Loading...Last weekend, God answered the prayers of many faithful members of the Diocese of Kentucky, past and present, through the ordinations of three vocational deacons, the first of five scheduled this spring and summer. Of course all deacons are called forth, recognized and ordained in answer to the prayers of many. But the three new deacons and the two candidates awaiting ordination are different.
They have answered the call to ordained ministry by way of the diocesan School of Ministry, itself an answer to many prayers over the years, and they are the first to become vocational deacons in the diocese in nearly six years.
Ordained on Saturday, April 17, at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Louisville were Mary Abrams, a member of St. James Church in Pewee Valley; Mary Jane Cherry, a member of St. Matthew’s Church in Louisville; and Ed Lane, a member of St. Peter’s Church in Louisville. Richard Paxton, a member of Grace Church in Paducah, will be ordained next month in Paducah, and Daniel Kuol, a member of the Sudanese congregation at Resurrection Church, will be ordained this summer after his return from the Sudan.
Deacons, of a sort, have always been around. On page 855 of the Book of Common Prayer the ministers of the Church are said to be: “lay persons, bishops, priests and deacons.” When the order of deacons was revived in the 20th century, not many Episcopalians knew what to do with it. Often they have been seen as “intern priests” who were practicing wearing vestments and setting out the elements for communion. They visited the sick and the elderly when the priest was too busy to do that. But the kind of deacon pictured in the Book of Common Prayer and the Book of Acts goes beyond those ministries, good as they are. Deacons, the catechism explains on page 856, are to “represent Christ and his Church, particularly as a servant to those in need, and to assist bishops and priests in the proclamation of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments.”
As some put it, a deacon represents Christ to the world and the world to the Church. They are to be a link between the needs of the world outside the Church and the Church’s answering bounty, encouraging ministers from all orders to recognize and respond to need in their communities. Some deacons who prize the role as link have found that to perform their chosen ministries they needed to become priests, too. Some deacons, however, choose to be “vocational” deacons, playing the role of link for their whole lives as ministers.
But whatever path they choose, deacons, as well as lay ministers, need training, especially in understanding Scripture, working with the ill and the homeless and collaborating with laity and clergy in ministry. To that end, thanks largely to the efforts of three vocational deacons, Rose Bogal-Allbritten, Delinda Buie and Eva Markham, the diocese in 2007 established the two-year diocesan School of Ministry to prepare its students for lay and diaconal ministries. The new vocational deacons became its first graduates in June 2009.
A perfect example of the way a deacon becomes a deacon is seen in the Rev. Ed Lane, who first came to Ft. Knox in 1970 
as a U.S. Army private taking basic training. He retired after a lifetime of service in the military in 1998 and in 2000 became involved with the Episcopal congregation of St. John’s at Ft. Knox, first as a lay reader and then as lay leader of the congregation. In 2006, under a license issued by the Bishop Suffragan for Federal Ministries, he became a licensed pastoral leader and soon he was called to take part in the first group of students at the diocese's School of Ministry.
“I love delivering the homilies,” Lane says. “I take the Gospel lesson of the day, teach some of the background behind it and give an example of how this piece of scripture applies to the life of an everyday soldier. I think I have some idea of what these troops are going through, and I am happy and very proud to be here to serve them.”
Happily stating that he’ll be at Fort Knox, “as long as I am able,” Lane says he thinks the military is a natural place for a deacon in a Church that “welcomes everyone.”
Mary Abrams learned at her parents’ knees to love the beauty of the Episcopal liturgy, its music and its lesson of God’s love for all Creation. Growing up at St. Francis in the Fields, Abrams learned from the Rev. Stephen Davenport about the importance and the implications of Incarnational faith.
As a member of the faculty of the Jefferson Community College, Dr. Abrams was able to influence the lives of many young people as they entered the brave new world of education beyond high school. Whether teaching or counseling the students who, in many cases, were the first in their families to risk college, Abrams represented Christ to many who were in need of encouragement or special help.
Long before her ordination, Abrams, in her functions at St. James Church, Pewee Valley, among other parishes, and on the Department of Justice and Jubilee, was also bringing the concerns of the students and others with whom she worked to the Church.
Now that she has been ordained, Abrams will continue much of the work she has been doing both in the parish and in the diocese. She will assume the role of deacon at Resurrection Church and will continue as the chair of Justice and Jubilee.
When she was hired to take charge of diocesan communications, Mary Jane Cherry told the committee interviewing her that she felt the position would be her ministry. Her duties as a part-time lecturer of women’s and gender studies at the University of Louisville also formed a type of ministry for her, but she was drawn more and more to work in her parish and work in the wider church.
Before becoming a deacon, Cherry served as an intern at St. Andrew’s Church, Louisville. The congregation at St. Andrew’s has been delighted to learn that she is coming back to that parish as deacon. Much more than a writer or teacher or editor, Cherry brings a palpable spirit of love and acceptance to her ministries.
Until last week’s ordinations, Bogal-Allbritten, the director of the school, was the last vocational deacon ordained in the diocese. A deacon serving at St. John’s Church in Murray, she will observe the sixth anniversary of her ordination on May 2, the same day Paxton is ordained as the diocese’s newest vocational deacon.
Paying homage to her diaconal service and her role in their formation, the ordinands requested that she preach at the service. She gave an excellent introduction to the ministry of deacons, perhaps surprising some in the congregation when she told them, “each and every person in this room is called to diakonia” by virtue of their baptismal vows.
As she described diaconal ministry, it begins with Holy Baptism. "From the moment that each of us entered into the Christian community, we were called to diakonia—to service. And if we need a reminder of this call, we get one every time we renew our Baptismal Covenant," which, she said, asks the faithful to reaffirm their belief in God and promise to continue the apostle's work of teaching, fellowship and prayer; resist evil and repent of sins; proclaim the Good News by word and deed; "to seek and serve Christ in all persons" and work for justice and peace.
“Ordaining three individuals as deacons does not lessen our responsibility,” she said. “... Deacons are not called to get everyone else off the hook by doing all the diaconal work of a congregation. Rather, they are called to equip people to get on with their own diaconal ministry." Noting what busy places churches can be, she said that it can be "easy" for the members and leaders of a congregation to focus "so much time and energy inwardly ... that the world outside our doors is forgotten." The deacon's responsibility, she said, is not only for "to remind the congregation about the world outside its door, but also to take the hands of those who are reluctant to engage this world and coax them—and in some cases, boot them—out the door.”
