Deacon Acolyte

 

Our Senior year was our last year as a Candidate; it was also when we were [eventually] installed into the Ministry of Acolyte ... and where we were supposed to start serving at the altar for our local parish ... which I was already doing since I had informed my Pastor when I had started formation to be a deacon and he had provided several opportunities to serve well before this on various feasts and solemnities (such as the entire Easter Triduum as the Thurifer), so for once I actually had the jump on this ... and I needed the practice.  I didn't grow up within the Catholic tradition, so this was all quite new to me, but it was always a great experience.  Added to this was serving as an acolyte for the exposition and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament during our Saturday formation sessions and I was started to feel a little more comfortable at the alter (no if they would only go over everything that I would be doing as a deacon, that would be lovely ... I did pick up an electronic copy of the missal to review some of that).

The academic year slowed down a little, with "Homiletics" and "Theological Anthropology" in the fall with "Moral Theology" and a "Scripture Seminar" on the Gospel of John in the spring.  The last few weeks included a Synthesis seminar where we had to write an "Operational Theology" paper and a paper on how we view the deacon (or how we plan to live out being a deacon).  Writing a homily each week was definitely the hardest part of this year; however, we were partially prepared for this last year our class took turns writing the (5 min) reflection for the reading from evening prayer.

The pastoral experience just keeps piling on here.  In addition to the charity work and the mentor opportunities, this year adds a summer internship (before classes started for year four) with a hospital or prison chaplain (or equivalent).  I was initially assigned to shadow the chaplain at Salem Hospital ... but there were apparently some coordination issues (many of which I still don't quite understand, but place the responsibility square on the hospital department head's overly strict reading of the chaplain regulations that weirdly prevented my from doing what essentially was a patient visitor program.  So it was not the first time the deacon program needed to be flexible, and I eventually landed at Melrose-Wakefield Hospital with Fr Hughes and was arguably much better off for it, despite being 30-45 minutes away.  With a target of 100 hours, and a deadline of the end of summer (with a 2 week vacation in the middle), I had a pretty aggressive schedule:  Four hours on Saturday AM doing rounds with Fr Hughes, then Sunday afternoon to see anybody he missed that morning, and Tuesday, Wednesday evenings on my own.  As an aside, I had several people ask for a business card that first month, so I had some made up ... and then nobody asked for them after that ... 

With classes over, there were still a few hoops to jump through:

• Get fitted for, and purchase, a white dalmatic and stole with the Boston Cross (for ordination)
• Attend a 5+ day spiritual retreat
• Submit hand written letters (from both my wife and I) to the archbishop asking for ordination
• Complete an end of year self-evaluations (these are actually done each year).
• Conduct an end of year interview with a member of the deacon board.
• Plan out the moving parts for the ordination ceremony (we actually formed committees for this)
• Plan out the family and friends reception (separate from the parish celebration if there is one)
• Schedule our Mass of Thanksgiving with our home/sponsoring parish (I am assuming I preach)
• Complete the Oath of Fidelity and Profession of Faith [with the Cardinal/Archbishop]
• Buy a bunch of Deacon stuff (stoles, albs, books, et al) that were not gifted for ordination :-)

I think that is everything ...