Photos: Ordination of Transitional Deacon Caleb Kosch

At his May 29 ordination to the transitional diaconate, seminarian Caleb Kosch accepted a call to love and serve others as Jesus would love and serve them and to proclaim the Gospel – staking his whole life on it and being willing to suffer for it. 

Archbishop Michael G. McGovern reflected on the role of a deacon during his homily at the ordination Mass, held at St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha. Hundreds of people filled the cathedral for the evening ordination rite. The transitional diaconate is a major step toward becoming a priest.

The archbishop addressed Kosch – of St. Anthony Parish in Columbus – directly in the homily, basing his reflection on the diaconate on Scripture and the teachings of past popes.

Though the transitional diaconate is a step toward the priesthood, a priest continues his diaconate once he’s ordained a priest.

Pointing to the writings of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop McGovern noted that, in a sense, Jesus became a deacon for us.

“He, the Lord of the world, became a deacon, a servant,” the archbishop said. “He set the table for His disciples. He washed their feet. … He, as the Lord, served and became the Servant of All.”

The archbishop also noted that when Pope Francis washed people’s feet on Holy Thursday, he would shift the stole around his neck and wear it over the left shoulder, as a deacon would, emphasizing that the washing of the feet is a diaconal service.

Archbishop McGovern also told the seminarian that as a deacon he would be an evangelist, proclaiming the Gospel “at all levels and in all forms.”

“We realize, too, that there’s a cost to being an evangelist,” the archbishop said. He used the words of St. Paul to describe how a deacon must “take your share of suffering for the Gospel.”

“Clerical ministry for any of us is not a job in which you can remain professionally aloof,” the archbishop said. “No, no. It’s a profession that calls on us in the most personal way,” that demands nothing less “than the willingness to take the Gospel and its service into our innermost being, and to find that it is always worth serving and even suffering for.”

Charity is key for a deacon, the archbishop said, whose service is “dedicated to this world’s suffering and needs, and the love of Jesus Christ.”

A transitional deacon’s call to celibacy prepares him for the priesthood, he said, because by promising celibacy, the deacon says he is willing to stake everything, his whole life, on the Gospel.

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