I really liked the conversation about the permanent diaconate in this episode. In particular I liked JD's reference to Benedict XVI's quote about the deacon as the icon of Christ the Servant (I can also sympathize with the feeling of knowing what someone said, and who said, it, but being unable in the moment to identify exactly where). I…
I really liked the conversation about the permanent diaconate in this episode. In particular I liked JD's reference to Benedict XVI's quote about the deacon as the icon of Christ the Servant (I can also sympathize with the feeling of knowing what someone said, and who said, it, but being unable in the moment to identify exactly where). I had not come across that quote before, and I think it solves (or could help solve) a fundamental problem I have seen manifest in many contexts.
I think there is a tendency to compartmentalize aspects of our lives that flows from the high degree of specialization in our society. Everyone is aware of how many different areas of expertise there are. Everyone is also aware of how ignorant they themselves are when straying too far beyond "one's own lane(s)." And while the phrase, "The Christian faith should permeate and transform the entirety of the believer's life," will almost certainly receive universal agreement, I think it is worth contrasting that unifying notion with the dividing, specializing norm of our culture.
When I was younger, I criticized a manifestation of faith that looked like a tick box exercise. "I went to Mass on Sunday" looked to me like a compartmentalization of the Christian life to Sunday mornings, followed by a return to the regular schedule of life that all my non-believing neighbors share. But now I wonder if a truer way of looking at it would be that participating in the Sunday Mass is the clearest way many people have of participating in the Christian life, and bringing the Gospel into my daily life as a lay person is something easy to say but quite unclear in what, exactly, that means.
This is why I liked the suggestion of the permanent diaconate taking on work roles that resemble, in greater or lesser ways, that lay people work. The deacon becomes a concrete example of how to "bridge" the Sunday faith compartment and the rest-of-the-week ordinary compartment(s). And I think the value lies precisely in the clear distinction between the priest and the deacon. If the understanding of the Christian life is overidentified with the role(s) of the priest, and I am not called to the priesthood, then I have no concrete path to living the Christian life. (Or, worse, the priesthood itself becomes an obstacle to living the Christian life and requires radical reinterpretation). But if the deacon is clearly distinct from the priest, then there are multiple ways of living the Christian life; if there are multiple "schools" of the permanent diaconate, then there are multiple ways of living the Christian life even within one state of life; if (at least) one of the "schools" engages in work that looks more or less like work that more or less resembles my understanding of work beyond the "compartment" of Church life, then there is a clear(er) invitation to me to link my work/ordinary life to the Christian life in concrete ways.
I really liked the conversation about the permanent diaconate in this episode. In particular I liked JD's reference to Benedict XVI's quote about the deacon as the icon of Christ the Servant (I can also sympathize with the feeling of knowing what someone said, and who said, it, but being unable in the moment to identify exactly where). I had not come across that quote before, and I think it solves (or could help solve) a fundamental problem I have seen manifest in many contexts.
I think there is a tendency to compartmentalize aspects of our lives that flows from the high degree of specialization in our society. Everyone is aware of how many different areas of expertise there are. Everyone is also aware of how ignorant they themselves are when straying too far beyond "one's own lane(s)." And while the phrase, "The Christian faith should permeate and transform the entirety of the believer's life," will almost certainly receive universal agreement, I think it is worth contrasting that unifying notion with the dividing, specializing norm of our culture.
When I was younger, I criticized a manifestation of faith that looked like a tick box exercise. "I went to Mass on Sunday" looked to me like a compartmentalization of the Christian life to Sunday mornings, followed by a return to the regular schedule of life that all my non-believing neighbors share. But now I wonder if a truer way of looking at it would be that participating in the Sunday Mass is the clearest way many people have of participating in the Christian life, and bringing the Gospel into my daily life as a lay person is something easy to say but quite unclear in what, exactly, that means.
This is why I liked the suggestion of the permanent diaconate taking on work roles that resemble, in greater or lesser ways, that lay people work. The deacon becomes a concrete example of how to "bridge" the Sunday faith compartment and the rest-of-the-week ordinary compartment(s). And I think the value lies precisely in the clear distinction between the priest and the deacon. If the understanding of the Christian life is overidentified with the role(s) of the priest, and I am not called to the priesthood, then I have no concrete path to living the Christian life. (Or, worse, the priesthood itself becomes an obstacle to living the Christian life and requires radical reinterpretation). But if the deacon is clearly distinct from the priest, then there are multiple ways of living the Christian life; if there are multiple "schools" of the permanent diaconate, then there are multiple ways of living the Christian life even within one state of life; if (at least) one of the "schools" engages in work that looks more or less like work that more or less resembles my understanding of work beyond the "compartment" of Church life, then there is a clear(er) invitation to me to link my work/ordinary life to the Christian life in concrete ways.