What is a Deacon?

A deacon (Greek diakonas ‘servant’) is a man ordained by the Church for the service of the bishop, priests, and people of the diocese. The permanent diaconate, which can now be conferred on married men went out of use in the Latin Church for many centuries. It was restored in recent times by the Second Vatican Council in order to help renew and enrich the Church’s missionary endeavours.

Although he shares in the Sacrament of Holy Order, the deacon is not ordained to the priesthood and so people often ask: What is a deacon? We need look only to St. Stephan and St. Lawrence, both martyrs, for inspiring historic examples of diaconate.

They show how the ministry of the deacon is very varied, and yet is always essentially about self-sacrificing love: A ministry of the Word, of the Altar, and of Charity. Thus, deacons assist the bishops and priests at the Eucharist, in the distribution of Holy Communion, in blessing marriages, in the proclamation of the Gospel, in presiding over funerals, in preaching and teaching the Faith, and in dedicating themselves to the many ordinary, everyday practical matters that facilitate the Church’s mission. Moreover, today there are vast new fields of apostolate open to the Church in prisons, schools, transport centres, hospitals, shopping complexes, local institutions, the media, the legal profession, social service agencies, the world of arts and so on.

All of these sectors need the leaven of the Gospel - not to forget the very family and work environment in which a deacon already finds himself. In all of this, what counts is having a ‘diaconal heart’: Being someone radically conformed to the Heart of Christ, filled with the Word of God, being a man of the Church trying to give a real and effective witness to the Catholic Faith in contemporary culture. This is why a deacon is marked at ordination with an incredible character - so that he can share in a unique way in the grace and mission of Jesus Christ, the Servant of All.