Praise be to Jesus and Mary.
Today's first reading is taken from the Acts of the Apostles and it presents us with the first real internal strife, real internal difficulty in the history of the Church actually.
In the beginning, the Church was made up of almost exclusively Jews and there were two types. There were the Jerusalem and Palestinian Jews who spoke Aramaic, who used Hebrew in the Bible and their synagogues, and there were also the Hellenistic Jews, so those who had been born and who had lived outside of Palestine. They spoke Greek. They were more foreign in their culture.
They used Greek translations of the scriptures in their services as well. A problem arose between these two groups and it was a very concrete one. The widows of the Hellenistic Jews were being overlooked or neglected in the daily distribution of food and alms. One of the reasons that the Lord is called a defender of widows in Psalm 68 verse 5 is because widows were among the most vulnerable people in ancient society. It was easy to neglect them because they didn't have much of a voice, even more so if they would have been foreigners too. So the problem is brought to the Apostles. Notice their response. They say, it's not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables. Therefore, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom whom we may appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. That's Acts 6 verses 3 and 4. So what's the priority of the Apostles?
It's prayer and preaching. Those two ministries have the primacy. They've got first place. Also attached to that is, of course, the ministry of governing because it's clear in the book of Acts that the Apostles are the ones whom God has placed to be the visible guides of his church.
Dondolindo Rotolo in his commentary points out that in the Greek text of this reading, the prayer which the Apostles mention isn't any old type of prayer. It's referring specifically to their public prayer, the church. So liturgical prayer, which accompanied the Eucharistic sacrifice. So what are the priorities of a bishop? Well, governance for one, again, but also prayer and preaching.
Preaching and prayer. Catechism at number 888 says, bishops with priests as their co-workers have as their first task to preach the gospel of God to all men in keeping with the Lord's command. And then at number 893 it says, bishops and priests sanctify the church by their prayer and work, by their ministry of the word and of the sacraments. So the priorities of the Apostles in the book of Acts, those are, or at least they should be, the same priorities of the bishops today and of the priests who are their assistants. The Apostles then in today's first reading in Acts chapter 6 wisely have the community choose the men whom they deem as qualified to help distributing alms, but the choice itself is ratified by the Apostles. So seven men were chosen and brought before the Apostles and it says, quote, the Apostles prayed and laid their hands upon them. Acts 6 verse 6.
So what does that mean? It means that the Apostles consecrated them and commissioned them. Laying on of hands symbolizes a transfer of power essentially. It's what Moses did to Joshua when he transferred his authority to him. We see that in Deuteronomy 34.9. The laying on of hands was also used in the Old Testament in the sacrificial rites. We see that in the book of Exodus, also the book of Leviticus too. It was also used as part of the ordination of the Levites. We read that in Numbers 8 verse 10.
Plus in the book of Acts, the laying on of hands also means imparting the Holy Spirit to someone.
So Saint Luke in this episode is presenting to us the institution of the diaconate in the church.
A couple of ways we know that is one, for example, is description of the ministry. Saint Luke uses the word diakonia in verse 2, which is a Greek word. It means service or ministry. It's where we get our word deacon from. So deacon, diakonia. Also liturgically speaking, December 26 we celebrate the feast of Saint Stephen. He's what? First deacon, first martyr and deacon of the church.
June 6, also we celebrate the feast of Saint Philip the deacon, both of whom are mentioned here and both of whom are spoken of subsequently in the book of Acts. Saint Paul even refers to the ministry of the deacons at the beginning of his letter to the Philippians, Philippians 1.1. He also speaks of the service of the deacons in 1 Timothy 3 verses 8 through 13. And St. Ignatius of Antioch, who was martyred around the year 107 or 108 AD, provides the earliest explicit list of the three traditional clerical orders of bishop, priest, and deacon in the church. He explicitly talks about that in his letters. They mirror essentially the Old Testament priestly hierarchy of high priest, of priests, and of Levites too. So ordained ministry and priesthood are not completely abolished by the new covenant. Christ, the one high priest, the priest according to the order of Melchizedek, he continues to share his work and his priesthood with his ordained ministers today with the clerics of the church. This is another example of how we always have to read and understand the Bible, in this case the book of Acts. We always have to read it in light of the church, otherwise you lose so much. You lose a lot of things. You lose a lot of things that our Lord doesn't want you to lose. A Bible alone approach to Christianity just leads to a shared confusion more than a shared communion. God wants a shared communion of believers, not a shared confusion.
That's enough of that already, right? As a side note of the seven deacons here mentioned we know of Saint Stephen and Saint Philip. Not much is known about the others that are mentioned.
The last deacon, Nicholas, whom Saint Luke calls a proselyte of Antioch, he's a bit of a curious figure. The fact that Nicholas was a convert means that he had, again a proselyte means he was a convert. He was a non-Jew who converted to Judaism. There was actually a heretical Christian sect which Jesus refers to in the book of Revelation called the Nicolations. Our Lord in Revelation 2 6 commends the church of Ephesus for, quote, hating the works of the Nicolations, and he admonishes the church of Pergamum because some of the believers there, he says, hold to the teachings of the Nicolations, Revelation 2 verse 15, and he tells them to repent because of that. It seems that the Nicolations took their name from the deacon Nicholas, that they embraced eating food, sacrifice to idols, and also sexual immorality too, so it was a libertine form of Christianity.
