conversation continues. When I was in college, the bishop from my home diocese (Springfield) would come annually to Washington DC for meetings and when visiting, he would always have dinner with me. I once asked him, "Why do we not have permanent deacons in Springfield?" I knew that his predecessor bishop did not want permanent deacons because he didn't think married men should be serving at the altar. Bishop Ryan however saw the problem differently. He didn't want to invest in one ministry (the deaconate) that only empowered men to serve when he could invest the resources of the diocese in establishing roles that both men and women could fulfill equally. His wisdom on this matter has impacted me greatly and helped to shape my own sense of equality. I think of his reply to me as I digest the findings of the recent commission on the investigation of the women's deaconate. 

The second point I'd like to share is the historical context of change. We should note that the role of active permanent deacons in the Church, while based in distant history was suppressed for many centuries. There were discussion about the possibility of restoring the role going back to the 16th century at the Council of Trent and as recently as 1957, Pope Pius XII declared that, in regard to permanent deacons,  "the time was not yet ripe." Even as priests were begging for the help of deacons to minister to the needs presented by the atrocities of the Second World War, the Vatican was saying, "now is not the time." 

Things have changed. Quite a lot! And it's only been 68 years... which is a short span of time in an institution that has 2,000 years of history. 

We now enjoy and have been blessed in recent years with the ministry of permeant deacons at Saint Andrew including Deacon Mark and Deacon Eric. If their role was perceived of as "not possible" in 1957 and in my own diocese as "not necessary" in 1990, then it is impressive to see how the Holy Spirit has motivated the Church to change and respond to the needs that have transpired since those times. 

I believe that we must listen to the wisdom of this commission. They have ratified a factual discovery that there once were women deacons in the church. They have recognized that women are the victims of discrimination and the Church can remedy that injustice by the influence that reform of its institutions will provide. They also suggested that our current understandings of ministry need to be looked at again to better reflect God's mercy and love in the present age. They're calling for continued dialogue and change, led by our deep listening response to the Holy Spirit. All of this is worthy for us to trust, to pray about, and to render a prudent response. 

I don't know if readers of this will be gladdened or saddened by the report from the commission, but it seems that what the commission calls us to is prayer, and I fail to see how that advice can be wrong. Prayer will not lead us astray!  

Christmas Concert

Join us on Thursday, December 18 at 6:30pm in the church for our annual Christmas Concert. Come and enjoy the beautiful sights and sounds of the season as our students share the joy of Christmas with our parish community. 

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