Category: Ministry

Fr. Angelo D’Agostino, SJ, a doctor and missionary working in Kenya, visited our parish this weekend. He spoke about the orphanage he runs and how the AIDS epidemic will cause 40 million children to be orphaned in the next decade. The magnitude of this crisis is something the world has never seen. What can be done? Fr. D’Agostino asked first and foremost for our prayers. He was grateful for the generosity the parish showed the last time he visited, and greatly encouraged by the bill recently signed into law by President Bush.
You know what God might ask us when we get to Heaven?
“What about those orphans? What did you do for them?”
“They weren’t my kids,” someone might say.
“No, they were mine. What did you do?”

Please pray today for the newly-ordained Reverend Mister Augustine Minh-Hai Tran who is now a transitional Deacon for the Diocese of Arlington. I met him last Fall on the visit to Mt. Saint Mary’s College Seminary and was very pleased to share in this triumph for the Church. Another man has been raised to the office of Deacon to bring souls to Christ and Christ to souls. For the next year he will continue his formation and, God-willing, will be ordained a priest.

THE DEACON The deacon will help the bishop and his body of priests as a minister of the Word, of the altar, and of charity. As a minister of the altar, he will proclaim the Gospel, prepare the sacrifice, and give the Lord’s Body and Blood to the community of believers. It will also be his duty, at the bishop’s direction, to bring God’s word to believers and unbelievers alike, to preside over public prayer, to baptize, to assist at marriages and to bless them, to give Viaticum to the dying and to lead the rites of burial. Once he is consecrated by the laying on of hands that comes from the apostles and is bound more closely to the altar, he will perform works of charity in the name of the bishop and the pastor. By his own free choice he seeks to enter the order of deacon. It is a ministry which he will exercise in celibacy, which is a sign and an incentive of pastoral charity. Moved by a sincere love for Christ, he will make a new and special consecration of himself to Christ. By his life he will give witness that God must be loved above all else and that it is He whom he serves in others. cf. Rite for the Ordination of Deacons

I had the honor and pleasure of singing with the Diocesan Choir today for the Mass and Ordination. The Handbell Choir of the Cathedral of St. Thomas More played as well. They are the best handbell choir I’ve ever heard in Arlington, but the timbre of bell choirs, like flute choirs, is something I can only handle in small doses. I find the sound to cheechy and chongy – I’m sure outside of the choir loft they sounded glorious but sitting right in front of them made it unpleasantly penetrating and clangorous. After the Mass I was at the reception speaking with a friend of mine who is applying to be sponsored for the seminary by Arlington. He was dressed in black pants and a white shirt – the attire of a pre-theologian in the seminary. The Vocations Director of Arlington was walking by and greeted him.

“Getting ready for the seminary?” He asked.

“Yes, indeed!” He exclaimed. “I thought I would wear the team colors!”

Pew-sitter Kelly Clark notices how impatient we can be about receiving Holy Communion, but figures that catering to this impatience by adding Extraordinary Ministers doesn’t really help. Comments continue over at Dom’s.
My seminarian friend Bro. Matt tells a story: he went to a weekday Mass once and found that he and two ladies were the whole congregation. The two were apparently parish regulars used to serving as EMEs, so at the usual time they went forward to the sanctuary, ostensibly to assist Father. The two ladies gave the Sacrament to each other, and the priest gave Holy Communion to Matt. He says in that Mass he was the Extraordinary Recipient of the Eucharist.