Obedience
The candidate must or should
have a capacity for obedience.
be willing to promise obedience to the Archbishop and his successors.
be willing to take the Oath of Fidelity and make a profession of faith according to the
approved formula.
be willing to put himself in the hands of the bishop and those the bishop has chosen to
carry out the discernment and formation process.
have a natural inclination for service to the sacred hierarchy.
The deacon is ordained
to serve ... in hierarchical communion with the bishop and priests.
A genuine education in obedience, instead of stifling the gifts received with the grace of ordination, will ensure ecclesial authenticity in the apostolate.
However great or small my capacity for obedience may be would depend on who and what required or demanded my obedience. I have no doubt that if I felt that I was being called to ordination I would have no trouble with accepting the need to promise obedience to superiors in the hierarchy. Without that calling, it is no surprise to me that I could not promise such obedience; nor, in my present circumstances, can I imagine my conscience allowing me to take an Oath of Fidelity.
I may have some ‘natural inclination for service’ but it would be directed towards those in need of whatever I was capable of providing, not to the hierarchy.
Marian devotion
He must or should
have Marian devotion.
show a deep love and veneration for the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.
link profoundly, love for Christ and for His Church with love of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(Mother and selfless helper of her divine Son's diaconia).
express love of the Mother of God in daily recitation of the Rosary, imitation of her virtues
and trust in her.
Let Mary, handmaid of the Lord, be present on this journey and be invoked as mother and
auxiliatrix in the daily recitation of the Rosary.
I have had a long-running struggle with the tension that exists between the Catholic devotion to Mary and the perceived idolatrous worship of her as proclaimed by other Christian denominations when viewing Catholicism from outside. Based on my own experience of devout Catholics living in near poverty, and, through their trust in God, and their simple rural outlook on life, remaining for the most part unaware of that fact, I can understand the underlying reasons for their turning to Mary for most of the comfort they derive from their faith. But when watching such people it is easy to see why others believe that we worship her when we should be worshipping our Lord.
I appreciate Mary’s place in the Church, and I would in no way wish to be without her; indeed she is inseparable from it, and the Church would not exist without her; but always, always, I see her only pointing the way to Jesus: the way we should all be going.
I have never had any sense of her wanting me to stop before her as I follow her direction, and have no particular devotion to her because it is so clear that she does not want to become the object of my attention.
Once again the specified requirements for the deaconate rule me out.
