Editor’s note: Archbishop George Niederauer of San Francisco presented the following homily May 16 in St. Ann Church on the occasion of the ordination to the diaconate of José Gregorio Rausseo Gómez and Manuel de Jusús Cerón Valdez.
Jesus Christ, in his Catholic Church, has called our friends, Manuel Cerón and José Rausseo, to be ordained to the Order of Deacon, and, with the completion of their studies and formation, to the Order of Presbyter or Priest, here in the Diocese of Salt Lake City. José and Manuel have learned how to be servants of God’s people, and this evening they will be ordained as servant by the laying on of hands.
In the first reading we heard that God chose the tribe of Levi and told Moses to make the Levites assistants to Aaron the priest. They were to be set aside and dedicated to God. In the second reading we hear about the early Christian Church, the first generation of Christians. Very soon after Pentecost human sinfulness created a tension between two factions that spoke different languages. It was a dispute over the fair sharing of food each day for the members of the community. The apostles imposed hands on the first seven deacons, setting them aside to serve the community and assist the apostles in practical and necessary ways.
As deacons, Manuel and José will assist the bishop and the priests: they will teach and proclaim the word of God; they will serve at the altar, ministering the Eucharistic Body and Blood of Christ; they will serve the most needy and the most vulnerable in the ministry of charity; they will also celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism and assist at the Sacrament of Matrimony.
José and Manuel chose the gospel reading for this Mass of Ordination, a beautiful passage from the Gospel of Saint John. At the Last Supper, Jesus is telling the apostles – and all of us Christians – about the call he gives to all of us to be his disciples and friends. Let us listen as Jesus tells us about the vocation we all share as Christians. Let us listen also for the meaning of the special call Jesus gives to Manuel and José, as deacons now, and later on as priests. We will hear how these two candidates, and all of us, are called and chosen.
We Christians are chosen for closeness with Jesus Christ: "As the Father loves me, so also I love you. Remain in my love." Just as the secret at the heart of the life of Jesus was his closeness to his Father, so the secret of our life must be our closeness to Christ. The word "remain" here means "dwell" – dwell in my love. It’s important for you to understand, that lifelong service in the priesthood demands, and gives, a special closeness to Jesus Christ. People need to be able to say about you, José and Manuel, what the servant girl said to Peter in the courtyard of the High Priest on Holy Thursday night: "Surely you are one of the companions of Jesus, because even your speech gives you away."
We are chosen for joy: "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete." The gospel you will proclaim Manuel and José, is good news, because we are sinners who have been redeemed. Authentic faith does not produce gloom and long faces. This is especially important for ministers of the gospel to realize. People were drawn to Jesus because he both challenged them and gave them hope. They found in Jesus Christ someone to believe in, something to hope for, and reasons to serve each other out of love. Your authentic and faithful ministry can help that continue to happen in the life of the Church in this time and place.
We are chosen for love: "This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you." Jesus commands only what he first fulfills himself, in giving himself for us on the Cross: "Greater love no one has, than to lay down his life for his friends." You will be called to lay down your life for the friends of Jesus day by day, year by year, all your lives long. You will find peace and strength and joy in realizing that Christ continues to give himself to you each day, in so many ways, so that you can continue to let him give himself to others through you.
We are chosen to be the friends of Jesus Christ: "I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know that the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father." Jesus Christ in his Church calls Manuel and José not just to acts and lives of service, but to a single-minded and single-hearted intimacy with himself for the sake of the kingdom. This evening these two men step forward to commit themselves to serve Christ in his church in the special way of celibate living and loving.
They will make this commitment, and live it out, in a place and time where many around them consider such a commitment to be foolish or weird to even unhealthy. Indeed, on Friday a motion picture will open nationwide, based on a book that claims Jesus himself could not have led such an "unhealthy" life. For the record, then, here are the words of Jesus Christ about this matter, from Chapter 19 of Saint Matthew’s Gospel: "Not all can accept this word, but only those to whom it is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it."
Jesus certainly teaches that this call to celibate loving and service is not given to most of his followers, but it is given to some of them. Jesus, who said "Love and serve one another as I have loved and served you," served us in this celibate way of life. The fruit we bear in ordained ministry is not children in a family but the life of faith in the family of faith. This commitment, then, is not a burden to be borne, but a gift, to be given and received.
We are chosen to be Christ’s co-workers, his partners in the work of salvation: "You know that the Master is doing." When each new deacon baptizes, he says "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." He says "I" even though it is Christ who baptizes in his church. That is how intimately Christ is one with the action of his minister. As priests, Manuel and José will say at Mass, "This is my body," "This is my blood," and in the confessional, "I absolve you from your sins." Christ is one with all Christians, and he is especially one with his ordained ministers.
We are chosen to be sent forth, to be apostles. As ordained ministers José and Manuel will preach and teach as Christ the Prophet; they will preside at Mass, minister the Sacraments, and lead prayer, as Christ the Priest; they will gather and lead the people of Christ the Shepherd. As such they are called to be patterns for the flock. The ordained are not better than the people they serve; they are merely special for them in service. Example will always be more powerful than any program; the most effective way to spread Christianity is to live, and to serve, as a Christian.]
Finally, José and Manuel are called and chosen to be men of prayer: "…the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name." If it is to be prayer "in Christ," our prayer must be unselfish, must be rooted in our faith and must say, in Christ, "Thy will be done." In Christian prayer we do not seek whatever we feel like; instead, we seek to know, and to be agents of the loving will of God. For our two new deacons, then, that means faithfully setting aside time each day with the Lord and with the prayer of the Church. Father Alan Jones, the Dean of Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco, likes to say that there are many ways to avoid taking one’s own life of prayer seriously enough, and one of the cleverest and most effective dodges is to go into full-time church work! So that’s a wise warning, but far more important for us this evening is the loving promise of Jesus to be with his church through all ages, his keeping of that promise, in part, through his call and choosing of these two brothers of ours, Manuel and José for service of his people in ordained ministry
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