ROCKFORD—“Even beyond the gift of the Holy Spirit that is lavished on you in baptism and confirmation,” Bishop David Malloy said, “you are going to receive a consecration as a bearer of God’s presence among His people, and into the world.”

In his homily at the Ordination of Deacons on Sept. 24, Bishop Malloy encouraged the 17 men before him to see beyond the ordination rite.

“We need to see through those gestures the gift you are going to receive that lasts forever,” he said, “the gift of the Holy Spirit for the Office of Deacon.”

The Cathedral of St. Peter was filled with friends and families of the 17 men called to the Sacred Order of Deacon and to service at parishes around the diocese. The men had completed two years of Ministry Formation, five years of diaconate formation and two rounds of scrutinies, all to help assure their call to the permanent diaconate and to equip them for the tasks ahead.

In his homily, Bishop Malloy referred to the second reading from the Acts of the Apostles, which records the beginning of the office of deacons. That account from Acts 6, 1-7, he said, “is the template, the guide, for your ministry.”

That ministry of deacons, the bishop said, “flows originally from a lack of unity among the believers … your service is, at its root, a service to unity. Just as those first deacons were to heal divisions, everything you do must keep in mind Christ’s desire that we be one.” He encouraged them to foster unity among the faithful and their pastors and bishop, with the Holy Father and “with the whole Church throughout the world and throughout time.”

Bishop Malloy said the “simple table service” entrusted to those first deacons “could be done without ordination, and, I say it, with great love …

“But the service you are called to is raised up to heaven … yours is a calling to a total service of self for the Church.”

In that account from Acts, he said, “there is a distinction between your service and that of the Apostles – that, we might say, (from that of) the priests and bishop.” He noted that the gift of their distinct calling has depth, even though the ministries of some of the first deacons “fade into the mists of history.”

That forgetting is, the bishop said, “not a bad thing. We should all hope that we, too, after a life of service … are not remembered by the world, but that (we) are heard before Christ’s throne.”

The service of two of those first deacons — Stephen and Philip — is recorded and remembered, however, and Bishop Malloy told the men before that the same Spirit given to that early martyr (Stephen) and to that great witness and miracle-worker (Philip) would soon be given to them.

“The imposition of hands, the gift of the Holy Spirit, joining even Stephen and Philip in living out your call to holiness, to unity in the Church — these are the reasons to lift up your eyes to heaven … the reasons that your life now must be a life of prayer for yourselves, for your family, for sinners, for the Church.”