Farewell to our Transitional Deacon

I leave today to go to a retreat for then seminarians, then a family reunion, my grandparents are celebrating their 60th anniversary. Then preparing to go back to school. Then I cook for 400 new guys in the seminary for a week because I'm in charge of food for orientation.


I'll be busier when I leave. 

I would like to say thank you for a great summer. I've had a lot of great experiences here. Four baptisms, three wakes, helping with funerals and lot and lots of preaching which I think you can tell I enjoy.

Thank you,

Deacon Matt Capadano

Because 12 Ain't Enough

We're getting another deacon. On Friday seminarian Matt Capadano will be ordained a transitional deacon and will join us in June, living with Fr. Vogel. In the fall he will return to Mount St. Mary Seminary in Maryland before, God willing, being ordained a priest next summer.

Matt says he is "excited" to spend the summer with us serving as clergy in a "hopefully forgiving parish." He doesn't know quite what Fr. Damian and Dcn. Lauber have planned for him or what to expect, but he is approaching the summer with an open heart and mind.

Before he even knew he was spending the summer with us, he asked Dcn John Norman to vest him at the ordination Mass. Then Dcn. Capadano will be the Deacon of the Altar at then Fr. Norman's First Mass on June 2nd. So we shall get a preview of him before he joins us for the summer.

This means that, for the summer, Deacon Graef won't be our most recently ordained deacon and Deacon Krueger won't be our youngest.

Please do welcome Deacon Capadano when he joins us this summer.

Deacon Dave Graef

Yesterday morning Deacon Dave Graef was one of nine men who were ordained deacons by Archbishop George Lucas in the cathedral. This morning was his first Mass as a deacon.

Congratulations!

Mastered by the Master

This year Deacon John Zurek and his wife Connie celebrated ten years since he was ordained a deacon and began serving us at St. Columbkille. He passed away last night. His wake service will be Friday at 7 pm and the funeral will be Saturday, January 5th at 10:00 am.

Here is an excerpt from his homily on Sunday, November 14, 2010 which was the 33rd week in Ordinary Time:

Nothing great is ever accomplished without prayer [and] persistence because in order to be successful our dreams must translate into work. The people who succeed in life are the people who are willing to do what they don't feel like doing. They are not mastered by their moods, they are mastered by the Master. And they establish their goals and plans according to God's will.

We know all things will come to an end. It is part of our very nature of the universe and our place in it. Seasons come and seasons go. Children are born and the elderly pass away. Mornings happens and evening falls. Its all part of the normal process of life and death. If we were called (and we have no guarantee that we won't be called today) could we dare to face our judgement?

Today we have heard Him speak to us. He has reminded us that our end is coming. That we should prepare our spiritual life and get it in order. We all need Him. Our eternal future depends on whether we listen to His call today, tomorrow may be too late.

We are all responsible for some part of life on this planet, for good or for evil. And we all know there is only so much time to accomplish all of this. Each of us is part of that experience of Life and Death around us... Today's Gospel is a great reminder that God's timing is perfect and ours is not...

So my friends, join me today as we all lift up our hearts to the Lord and entrust everything, all times and all seasons, into His loving care.

Amen and may God bless.

Deacon John Norman

Yesterday morning, as things get ready to go in St. Peter's, one of our own parishioners, John Norman, was among the deacon-candidates enter into a prayerful state. Yesterday John was ordained a deacon in Rome where he has been in seminary at the North American Pontifical College.

Wednesday night John and his family were at a vigil where the entire college is asked for the special intercession of Mary, the Mother of God, to speak to her Son on the behalf of the deacon candidates for their lives to be filled with all of the graces they will need to serve the Church and Her people.

 Thursday morning it was time to get ready.

 

During the ordination Mass, the candidates lie prostrate on the floor as the Litany of Saints is sung asking for the intercession of those saints for the men about to be ordained.

 Above are the stoles and dalmatics waiting

 to be worm by the new deacons.

 Above is one of the first pictures of the

 newly ordained Deacon John Norman.

The nearly three-hour ceremony at the St. Peter Basilica’s Altar of the Chair was presided over by Archbishop John F. Myers of Newark. The ordinations coincided with the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, who was ordained deacon but never a priest. Here is a picture of the 33 newly ordained deacons.

Congratulations John!