#deacons

Israeli settlers are attacking the Christian community in Jerusalem including bishops and priests! The Christian community is literally fighting for their lives right now in the Armenian Quarter. Christians: more of you need to stand up with us against this violence! This has never been a Muslim issue. (28.12.2023)

Chancellery Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem

28 December, 2023

A MASSIVE AND COORDINATED PHYSICAL ATTACK WAS LAUNCED ON BISHOPS, PRIESTS, DEACONS, SEMINARIANS, AND OTHER ARMENIAN COMMUNITY MEMBERS IN JERUSALEM WITHINONE HOUR OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. SEVERAL PRIESTS, STUDENTS OF THE ARMENIAN THEOLOGICAL ACADEMY, AND INDIGENOUS ARMENIANS ARE SERIOUSLY INJURED.

Over 30 armed provocateurs in ski-masks with lethal and less-than-lethal weaponry including powerful nerve-agents that have incapacitated dozens of our clergy broke into the grounds of the Cow's Garden and began their vicious assault. We stress again, several priest, deacons and students of the Armenian Theological Academy along with indigenous Armenians are seriously injured. ARMENIAN CLERICS IN JERUSALEM ARE FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES AGAINST IMPUNE PROVOCATEURS.

This is the criminal response we have received for the submission of a lawsuit to the District Court of Jerusalem for the Cow's Garden, which was officially received by the Court less than 24 hours ago. This is how the Australian-Israeli businessman Danny Rothman (Rubinstein) and George Warwar (Hadad) react to legal procedures.

The Armenian Patriarchate's existential threat is now a physical reality. Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Seminarians, and indigenous Armenians are fighting for their very lives on the ground. We are calling on authorities around the world and the International Media to help us save the Armenian Quarter from a violent demise that is being locally supported by unnamed entities. We call upon the Israeli Government and Police to start an investigation against Danny Rothman (Rubinstein) and George Warwar (Hadad) for organizing their continuous criminal attacks on the Armenian Patriarchate and Community, attacks which seem to have no end in sight.

Israel is a State of law and order and such criminal behavior cannot be tolerated and go unpunished.

438 cars made their way through the drive-throught medical facility inside the Henry Ford Hospital parking garage during the three-hour polio vaccination event on June 24, 1962.

* * * *

“So you my brothers, were invited to sit at the freedom table. But even so, don’t use your freedom for any physical advantage. Instead, serve one another in a spirit of love. For the whole social code can be summed up in one sentence: Love your neighbor as yourself." 

Galatians 5, The Cotton Patch Gospel

What are we doing here? Where is this all going?

There are a lot of ways to answer that one. But most of them are just variations on the famous line from Charlotte’s Web, “We’re born, we live a little while, we die.”

That may be a common answer. But it’s not God’s answer.

God’s answer is very different. We see it in today’s Gospel, where Jesus explains the whole point of the Incarnation, the “why” behind Good Friday, as He is praying to God the Father – “That the love with which You loved Me may be in them and I in them.”

If that seems a little abstract (at least it does for me), St. Irenaeus of Lyons (today’s saint) gets to the point – “Jesus Christ, in His infinite love, has become what we are, in order that He may make us entirely what He is.”

That is God’s answer to the “where is this all going” question.

If you’re thinking “why haven’t I heard this before?” maybe that’s my fault. Because (as a deacon) I say a version of this at every Mass.

If you’ve ever noticed, there are some prayers that the priest says so softly that you can barely hear them. Why?

It’s not because they’re secrets or anything bad (you can look up the words in the Missal). It’s because in those moments, the priest is speaking directly with God, one to one. Given the intimacy of those moments, it’s just natural to speak softly.

As a deacon, I have one of those moments during Mass as well. Where I speak softly, because I’m speaking directly with God, one to one. It happens when I add the water to the wine.

And in that moment, the Church says to me – when you talk with God, remember God’s people. Lift them up to God. Ask God to bring to pass what Jesus is saying in today’s Gospel.

That’s why my quiet prayer – the quiet prayer of every deacon – is this, “By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled Himself to share in our humanity.”

That’s why I say God meets us where we are, but God loves us too much to leave us there.

Because that is where it’s all going.

Ada Hall: One of the First Female Deacons

The November 25, 1913, Free Methodist had a front-page tribute to the first women deacons. The 1911 Free Methodist General Conference took steps to finally allow women some form of ordination. Now, women could become ordained deacons at the annual conference level, but with the cavet that “this ordination of women shall not be considered a step towards ordination as an elder.”1 I’ll write about…

It is supposed to be a deacon, but if no deacon is present a priest is to do it. This is because the primary function of a deacon is to live the Gospel in an evangelical sense in assistance to the parish priest. So when a deacon is present they also say the part at the end of Mass, variable but usually something like, "Go in peace, serving the Lord by your life." The deacon is an intermediary between the hierarchy of the Church and the people that make up the Church. Hence, it is his duty to proclaim the Gospel to all people in a vocational way separate from that of laity or priests.

I'll also add this from the General Instruction: