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Serra Club El Paso, Texas

 

 PRAY + INVITE + ENCOURAGE +AFFIRM

 

Serra for Priestly and Religious Vocations

 

 

Invite + Pray +  Encourage + Affirm                                        

Text Box:       New Members are always welcome!     Vocations Update one to mark you calendar with! 
Text Box:         Our Seminarian 
Allan Oluoch Alaka will have his Diaconate Ordination on Saturday 
December 15, 2012 
at 
St Matthews  
Catholic Parish 
at 10:00 AM 
Please Plan to attend if you can.   
Text Box: What is: “Diaconate Ordination? Seminarians preparing for priesthood have always been ordained to the    diaconate before ordination to priesthood.

Fr. Miguel Angle Sanchez,(left) Allan Olouch Alaka, Ivan Montelongo and  Carlos Coral

Three of our Seminarinas came to join us for lunch in June 2012 at the El Paso club.

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ORDINATION

Deacons: The title deacon comes from the Greek word diakonia meaning "servant." A deacon has a special attachment to the bishop in the tasks of service and is configured to Christ, the Deacon-or Servant-of all (d. CCC, nos. 1569-1570).

"There are two degrees of ministerial participation in the priesthood of Christ: the episcopacy and the presbyterate. The diaconate is intended to help and serve them" (CCC, no. 1554). The three degrees of the Sacrament of Holy Orders-bishop, priest, and deacon-are all conferred by ordination.

Deacons receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders from a bishop and are ordained not to the ministerial priesthood but to the ministry of service. Through ordination the deacon is conformed to Christ, who came to serve, not to be served. In the Latin Church, deacons may baptize, proclaim the Gospel, preach the homily, assist the bishop or priest in -the celebration of the Eucharist, assist at and bless marriages, and preside at funerals. They dedicate themselves to charitable endeavors, which was their ministerial role in New Testament times.

Whether they are involved in the Church's liturgical or pastoral life or in her social and charitable endeavors, deacons are "strengthened by the imposition of hands that has come down from the apostles. They would be more closely bound to the altar and their ministry would be made more fruitful through the sacramental grace of the diaconate" (AG, 16, no. 6).

Since the Second Vatican Council, the Latin Church has restored the diaconate as a permanent rank of the hierarchy. Now, diaconate as a permanent office may also be conferred on both married and unmarried men. The Eastern Churches have always retained it. Seminarians preparing for priesthood have always been ordained to the diaconate before ordination to priesthood.