I just returned from attending a national executive meeting with fellow directors of the diaconate. Whenever I gather with brothers serving the Church in different dioceses, I am reminded that our circumstances may differ, our challenges certainly differ, and the needs before us continue to change. But beneath all of it lies a much more fundamental question:

Whose are we?

St. Paul answers it this Sunday with remarkable simplicity:

“Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

The Greek word Paul uses is Kyrios, Lord. And that matters.

In the Greek Old Testament, Kyrios stands for the sacred name of God. In Isaiah 45, the Lord declares there is no other God and says, “To me every knee shall bow.”

Then Paul does something extraordinary in Philippians 2. He applies those words to Jesus: “At the name of Jesus every knee should bend… and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Jesus is Kyrios.

But what does this Lord look like?

He empties himself.

As Archbishop Golka has reminded us, Philippians 2 gives us the great mystery of kenosis. Christ does not grasp, but empties himself, taking the form of a servant.

And that gives us an unexpected connection to this Sunday’s Gospel.

The merciless servant grasps. Having received unimaginable mercy himself, he goes out, seizes another man by the throat, and holds tightly to the debt owed him.

Jesus does precisely the opposite.

He opens his hands.

Perhaps that is our examination this week as deacons:

What am I still grasping that prevents Christ the Servant from living more completely through me?

A grievance? Recognition? Control? Being right? An old wound?

Brothers, ordination did not simply give us another way to serve. We belong to Another.

“Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

And our Kyrios has shown us what His lordship looks like.

Not grasping.

Self-emptying.

Perhaps the most authentically diaconal thing we can do this week is simply open our hands.

Christus Kyrios emptied Himself.

He did not grasp.

He opened His hands.

The steward, already forgiven a mountain, clenched his fists and seized what was small.

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