Editor’s Note: The following is the third in a series of columns by Bishop Joseph A. Williams concerning “laborers for his harvest.”
“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few” (Mt 9:37–38).
In my previous columns, I tried to unpack these simultaneously hopeful and challenging words of our Lord. We found hope in them insofar as they reveal that the Master of the harvest is always at work preparing an abundant harvest of those eager to enter the Kingdom of God. Sadly, however, they also reveal that in our time – as in the time of Jesus – those eager to proclaim that Kingdom of God are “few.” I reflected on the urgent need to pray for more priestly laborers in South Jersey and to pray as well for more “Priscillas” and “Aquilas” – lay laborers – to accompany them in the harvest fields of our parishes.
Notwithstanding the relative scarcity of laborers in South Jersey, there are bright spots. I recently welcomed 14 deacon candidates to my residence and celebrated their Call to Major Orders within the context of Evening Prayer. Listening to their vocation stories and learning of their many natural and spiritual gifts that evening, I could only imagine how many women, men and young people they will draw into the Sacramental life of Christ through their diaconal service. This is good news for the Diocese of Camden!
Over the years, I have experienced first-hand how a diaconate vocation is indeed good news for the Church. As a young priest, I was assigned to a parish that was experiencing great turmoil. I struggled to navigate that turmoil while still providing green pastures for the sheep who were entrusted to my care, including celebrating four Masses on a Sunday in two different languages. After several months, I wrote to the archbishop to request priestly assistance to help bear such a load. You can imagine my surprise when I received a call from a deacon candidate by the name of Luis Rubi informing me that he had been assigned to the parish to help me. In my immediate confusion, I asked him if he were in the seminary! “No, I will be ordained a permanent deacon this fall,” he replied.
I tried my best during our phone conversation to mask my disappointment. (I am not sure how successful I was.) “But that won’t help me with the number of Sunday Masses,” I thought to myself. Of course, I accepted the will of the archbishop and discovered once again the wonder of God’s providence.
Deacon Rubi ended up being just what the doctor ordered for me and for the parish. He helped me to care for the rapidly growing Latino congregation, and he took special care of the altar servers, whom he diligently formed to serve the Mass with reverence and devotion. He was passionate about marriage and family and helped us to launch “Sagrada Familia,” an apostolate for the Latino families of south Minneapolis. He was always available to those families when they called him in distress, and he was for them truly an icon of Christ the Servant.
That is what we celebrate when God calls someone to the Order of Deacon. In the Catholic Church, a deacon serves “in persona Christi Servi” – in the person of Christ the Servant – meaning their ordained ministry is a sacramental expression of Christ’s own self-emptying and humble service to humanity. That is precisely what I have witnessed in the deacons I have encountered in South Jersey this past year. I have been deeply impressed with their zeal for the Gospel and servant-hearted disposition toward their pastors and the people of the parishes where they are assigned. I have especially noted their lively sense of missionary discipleship, particularly their boldness in inviting those who have left the practice of the faith back into relationship with Jesus and with His Church.
These deacons will have the great blessing of welcoming 15 brothers into their ranks on Oct. 4. Let us keep our deacons and these candidates in our prayers, and let us thank the Master of the harvest for an abundance of servant-laborers in the Diocese of Camden!
If You Go
Bishop Joseph Williams will celebrate the Ordination Mass for the Permanent Diaconate at 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 4 at Saint Agnes Church, Our Lady of Hope Parish, 701 Little Gloucester Road, Blackwood. The Mass will be livestreamed on all diocesan media platforms.
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