The Diaconate: Learning to Die to Self for My Husband’s Call
Almost five years ago, on a beautiful, warm summer evening, while watching our daughter play soccer, my husband turned to share some life-changing news with me. I remember it clear as day. He told me: “I’ve been quietly discerning the diaconate for the past 9 months.” It was not something I ever expected.
I listened while he described his discernment process. Regardless of how it may sound, he was not hiding anything from me. He was trying to discern with the Lord first to make sure it was a genuine movement of the Holy Spirit, not his own ego or imagination. He spent hours in front of the Blessed Sacrament running through every reason why he should not be a deacon. He didn’t think he should be one.
For months, he brought the impediments he saw to the Lord in His Real Presence. One by one they fell away, as the Lord removed each one. He sought spiritual direction and went on a retreat where he was able to discuss his discernment with the deacon who ran the retreat center.
Random people would walk up to him and tell him he should apply for the diaconate. By the time he came to me, he had run through what sounded like a spiritually healthy discernment process. He did what I would have done with any major call from the Lord. He knew I would support him if it was God’s will, so he took the time to prayerfully discern it before telling me on that summer evening. I trust his discernment just as he trusts mine because I know he is a man of prayer. In fact, this trust is necessary as spouses have to catch up with each other in discernment at times.
This is not a calling either one of us would have chosen on our own. We saw deacons serving at the altar in our parish. We had conversations with them at parish events. But it never dawned on either one of us that the Lord would possibly call my husband.
That was five years ago. A lot has happened since then, including learning to trust in God’s timing. We made it to the interview stage in 2022, but my husband was told to wait until 2025. We had to surrender to the Lord’s timing and process. Discernment is not always quick, and it can be confusing at times. It may take years for the Lord to remove boulders on the path. Once 2025 arrived, my husband was still sure of his calling to pursue the diaconate. We both take the stance that the Lord’s will matters most, and this appeared to be the Lord’s will.
The discernment of my husband’s vocation has not always been crystal clear for me, but the Lord has been teaching me greater trust in my husband. My own discernment process involves prayer with Sacred Scripture in front of the Blessed Sacrament. This has led me to Acts of the Apostles 6 and 7 on multiple occasions, as well as seeing the undeniable spiritual fruit and growth in my husband.
I asked the Lord in prayer to send someone my way who would mention that my husband should be a deacon. My prayer was answered a few months ago. A group was praying over me while I was battling vertigo last fall. An older gentleman I’ve known for years from daily Mass walked over while we were praying and said, out of nowhere, “Is he going to be a deacon?” That was my sign from the Lord.
Since then, I’ve been discerning more deeply, as we continued through the application process. The Lord started allowing difficulties in my ministry, and I felt the stress of separation more acutely while my husband remained at our parish of 10 years and I served on campus. For a year and a half, we rarely went to Mass together. He helped me on campus and attended events; nevertheless, the separation was felt.
It came to a head in January when I started to see the strain that the division was putting on our family. This was heightened by repeated family emergencies, weeks of vertigo, and homeschooling, on top of the demands of campus ministry. The Lord was starting to reveal to me that I had a choice to make.
I went through graduate theological studies when our daughter was little. It takes a ton of work, and the other parent must step in to cover study time, tests, etc. With the diaconate, there is the added requirements of monthly three-day trips to the chancery for classes and a yearly retreat. I started to realize that there is no way I could continue in campus ministry in this season of our lives. Our daughter has three years of high school left, and she needs me at home while my husband is in diaconate studies.
I love my college students. They are my spiritual children, but I knew that the Lord was asking me to die to self for the sake of my family and the calling He has placed in my husband’s heart. My husband did the same thing for me when he uprooted our family to move across the state so I could serve in ministry under a priest friend. My husband hates the beach, yet he moved us to a beach town because He knew it was the Lord’s will. We’ve happily returned to the mountains.
He supported me when I started campus ministry, and he continued to go to Mass by himself at our parish, despite the confusion it caused some people at the parish who did not understand the demands of my campus ministry position. He endured that on his own so that I could serve the students. It’s my turn to die to self for him.
It was not an easy decision, and the last few months were a mix of joys and sorrows. My last week of ministry was deeply challenging as I put everything in place for a future replacement. I learned to give what I could and entrust the rest to God. I attended graduation and said good-bye to one of my seniors. I told the others that they can call me anytime, and two of them have already come to hang out at my house multiple times. Still, my role in the program is over. I’m now “Momstance,” as they lovingly call me.
When a husband gets a call to the diaconate from the Lord, there is a stripping away for every member of the family. We have just begun that stripping-away process. My stepping back from ministry for the time being is only the beginning of a deeper call to die to self. We now have made it past interviews. All that’s left is the psychological and marriage battery, and my husband has never had psychiatric issues. After that, Lord willing, it appears he will begin aspirancy in August.
We live in a culture dominated by self-will. We are repeatedly told that it is our own wants, desires, and dreams that ultimately matter. This is not the Christian perspective, and it is poison in a marriage. We are called to seek the Lord’s face and His will for our families. Sometimes He asks one spouse to give up something good for the sake of the other. My husband and I have both had to die to self in big ways for the other. It’s not been easy for either one of us because the asks from the Lord have been huge at times.
We must wrestle like Jacob to submit, and we may walk away with an injury to remember it, but the struggle shapes us in new ways. I walked away with a pierced heart and a few tears as I said good-bye to a ministry I love, but the Lord also filled me with a deeper desire to fully serve my family during the coming years of diaconate formation.
The diaconate is a beautiful call to Holy Orders that impacts an entire family. It is not a calling of self-gratification or egotism. In fact, most men—as with the priesthood—never imagined being called forward. Most wives never thought about it until their husbands came to them seeking their consent.
While the wives do not prostrate on the cold, marble floor or promise obedience to the bishop, they do pick up the cross with their husbands during formation and on ordination day. The wives become like St. Simon of Cyrene since on their wedding day they could not foresee this path.
It is to be compelled into service at a level never previously known or understood for the sake of following Christ’s will. It requires both husband and wife to give everything to God together. I didn’t understand that fully back in 2022, but the Lord has made it abundantly clear now. My own service in ministry is not over. It is simply taking a new shape beside my husband.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
