18.09.2017
‘The Ministry of the Diaconate Must Become Something Porous in Your Life’ – Ordination of the Revd Sean Hanily
The Revd Sean Hanily was ordained to the Diaconate yesterday (Sunday September 17) in Christ Church Cathedral. Archbishop Michael Jackson presided at the service and encouraged the large congregation to pray for Sean as he begins his ministry in Rathfarnham Parish as Intern Deacon.
The address was given by Fr Marc Whelan, the Provincial of the Spiritan Order. He said the Gospel reading [Mark 10: 35–45] was appropriate for a Service of Ordination as it offered a salutary reflection on our own struggles with discipleship.
He suggested that James’ and John’s request to sit ‘one at your right and one at your left, in your glory’ was akin to asking for the best seats in Jesus’ house but was a ridiculous and ungrounded ambition. Jesus’ response – ‘You do not know what you are asking’ – was probably one that Sean had thought about long and hard has he journeyed through training and preparation for ministry, he added.
“I belong to a Catholic Community, Spiritan Missionaries – the Congregation of the Holy Spirit. Part of our traditional understanding of religious profession in the Congregation is that we gift our lives knowing that the future unfolding of this life is unknown to us and is not in our hands. And so, we try and live a life of grace. Because grace is the only way we can live our lives. For ordination, this is the same process. You are offering yourselves for ministry, service of the people of God, whether Christian or not, following the example of Christ,” he explained.
“So, while I do not expect, Sean, that you fully understand the question, nor, I suspect, does anyone of us here fully understand it, it is worth repeating: ‘Do you know what you are asking?’. Believing in your heart that God has called you to be deacon in the Church of Christ. Sean, we pray with you and for you. We pray in the words of the opening prayer that you will be given ‘the needful gifts of grace’,” he Fr Whelan said.
Fr Whelan said that James and John wanted to choose their relationship with Jesus rather than Jesus and life choosing them.
“For the ministry of diaconate that you have accepted today with all your heart is something that, despite its institutional aspect of being ordered to the building up of Christ’s church, must also become something porous in your life. It is a life made up of openings where contact and ministry to the poor and outcast – those people who Jesus delighted in dining with but who often find little place at our table – opens your heart and spirit to the spaciousness of God’s spirit alive and life–giving in your heart and in your ministry. Often times these openings are also the chinks that represent our own vulnerability and fragility. But as Leonard Cohen sings: through these cracks the light gets in,” he said.
You can read Fr Whelan’s address here.
