Michael Dempsey CSSR

Mount Saint Alphonsus,

Sunday 8 October ( 27B )

Today Michael is being ordained a Deacon. I welcome your family and friends from Belfast and all your friends in Limerick, who have come to share this occasion with you. What we do here is something that has been happening in the Church from the beginning. The Apostles in Jerusalem laid their hands on the seven men who were chosen to be deacons and to carry out the Church’s duty to care for the poor.

Michael is being ordained to represent Christ who came not to be served but to serve. Christ came to give his whole life for us. He submitted himself to death in order to lead us to the glory God has prepared for us. We cannot be united to Christ unless we are united with his love for all his brothers and sisters.

So Michael is being ordained to be at the heart of that relationship which Christ has with all of humanity, especially with those he called ‘the least of my brothers and sisters’ – those who are in need through poverty or loneliness or rejection or prejudice or illness or weakness or failure. He is being ordained to be a sign of that love. But he is not meant to be a sign on his own. Love of neighbour, Pope Benedict told us in his first encyclical, is first of all the responsibility of each member of the Church and it is also a responsibility of the whole community of the Church. All of Christ’s followers are meant to give ourselves to others. So Michael will have the task not only of serving those most in need himself, but of encouraging and supporting the desire of every member of the community to obey Christ’s command to ‘love one another as I have loved you’ ( Jn 15:12 ).

Today’s readings talk about marriage. That might seem a little unsuitable on the day that you reaffirm your commitment to celibacy. But your offering of yourself today and the sacrament of marriage have this fundamental truth in common. Each in its own way is a sharing in the self-giving love of Christ. Pope Benedict pointed out that before Christ marriage was seen as a sacred reality because husband and wife stood together before God. Now it means being united to God in a much deeper way “through sharing in Jesus’ self-gift, sharing in his body and blood”. In the Eucharist, we receive his Body and Blood and so we become ‘bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh’; we are ‘no longer two but one flesh’.

The unity of husband and wife, St Paul tells us is a great sign of the unity of Christ with his Church ( Eph 5:32 ). Husbands and wives are to love one another as Christ loves his Church and sacrifices himself for it; they are to become servants of one another and their love for each other should spread to their family and to all the community.

As a deacon, Michael, you will work to build up the Body of Christ, by imitating his love, by preaching his word, proclaiming his Gospel, and by offering his Body and Blood to his people in Holy Communion. In all of these ways you will call and challenge and lead people, assuring them of God’s mercy and uniting them more closely to Christ and in Christ. Through your ministry you will inspire and teach and assist them in become one flesh, one body in him.

When you give them the Holy Eucharist, you are reminding them of their calling. St Augustine tells us that when the deacon or priest says ‘the Body of Christ’ and the person answers ‘Amen, they are saying yes not only to the fact that what they are receiving is the Body of Christ but to the fact that they, that all of us, are the Body of Christ.

You will give his Body to others; you will serve the members of his Body, especially the least of his brothers and sisters. All of these things are fundamental to building up the Body of Christ and all of them have a particular importance today.

Today’s world is one in which people often feel disheartened; it can be a lonely world for a person who believes. That is not how things should be. The theme of the Pope’s recent visit to his native region was ‘The believer is never alone’.

One of the reasons for feeling that we are on our own is that we and our community don’t fully live what we believe. If we were aware of what happens when we receive Christ in the Eucharist, if we saw the Mass as the centre of our lives, surely we would talk about it to one another. If we were really conscious in our dealings with one another that we are all part of the one Body of Christ, how would we react to those who are poor or marginalised or in trouble? “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’ ( I Cor 12:21 ). None of us can say to any other member of Christ’s Body, ‘I have no need of you’. If we really lived like people who believe that the whole meaning of our lives is to move towards the glory in which our unity with one another will blossom and flourish for ever, how could we fell alone or allow others to feel alone?

The ceremony of ordination will tell you, Michael, that you are to believe the Gospel you proclaim, you are to teach what you believe and to practice what you teach It is quite a challenge!

The most important help and strength for you in your ministry will be your trust in the God who calls you. Jesus tells us in the Gospel that we must be like little children. In other words we are to trust in him and in the gentle power of his love. We Christians are, first and foremost, people who have come to believe in the love of God for us.

And like every Christian, you will draw strength from the knowledge that you are not alone in your faith and in your ministry. In all the different parts that we play in the life of Christ’s Body – as ordained ministers, married people, young and old, poor and affluent – we all need the support of one another. Your family and friends among whom you learned to believe and live the Gospel will continue to be with you with their prayer and their love. The people who are here today, the friends you have made in Limerick, are praying with you and for you and I hope will continue to do so; the people to whom you minister will support you by their prayers and friendship and by sharing their gifts with you. In all of this you will be sustained by the love of God revealed to us in Christ, who came to serve and who is not ashamed to call all of us his brothers and sisters.

Deus Caritas Est, 20.

Deus Caritas Est, 13.

VATICAN II, Decree on the Laity, Apostolicam Actuostitatem, 11.

AUGUSTINE, Sermon 272.

Deus Caritas Est, 1.