Witnesses of Fidelity
Deacons play a special role in the new evangelization of marriage
Dr. Roland Millare Comments Off on Witnesses of Fidelity
On Oct. 2, 1974, Pope St. Paul VI said that the world “listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (Address to the Members of the Council for the Laity).
Deacons are called to serve as evangelists and teachers of married couples and families. Most deacons share the good news about marriage and the family by their witness. Whether a deacon is married or celibate, he can offer an exemplary witness of diakonia and the significance of the call to the married vocation.
Pope Benedict XVI highlighted the essential link between marriage and the new evangelization in a homily he gave Oct. 7, 2012:
Matrimony is a Gospel in itself, a Good News for the world of today, especially the dechristianized world. The union of a man and a woman, their becoming “one flesh” in charity, in fruitful and indissoluble love, is a sign that speaks of God with a force and an eloquence which in our days has become greater because unfortunately, for various reasons, marriage, in precisely the oldest regions evangelized, is going through a profound crisis. And it is not by chance. Marriage is linked to faith, but not in a general way. Marriage, as a union of faithful and indissoluble love, is based upon the grace that comes from the Triune God, who in Christ loved us with a faithful love, even to the Cross. … There is a clear link between the crisis in faith and the crisis in marriage. And, as the Church has said and witnessed for a long time now, marriage is called to be not only an object but a subject of the new evangelization.
Benedict XVI directs our attention to the inseparable link between the “crisis in faith” and the “crisis in marriage.” When marriage ceases to be an icon in the experiences of most people, then God’s love easily becomes eclipsed. Hence marriage is the “subject of the new evangelization.”
‘A sign that speaks of God’
Marriage, like the diaconate, is an icon. The deacon is called to be an icon of Jesus Christ the Servant. Married couples are entrusted with the vocation to be icons of the generous love of the persons of the Trinity and the love that Jesus Christ has for the Church. As Benedict XVI says, a married couple via “their becoming ‘one flesh’ in charity, in fruitful and indissoluble love is a sign that speaks of God.”
Married couples need the gift of other couples who will lead them and encourage them in the journey to be a domestic church in the midst of a culture going through a crisis of faith. For this reason, the St. John Paul II Foundation developed its Together in Holiness Formation series. A group of couples gathers once a month for a meal, fellowship, a short video and a practical discussion about the vocation of marriage and the family. This is an example of a concrete tool that deacons can use with the married couples they serve. It can also be used fruitfully by a married deacon and his wife who need that gift of encouragement in their own marriage vocation.
The National Directory for the Formation, Ministry and Life of Permanent Deacons in the United States exhorts the deacon and wife to become a “living example of fidelity and indissolubility in Christian marriage before a world which is in dire need of such signs” (No. 63 ). If we desire to teach the Gospel of the family effectively, we must first become exemplary witnesses within our own marriage vocations. We must use all the tools at our disposal to help marriage become an effective subject of the new evangelization.
DR. ROLAND MILLARE serves as the Vice President of Curriculum and Director of Clergy Initiatives for the St. John Paul II Foundation of Houston, Texas, which offers ongoing formation for deacons, deacon candidates, seminarians and priests.
