Volume IX Number 5/ Advent 2023 | |
|
Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown Deacon
receives Pennsylvania State Correctional Chaplain of the Year Award
| |
|
Each year the PPCA selects one state and one county chaplain for their Annual Chaplain of the year award.
On Wednesday, August 30, 2023, at the Annual PPCA Conference Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown Deacon Thomas McFee was chosen to receive the State of Pennsylvania Correctional Chaplain of the Year Award for his exceptional service at the SCI Huntingdon and SCI Somerset Facilities.
Congratulations Deacon McFee on this wonderful accomplishment.
| |
|
Community-Wide Parish Mission
"GOD'S Healing LOVE"
Fr. Greg Bramlage, Presenter
December 4, 5, 6, 2023
Begins each night at 6:30 PM
St. Benedict Parish, Johnstown
Academic Weekends
January 12-14, 2024
February 16-18, 2024
March 8-10, 2024
Antiochian Village Retreat Center
(Space Is limited, make your reservations early)
Annual Diaconate Retreat
"Holy Spirit and Holy Eucharist: The Divine Duet"
Fr. Bruce Nieli, Retreat Master
June 09-13, 2024
Antiochian Village Retreat Center
Diaconate Picnic
Sunday, August 11, 2024
Picnic begins at 1:00 PM
St. Michaels Church, St. Michael, PA
Rite of Lector
Saturday, September 21, 2024
5:00 PM
Cathedral of the Blessed Sacraments
| | |
|
Responsibilities and Expectations
of Active Permanent Deacons
(Not Senior Deacon Status)
| |
|
The National Directory for the Formation and Life of Permanent Deacons in the United States is the normative throughout the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (Preface 14).
From the USCCB:
What are these "various ministries" of the Deacon?
All ordained ministers in the Church are called to functions of Word, Sacrament, and Charity, but bishops, presbyters and deacons exercise these functions in various ways. As ministers of Word, deacons proclaim the Gospel, preach, and teach in the name of the Church. As ministers of Sacrament, deacons baptize, lead the faithful in prayer, witness marriages, and conduct wake and funeral services as ministers of Charity, deacons are leaders in identifying the needs of others, then marshaling the Church's resources to meet those needs. Deacons are also dedicated to eliminating the injustices or inequities that cause such needs. But no matter what specific functions a deacon performs, they flow from his sacramental identity. In other words, it is not only WHAT a deacon does, but WHO a deacon is, that is important. http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/vocations/diaconate Read more
| |
|
What Just Happened to Me, "Slain in the Spirit"
By Deacon John Roth, MD
In the summer of 2005, my mother and I traveled to Hurricane, West Virginia to attend a Healing service on behalf of my brother Tom, who at the time was suffering from ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. As I watched, person after person fell backwards into the hands of awaiting lay people and were gently laid on the floor.
Initially watching the service, as person after person fell backwards into the arms of awaiting lay people and were gently laid on the floor, I slowly made my way up the aisle and came to stand before Father Aniello, a Roman Catholic Priest, originally from Italy doing missionary work in Chinatown, Chicago.
Stopping him to explain the reason for being there, as the line behind me began extending further back through the church, before lying his hands upon my head, he said to me, “John, you worry too much.” Read more
| |
|
Why is Advent Important
Preparation for Christmas is an important theme for Advent, but more is involved. Advent gives us a vision of our lives as Christians and shows us the possibilities of life.
The vision of life that Advent gives us is twofold; it looks back to the first coming of Christ at Bethlehem, and it looks to the future when Christ will come again. In the interval between these two events, we find meaning for our life as a Christian.
First, we celebrate Christ-become-human. We view his life and experience his presence as a human being in our history. Christ came to show us what life can and should be. He gave us true and valid principles by which we can live true and valid lives. But Jesus knew that the human heart could not live in isolation. He formed the Church around the concept of a people held together by love. In that community we discover unlimited possibilities and meaning. Alone we can do nothing. Together we find real meaning.
When Christ left this earth, he did not abandon us. He remains with us in his Spirit, the Church, the sacraments, the Scriptures and each other. He lives in community with us. Read more
Ligouri Publications Excerpt from Advent-
A Quality Store cupboard the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer
| |
|
The Deacon as Servant Leader
By Father Deacon Daniel G. Dozier
| |
|
Much has been written about the important role of the Catholic deacon as a servant leader in the parish. But as we reflect on this 50th anniversary of the restoration of the permanent diaconate, we should ask: What does it mean to be a servant leader as a deacon?
What is a Servant Leader?
The term “servant leadership” was first coined by Robert Greenleaf, regarded as the founding father of the modern servant leadership movement. In 1970, Greenleaf penned an essay entitled “The Servant as Leader” on the authentic nature of leadership. In that essay he wrote, “The servant-leader is servant first. … It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.”
He then characterized the benefits this “servant-first” approach might make in the lives of those who were served, writing, “The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?”
Greenleaf’s essay expressed a perennial philosophy of leadership articulated by many great civil, social and religious leaders of the past. As Catholics, we might hear echoes of these principles in the words Jesus spoke to his apostles: “Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all” (Mk 10:43-44).
Given the way in which Robert Greenleaf sparked a modern servant-leadership movement by his characterization of the identity and impact of the servant leader, how do we see his insights applying to the ministry of the Catholic Deacon? Read more
| | | |
Immaculate Conception
From Catechism of the Catholic Church
Born of the Virgin Mary
487 What the Catholic faith believes about Mary is based on what it believes about Christ, and what it teaches about Mary illumines in turn its faith in Christ.
Mary's Predestination
488 "God sent forth his Son", but to prepare a body for him,125 he wanted the free co-operation of a creature. For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, "a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary":126
The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in the coming of death, so also should a woman contribute to the coming of life.127
Read more
| |
|
|
Office of the Permanent Diaconate
609 Park Avenue
Johnstown, PA 15902
(814) 361-2000
Deacon Michael L. Russo, Director
michael.russo@atlanticbb.net
Visit us online
| |
| | | |
