From the Heart of the Shepherd

From the bulletin for The Sixth Sunday of Easter (2026 May 10)

So, Where to Now for These New PES Deacons?

It’s been a bit since we had deacons serving on Sundays at St. Mark’s. A closetful of dalmatics has lain fallow ever since May 29 of 2021, when Fr. Joe and I started wearing chasubles instead (five years already!). But all of a sudden, like the geese now flying back north, and the rabbits reappearing in the rectory yard, our parish has been redeaconized!

Hallelujah! One of the delights we have here at St. Mark’s is seeing our seminarian brothers grow and mature (in age and grace, rarely stature) before God and men as they rise through the clerical ranks of candidate, lector, acolyte, deacon, and finally priest. Having been one of those seminarian brothers, I can attest to how enriching it is to receive priestly formation while stationed at a parish, where pastoral opportunities abound and at which one can readily share and apply the riches of theology and spirituality (and leadership and liturgy!) that he is learning about. It’s also by far the best way to prepare for priestly ministry at this parish! (And as our many PES “graduates” of St. Mark’s would add, to prepare for ministry at other parishes too.)

When then-Deacon Joe Barron and myself were made deacons by the laying on of Bishop Cozzens’ hands in May of 2020, it was the height of COVID. My first “public” Mass was livestreamed from the Church with a live audience of about “10” persons. Fr. Joe’s was at our first (and only) parking lot Mass (who remembers?) later that morning. Suffice it to say that our first summer as deacons did not abound with ministerial opportunities. I had ample time to write my MAT thesis while we tried our hand at podcasting and youtubing and drafting ever-new parish hygienic protocols as the list of restrictions from on high waxed and waned over the course of the following year. 

Thankfully, Brothers Jose and Evan should have a much more ordinary deacon year. Or will they? 

The reason it was even possible for their ordination to be at St. Mark’s was because there were no deacon candidates in their seminary class from this Archdiocese. That is because their class coincided with the implementation of a new plan of priestly formation at the Seminary, according to the revised directives issued by the Vatican. Men from the Archdiocese who would have otherwise begun Pre-Theology with the brothers became members of the first propaedeutic class instead. But that wasn’t the only change to the program. More drastically, perhaps, the Vatican requires transitional deacons to spend 6 months of their deacon year in full-time ministry in their home diocese. To accommodate that requirement, the St. Paul Seminary has adjusted its curriculum so that men in their 4th year of theology can spend the whole of their deacon summer serving at a parish, and three months of the spring semester at home as well. 

What about our PES brothers? Until now, their “teaching parish” has been St. Mark’s. That will remain the case…when they are in town. But to better live the spirit of the plan of priestly formation, and to provide more and more varied ministerial opportunities (we only have so many baptisms, weddings, and burials for four clerics to preside over), they will also rotate between two other PES foundations in the US this summer and during “ministerial months” of the next academic year. Basically, starting this June, they will take turns being “the St. Mark’s deacon” while the other is exposed to the assuredly-less-delightful-but-better-be-exposed-to-it reality of other dioceses and parishes.   

Which is a long way of saying that it won’t be often that Fr. Patrick and I get to “dual wield” deacons at the Masses here, but it will be for sake of the ministerial enrichment of our brother deacons. And after priestly ordination in 2027… well, let’s pray that God will keep them close! And that He send us a new crop of PES brothers to take up the reigns as MCs of the Masses, serve around the parish, and grow before our eyes as we are so blessed to see them do. 

From the Heart of the Shepherd: The Fifth Sunday of Easter