The Deacon. Thomas Fargnoli

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СКАЧАТЬ coffee and, while warming up my cup, told us she was going over to her daughter’s house.

      After Dorothy left, Rick smiled at me. “Your wife is beautiful and so nice.”

      I acknowledged, “Yes, thank you, she is incredible. She is an answered prayer that saved my life. She actually tells me the same thing, so I guess we saved each other’s lives.”

      Rick smiled again. “I would like to hear more about that for sure, but for today, I would like to understand how you decided to become a deacon. I know that the diaconate formation takes five to six years, which probably deters many men. I have also heard that many deacons, priests, and other religious vocations, felt that they were ‘called’ into their ministry. Did you feel called?”

      On the surface, this was a fair and straightforward question, but I could feel myself starting to shake inside. Maybe Dorothy was right, maybe I should have turned down this interview. Maybe my wounds were not healed. After looking at Rick and gazing out the window for what seemed like a few minutes, I finally responded, “Sorry for the delay—I’ve learned to pause a little before answering questions. The pause allows me to take a deep breath and to say a brief prayer that the Holy Spirit will guide my response.”

      Surprisingly, Rick seemed to completely understand. “Can you share your prayer?” he asked.

      “It’s pretty simple really, something like, ‘Lord, fill me with your Spirit, help my response to be sincere and to be in accordance with your will. Amen.’”

      Rick smiled. His smile made me smile and, more importantly, I felt myself start to relax. Something about Rick made me feel that he understood my explanations and examples almost better than I did. He never looked critical. He conveyed a demeanor that seemed to say, “I understand what you are trying to say.” That is saying something because I had convinced myself that no one could possibly understand what I had been through.

      “Well, I have seriously entertained becoming a deacon at least two times during my adult life. I remember discussing it with Maryellen early in our marriage and then again after we were married for about 15 years.”

      “Maryellen was your first wife?”

      “Yes, we were married for forty years. We met in high school. We had an amazing life together with two beautiful children.”

      Rick could see a gentle smile come over me as I mentioned Maryellen. I knew I would be talking about her in more detail as the interview progressed, but for now, decided to stick with discussing my diaconate calls. “On both occasions, I remember having the desire to follow Christ more intimately than just by going to church, reading scripture, volunteering, and all that I was doing, but on both occasions, we decided it was not the right time for that commitment based on our current life raising children, establishing my career, going to school, teaching part-time, etc. etc.”

      Rick was nodding, “So you had the desire, you looked into it, but decided against it both times?”

      “Yes, there was just too much going on in our life, and all good things. We loved raising our children and we loved being a part of their activities, as well as working and enjoying our home—I even loved mowing the lawn. And my job was rather technical and, consequently, it took a lot of my time and occupied a lot of my mind.”

      Rick sensed that I was happy as I reminisced those days, “You sound like you enjoyed those days.”

      “I did; we did; we were truly blessed. But getting back to your question on whether I felt called to become a deacon, yes, I did feel called on those occasions but I also felt called to be the best husband I could be, the best father I could be, and the best engineer I could be. And I thank God I had the hunger to pursue all three and this is really the nature of calls isn’t it? We often hear the expressions, ‘She was called to be a teacher’ or ‘He missed his calling’—The crucial point is not so much whether we feel we were called to pursue a particular career or activity, but rather to acknowledge that God speaks to us. We are all called! The real questions concerning God’s calls are first, how do we hear God, and second, how do we heed his calls?”

      “You asked me if I was called to be a deacon. Yes! I was, but actually, my calling was more general—it was to follow Christ—to serve him. Of that, I have no doubt, but let’s be clear about what I mean by my calling. I emphasize my calling because God calls us all and he calls us in unique ways—in ways only we can understand. For some, such as St. Paul, God’s voice was rather loud and bold, knocking him off his horse and temporarily blinding him. But, for most of us, God’s voice is like the whisper of a friend. The Old Testament story of Elijah comes to my mind. The Lord told Elijah to go out and stand on the mountain and wait for him to pass by. As he waited, a strong and violent wind came, but the Lord was not in the wind; after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; after the earthquake, fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; after the fire, a light silent sound. That is the whisper that I am referring to. Sometimes, we set the stage for some grandiose call, but all we really have to do is still our mind and soul and to listen.

      “If you search the Bible for examples of being called, you will find at least fifteen instances. I did this because I wanted to understand what is meant by a calling. One of my favorites is from the Gospel of John, ‘It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.’ The essence of a call is essentially to be able to hear his voice—to be in a relationship with him and to be in a state in which we are receptive to his words.

      “In order to have a relationship with God, he has to be real to us—not some far-away entity. In this respect, we have to know him. He certainly knows us, right down to the number of hairs on our head—some of us less hair than others.”

      “I like the way you use scripture in an informal way,” Rick said. “I could see how patients would like that when you relate scripture to their experiences in a way they would understand. So many times, people throw scripture out there without any real context. I also noticed that you do the same thing with prayer, making up or building your own prayers.”

      “Well, I truly believe that we get to know God through prayer, as well as through scripture, through books, through meditation, by going to church, receiving the Sacraments, and many other ways—some ways are good for some but not good for others. There are many paths to the truth, but the driver behind any of these activities is to understand that God truly wants us to get to know him. Pope Francis put it nicely in one of his homilies. He said, ‘When the disciples were afraid, faced with difficulties and behind closed doors, not knowing how to go forward, they go to the Lord, they open their heart and the Spirit comes and gives them what they need to go forward. Prayer is what opens the door to the Spirit and gives one this freedom, this boldness, this courage of the Holy Spirit.’

      “Regardless of which path we choose, it will have its fair share of ups and downs. Our prayer life will go through phases, at times filled with many words and at other moments in complete silence. God knows this—he wants us to learn to trust that he is always near even when it may not seem so. By loving him, even in obscurity and darkness, our faith springs to life and our relationship with him becomes real. We will never know God up here (pointing to my head), we get to know him here, where he lives (pointing to my heart). Blaise Pascal, one of my favorite authors, argues that reason is fine, but the heart has its own reason—reason that the mind does not understand. I love that!”

      “How did you come across Blaise Pascal?”

      “When I was in high school or early in college, still living at home, my parents, for whatever reason, had a set of four Random House books called The World’s СКАЧАТЬ