Whether or not Nicholas was responsible for promoting their errors is a question of debate.
Some of the church fathers say yes, he was. Some of them say no, he wasn't. Don Delindo says, well, no, on judgment day. It's probably more accurate with that, right? It wouldn't surprise me or scandalize me if Nicholas did go off the tracks. Historically, all heresies in the church come from the clergy, all of them actually, so if the deacon Nicholas is included in that, again, it shouldn't be much of a surprise, would sadden us, but shouldn't be too surprising. Regarding the diaconate itself, the apostles may have had a narrower understanding of the ministry of the deacons when they first instituted it, but keep in mind that in the book of Acts, who's the principal protagonist of the book of Acts? It's the Holy Spirit. It's actually called, the book of Acts is called the Gospel of the Holy Spirit, so once the apostles consecrated the seven, the Holy Spirit began to work very powerfully in them. Their service wasn't limited to just financial assistance and distributing alms. It also included powerful ministries of preaching, teaching, healing, assisting with the celebration of the sacraments, as we see in the accounts of Saint Stephen and Saint Philip, too. Saint Philip is even referred to in Acts 21-8. He's even called an evangelist, Philip the evangelist there. So essentially, what we're seeing in the book of Acts is the beginning of the formation of the body of Christ with the Holy Spirit guiding the whole messy process. The Holy Spirit's guiding it, even though it's messy. It's messy because there's fallen humanity involved, right? But God knows how to work with messes. He knows how to work with fallen humanity. He often turns those messes into ministries, as we see even in today's reading.
So if we look at the ministries mentioned and presented in today's first reading, the ministry of governance and a prayer of preaching, that which is of the apostles, the ministry of the diakonia, which is the service of the tables, the almsgiving, distributing of communion as well, the deacons add to that, the ministries of healing, working of miracles, which the book of Acts speaks of. If you think about all those ministries, what are they? They're all forms of service, actually, each and every one of them, right?
The kingdom of God is a kingdom of service. Anyone who thinks that being a bishop or being a priest or being a deacon in the church is really about having a position of power, they really don't probably have much of a clue about what Catholicism is, to be honest with you.
Authority in the church is given for service, not for power plays. There are powers, of course, attributed, attached to the authority of a bishop and a priest and a deacon, yes, but it's not about that really. Authority in the church is meant for service. It's meant for becoming a servant. If you don't want to be a servant, don't try to get ordained to anything, please. Please don't, just make a mess. Are all the ministries in the church necessary? Yes.
Are they all equal? No, they're not. Prayer, so the liturgy, the sacraments, preaching, and governance, these take precedence, but whether you exercise these or not, it's the virtue of a life of service, which actually makes the prayer and the preaching and the governance, it actually makes those things credible in the eyes of others. Love for others is what makes our witness credible. Jesus himself said that, right? He said, by this will all men know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. John 13.35. I often think of our Lord's words and apply them even to our times, too. When he speaks about the end times, he says in Matthew 24.12, he says, because of wickedness, many people's love will grow cold, he says. Through prayer and the sacraments, through the sharing of the gospel, and through humble service, the love of Christ will stay alive and it'll stay warm in our hearts, which is very, very important.
Lastly, we mentioned how the priority of the apostles was evangelization and how Saint Philip, one of the first deacons, was called an evangelist in the book of Acts. Last thing we'll mention for today is the need for us to constantly evangelize one very important person, not necessarily your spouse or your best friend. Now, the very, very important person is the one that you see in the mirror every day, something we've talked about a bit recently. You have to share the gospel with yourself, not just with other people. What do we mean by that? It means you have to take the good news of the gospel to heart. How do we get things into our heart? Often I think that's by repeating things to ourselves, telling ourselves certain things, right? People may say things to me or about me, but it's really what I internalize, meaning what I tell myself. That's really how something sinks into my heart, essentially. So one of the ways I can get the love of God in my heart is by telling myself the truth. Evangelize yourself every day. Tell yourself often, Jesus loves me.
Heavenly Father loves me. Our Lady loves me. God is with me. It might sound silly, it might sound kind of stupid, but very important to do that. Tell yourself the truth. Jesus says in John 8 32, the truth is what sets you free. So if I'm telling myself the truth from God's perspective, if I'm telling myself that often enough, that'll help set me free. It'll help the love of God move from floating around somewhere in my head sometimes to actually sinking deep into my heart, and that'll help me be a true witness, a true evangelist, a true servant of Jesus Christ, like the first deacons of the church were. So let's thank our Lord today for the gift of the different ministries and the different ministers that he's given to his church.
Let's not be excessively scandalized by the heresies of the clergy, which are as old as Judas and maybe even as old as Nicholas too. Certainly we can pray and we should pray for the heretics of our day, but we shouldn't let them ruin our spiritual walk at the same time. But most especially today, let's ask our Lady for the grace to take to heart the gospel message that Jesus loves me, that she loves me, that the Heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit, they love me, and they love you too. I've been giving as a penance to some people that they take their rosary and pray, each Hail Mary, be they say to themselves, Jesus loves me.
That might be a good assignment for all of us today. Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.