The Deacon

One of the most solemn and beautiful moments of the liturgical year occurs at the Easter Vigil when the Exsultet, or Easter Proclamation, is sung. Ideally it is chanted by a deacon, who implores the congregation to “invoke with me the mercy of God almighty … who has been pleased to number me, though unworthy, among the Levites.” Who exactly were the Levites? And why, historically, have the Church’s liturgical texts — not only the Exsultet but also various diaconal ordination rites used throughout the centuries — connected Catholic deacons with this group of men from the Old Testament? And of what relevance is it to the deacon’s identity and ministry that he has been “numbered among the Levites”?

As their name suggests, the Levites were descendants of the patriarch Levi, one of the twelve sons of Jacob (Gn 29:34). It was during the Exodus period that the men of this tribe were called by God to take on a ministerial role among the people of Israel because they had opposed (with violent zeal, truth be told) the Israelites who worshipped the golden calf fashioned by Aaron (Ex 32:25-29). Later, the books of Leviticus and Numbers describe the emergence of a three-level clerical hierarchy within the tribe of Levi: Aaron served as high priest and his sons as priests of a lower rank (Lv 8:1-13), while members of the tribe of Levi who were not directly descended from Aaron served, not as priests, but as clerics who assisted the priests in various ways (Nm 18:1-7).

These Levites — clerics of lower rank — assisted the priests in the offering of sacrifice, protected and helped to transport the tabernacle during Israel’s sojourn in the desert, and later, during the time of Solomon’s Temple, functioned as ministers of liturgical music (1 Chr 25), gatekeepers and Temple treasurers (1 Chr 26). In the book of Nehemiah, a group of Levites accompanies the priest Ezra as he reads the Torah to the people of Jerusalem (Neh 8:1-12). It is said that the Levites “explained the Law to the people,” which could mean either that they translated the Hebrew from which Ezra was reading into Aramaic (the common language of the people) or that they offered homiletic commentary on the Torah. Either way, this passage from Nehemiah makes it evident that the Levites played a key role in the proclamation and explanation of the word of God.

The Levite- Deacon Typology

With this Old Testament background in mind, it is not difficult to see how the threefold clerical hierarchy of high priest, priest and Levite foreshadowed the threefold hierarchy of bishop, priest and deacon in the early Church. Nor is it hard to understand why, at an early stage, the Church in her liturgical texts would begin to equate deacons with the ancient order of Levites. Indeed, many of the functions performed by the Levites of old — assisting priests at the altar of sacrifice, proclaiming the word of God to the assembly, acting as liturgical cantors, safeguarding the liturgical objects and financial resources of the Temple — would be assumed by deacons in the Church. The connection between Levites and deacons is a solid example of typology, in which the people and institutions of the Old Covenant foreshadow and find fulfillment in people and institutions of the New.

Deacon David Lopez, in a 2015 essay for the liturgical journal Antiphon, titled “Order of Levitical Blessing,” convincingly demonstrates that the Levite-deacon typology has always been at the core of the Church’s understanding of the diaconate and argues that a retrieval of this typology would greatly enrich our understanding of the permanent diaconate today. In this essay, Lopez sets forth an impressive array of liturgical texts from the fifth century to the present day to help make his case, all of which connect the identity and ministry of the deacon with the Levites of old. I cite a few of the most important texts here (and encourage the interested reader to seek out Lopez’s article).

In the sixth-century Leonine, or Verona, Sacramentary, the rite of ordination of a deacon includes the following: “O God, gracious bestower of sacred dignities, we beseech you that you would grant that these your servants, whom you deem worthy to call to the office of Levites, may rightly fulfill the ministry of the holy altar.”

A ninth-century text for diaconate ordinations likewise shows the connection between Levites and deacons: “O God, who have established the service of your temple in the choice of Levi; who have willed that the order of Levites be for the ministry of serving your name, bless, we beseech you, your servant, N., being joined unto the order of Levites. May he meditate day and night upon your law and teach it.” Here, the typological connection between Levites and deacons implies that, just as the descendants of Levi possessed the ministry of serving the Temple in Jerusalem, so, too, the deacon in the Church possesses a ministry of sacred liturgical service.

The Tridentine rite of diaconal ordination further underscores this point, while also offering additional support for the Levite-deacon typology. In the text for the homily for this rite, we read: “Most beloved sons, being promoted to the Levitical order, consider most carefully to what grade of the Church you are ascending. For it behooves the deacon to minister at the altar, to baptize and to preach. In the old Law, indeed, the tribe of Levi was chosen out of the twelve, who would serve with special devotion in the tabernacle of God and in the perpetual rite of his sacrifice.”

Lastly, the prayer of consecration in the current Rite of Ordination of Deacons also notes the Levitical connection: “As once you chose the sons of Levi to minister in the former tabernacle, so now you establish three ranks of ministers in their sacred offices to serve in your name.”

Why This Connection Is Significant

What, then, is the significance of the typological connection between Levites and deacons for the theology and ministry of the diaconate today? I would assert that this typology, which the Church has set forth in her liturgy for many centuries, implies that the liturgical and sacramental ministry of the deacon holds primacy of place among the various ministries that deacons carry out.

This assertion stands in tension with a widespread view of the contemporary diaconate that holds it is the deacon’s ministry of charity which distinguishes him within the three grades of holy orders. It also goes against the tendency, at least in some diaconal circles, to minimize the deacon’s liturgical/sacramental role in relation to his other ministries. However, the weight of the Church’s liturgical tradition is hard to ignore. If we accept the truth of the maxim lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of prayer is the law of belief), then the wealth of liturgical texts related to the ordination and ministry of deacons over the centuries bears witness to the profound importance of the deacon’s ministry at the altar.

To be clear, this is not meant in any way to denigrate the manifold expressions of the ministry of charity in the ministry of deacons. Rather, my point is that all the ministries that the deacon performs in service of his brothers and sisters must flow from and be empowered by his ministry at the altar of the Lord’s sacrifice. Indeed, this was the primary point that the Second Vatican Council made about the sacred liturgy for all Catholics in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: “The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows” (No. 10).

The deacon must draw his strength for apostolic and charitable activities from his ministry at the altar, and then bring the fruits of his ministry outside the sanctuary back to the altar as an offering to God. Nourished by communion with the Lord in the holy Eucharist (and by his liturgical role of preparing the Eucharistic sacrifice), the deacon is empowered to go forth and minister to God’s people. The deacon is then able to bring back to his next act of ministry at the altar all the needs and concerns of those to whom he ministers, most especially when he is privileged to elevate the chalice at the doxology. At the very moment when he holds aloft the vessel containing Our Lord’s Precious Blood, he can simultaneously lift up to God the Father the people and situations that form the matrix of his ministry in the world.

Because the liturgical ministry of the deacon is so significant, it is incumbent upon every deacon to know the liturgical rites well, to recognize their profound importance to his ministerial identity, and to play his role in the liturgy with competence, dignity and decorum. In doing so, the deacon will not only contribute to the edification of the people of God, but also effectively lay claim to his patrimony and live out his identity as a cleric who has been “numbered among the Levites.”

DEACON STEPHEN FAHRIG, S.T.D., is Associate Professor of Biblical Theology at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis and a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.