Dear René, how amazing God’s providence, how wonderful his ways.
How extraordinary you should be here, close to St Thomas More’s mulberry tree, in a seminary christened by the blood of many martyrs, come all the way from the Philippines, through so many places and no shortage of suffering, through many interior passages and long periods of formation; here to receive the laying on of hands and clasp the Book of the Gospels, here to be launched in due time like a rocket further north, a prophet to Grampian and the Highlands, there to meet souls of many nations, including your own. Pardon such a long sentence! But René, you are a long sentence and, thanks be to God, about to lengthen further!
The readings are your choice from the given selection, and well-chosen indeed.
What was true for Jeremiah is true for you:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! I am only a youth.” But the Lord said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’;
for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,
and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
declares the Lord.”
Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me,
“Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.”
That’s no bad way to summarise today’s liturgy.
An ordination to the transitional diaconate should not tempt us to think that diaconate is simply something to be got through as quickly as possible, before proceeding to the real work of the priesthood. That would be a mistake. The diaconate is not a preface or a list of acknowledgments to be skimmed. It’s a root, a beginning including everything that will come. “I have the responsibility of souls upon me till the day of my death” wrote St John Henry Newman when ordained to the Anglican diaconate. It’s the foundation of a future. After all, the Gospels you’re handed today are not for skim-reading but to carry you and your people through life into eternity. Today you begin to “preach Christ Jesus as Lord”. Today you embark on a lifetime of service. “Well done, good and faithful servant” is something we hope to hear at the end of many years, not just after six months.
I mentioned the mulberry tree. As a young man one day sitting under another tree and reflecting on his future, the late, great Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar “heard” the words: “you will not serve; you will be taken into service.” This is no small distinction. Hands are laid on you today, the hands of another, the hands in the end of the Lord. They are not flabby hands. The sevenfold grace of the Spirit is called down on you, not a feeble, one-cylinder Spirit. For many years now, René, you have put yourself into the Lord’s hands. Now you do so afresh and he receives this offering anew. Blessing his Father, he takes you up in a new way into his holy and venerable hands, seals you as still more his and sends you, in the communion of the Church, to share through you his charity, his chalice, his word.
Today, then, entering into ordained ministry, you are being “taken up into” service. Today an adventure begins of which you are less the master than you have ever been of anything. Today Christ’s Mystery takes fresh, radical hold of you. “Lead thou me on”. You will find yourself reminded of this often and God help you if you are not. “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake”. No New Testament writer grasped this more vividly than St Paul himself. None entered more deeply into the mystery of ministry. None highlighted more clearly its paschal character, the twofold experience of weakness and strength, of dying and rising or of wounds and healing that goes with it. Embrace this with a peaceful and patient heart and all will be well. No-one, as he travelled on and around the Mediterranean, was so aware as Paul of the other “strange divine sea” on which the Lord had cast him. There’s a lot of sea around our diocese. In storms and shipwrecks, keep close to 2 Corinthians, to the saints, to your fellow-clergy.
And so to the Gospel. Thank you for this too. As Catholics, we believe that the books of Scripture, as a whole and in their parts, are divinely inspired and “teach solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation” (Dei Verbum 11). But we recognise too levels and gradations. After all, the Old Testament is ordered to the New, and even there, says Dei Verbum again, “the Gospels have a special pre-eminence”. And among the Gospels, the Liturgy suggests a further pre-eminence, a highest mountain in the range, St John – allotted pride of place in the last weeks of Lent and all of Eastertide. And in John – flying another kite – are not chs. 13 to 17, the Last Discourse and Priestly Prayer, a further summit? And – this has been seriously proposed – are not these verses 9 to 15 of Ch. 15 the topmost pinnacles, the word’s sharpest, sweetest spear-thrust to the human heart?
Sure, deacons are servants, all of us are. But this is something further still: “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” The Holy Father said the other day that here lies the heart of divine revelation. René, from before you were born the Lord befriended you. He has also given you a gift for friendship; already you’ve plenty in our diocese. Today, he befriends you afresh, he puts this Gospel word of friendship in your mouth for others. Today, he makes you a servant of his friendship. May Jesus’ vast capacity for friendship, that flows from his pierced heart, always overwhelm you: “love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be”! By God’s grace and in the communion of the Church and the saints, may you “deacon” it to many!
René, all of us here, we know that you will. You certainly will!
Allen Hall Seminary, Monday 16 February 2026
