Annual Deacons Retreat Held

by The Rev. Patricia Lynes

The annual Deacons Retreat with Bishop vonRosenberg was a time of reflection, discernment and visioning. While our diocese and those in the larger Church continue to wrestle with defining the diaconate, it was refreshing and helpful to take time apart. We experienced a wealth of liturgical styles from many parts of the Anglican Communion. Time was taken to reflect with our bishop on the value and potential of the deacons as servants who represent an extension of his ministry in the world, to the sick, the friendless, the needy and those who are alone.

During breakfast, as we were keeping silence, the sermon of the Very Rev. James P. Dalton-Thompson, Rector of The Church of the Ascension, Rockville Centre, New York was read. It was preached at the ordination of Hailey McKeefry to the Sacred Order of Deacons. He presents the diaconate with a clarity and accuracy that humbles and affirms those who would serve as deacons in Christ’s Church. With his permission, the following excerpt is reprinted.

“We are, in effect, asking for the Holy Spirit to make of Hailey a kind of prism, through which the light of Christ, the Servant, is meant to be seen, and then, refracted through her ministry as that light is thrown in every direction. . .We need Hailey, the deacon. We need to be reminded in a very real, flesh-and-blood kind of way, that the Church is not about power, pomp, and preferment, but all about service. . .

“You are called to a life of joyful service, but of a joy threaded with loneliness. You are to love the people of God, yet not to put down roots among them. You will spend much time explaining your ministry, showing the parishes where you will be called to serve the primacy of servant ministry, yet you must do so without any trace of self-aggrandizement, and without succumbing to the lure of “playing priest”. Your life will be radically altered, now and forever.

“But my sister, you will be empowered. Empowered to be humble, empowered to serve, overshadowed by the wings and the wind of the Spirit. You will be empowered, because God has called you and brought you here. Look around you, Hailey: each one of us here, from bishop to childhood friend, is hungry for Christ. We look to see in you the Christ Who Serves; do not rest, dear Hailey, until you help us to find Christ the Servant in ourselves as well.”