Seven men to be ordained to the permanent diaconate this fall
This October, the Diocese of Portland will celebrate the ordination of seven men to the permanent diaconate. The deacon candidates have been called to orders and will be ordained by Bishop James Ruggieri on Saturday, October 17, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland.
“I think all seven of us had the same reaction. It was tears, number one. It was, ‘Really, me?’ And it was, ‘Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to serve you,” said Adam Stearns of Skowhegan.
“Humbled, excited, and terrified — that was our reaction,” said Richard Roussel of Gorham. “It was very emotional. A lot of the guys were crying. Our wives were crying. It was spectacular. Then, when we opened the actual letter itself, and you see the bishop’s signature, it was real at that point.”
“This call to orders means obviously that things are real, but it’s also very humbling,” said Timothy Winkeler of Falmouth. “We all talked about the word ‘obedience.’ Ultimately, with becoming a deacon, and diakonia meaning to serve, it’s being obedient and going where God calls us.”
The deacon candidates learned that they had been called to orders while attending a retreat at the Peace and All Good Retreat House in Kennebunk the second week of June.
Along with Roussel, Stearns, and Winkeler, the other candidates are Arturo Juarez-Ayala of Yarmouth, Peter Czerwinski of Readfield, Peter Koch of Rumford, Stephen Ritchie of Eliot, and Timothy Winkeler of Falmouth.
The men have been preparing for the permanent diaconate for the past five years. It is a time of mutual discernment by them and the Church, as they discern where God is calling them, and the Church discerns their preparedness and suitability for ordination.
“We spent a lot of years discerning this call from our standpoint, and during that time, the Church was discerning whether we have a call. Getting the call from the Church answered all the questions,” said Ritchie. “Now it's time to get used to this new reality and figure out how we can rise to the call.”
“It’s that culmination of all the work and all of the things that we went through,” said Roussel. “Deacon Peter [Bernier] kept saying, ‘Trust in the process; trust in the process.’ And when we were back there five years ago, we were, like, ‘OK, the process.’ But now, we understand. Back then, we were told deacons are formed. You don’t just sign up and say, ‘I'm going to be a deacon.’ Now we get that. We understand that it was a process. It's a transformation that happens. You're being configured for service, and that happens very slowly, very subtly. Your heart changes, and then you see people in a different way. It’s a beautiful thing.”
“It really is a blessing. It means the discernment process over the last five years has really worked, and it has clearly identified that there’s a call there to serve and to be a bridge for people from the altar to the community,” said Stearns. ‘I'm really looking forward to that.”
“It's been a journey, but all of us together were a good group, and we had good support for each other,” said Czerwinski. “It’s a different type of friendship than you have with your work friends.”
The last class of permanent deacons was ordained in 2017. There are currently 37 permanent deacons in the Diocese of Portland, 20 of whom are assigned to parishes and another 10 who are retired but remain active.
