Brothers,
In a time when many voices attempt to reshape the Gospel, Pope Benedict XVI offers a steady truth: there is no discontinuity between the Jesus who preached the Kingdom and the Christ proclaimed after Easter. The same Lord who spoke is the One revealed. What changed was not the message, but our ability to see through the light of the Resurrection and the fire of the Holy Spirit.

I have been returning to this insight often in my own preparation; teaching OCIA classes and serving as a chaplain to Denver's Finest, our police officers, drawing from Cardinal Ratzinger’s work, Gospel, Catechesis, Catechism. In both settings, the need is the same: not simply information about Christ, but encounter with Him. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, many walk with Him without yet recognizing Him. Yet when hearts burn through Scripture, sacrament, and lived witness, eyes begin to open.

For us as deacons, this clarifies our mission. Evangelization is not about placing ourselves at the center or managing religious activity. It is about introducing others into communion with Jesus Christ and into the fellowship of His Church. Our credibility flows not from programs, but from relationship.

Here the witness of Saint Paul is decisive. His “gospel” was born from encounter on the road to Damascus. Everything else became secondary; “I count everything as loss” (Phil 3:7), because he had met the risen Lord. That encounter freed him from every cultural limitation and opened the Gospel to the world.

Benedict presses this upon us: no strategy will bear fruit unless it flows from a living encounter with Christ. When we are in communion with Jesus, we are already living in the Kingdom. The question for us is simple: do we know Him in this way? From that answer flows everything in our diaconal ministry.

In Christ the Servant + Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Receive + Believe + Teach + Practice