Bringing it to Fulfillment
Peter Turone, IMC
While preparing the booklet for my deaconate ordination held this past November 20th, Solemnity of Christ, King of the Universe, my Mongolian language teacher was very interested in words of the rite. She was particularly moved by the phrase “believe what you read, teach what you believe and practice what you teach”. Although not yet a Christian, she understood clearly what was to take place that blessed day.
On the advice of my spiritual director, I had been praying and meditating on the Prayer of Consecration for the Rite of Ordination since May. It is a theologically rich prayer which reveals the seriousness and responsibility of this first grade of Holy Orders. In the beginning I kept thinking to myself how can anyone live up to the Church’s desire that her ordained ministers be nothing less than saints.
Any man with the least bit of self knowledge must admit that this is indeed overwhelming. However, the words said by the Bishop just before the Litany of the Saints reveals the solemn answer when he says “may God who has begun the good work in you bring it to fulfillment.” In fact, while we need to work on ourselves to become more faithful men, it is really God himself who sustains and brings to conclusion the work he has begun in and through us.
One of the things that I have learned over the years, especially these past months living in Mongolia, is that we can literally do nothing apart from Jesus (cf. Jn 15, 5). We religious, deacons and priests without an intense prayer life, active interest in continued theological studies and healthy separation from “the world” risk getting easily distracted from our original vocation. Working in the countryside not far from the Gobi has indeed been a blessing because each day we get to feel how small we are hidden between the Mongolian steppes and how everything literally depends on Him.
The day of ordination was indeed remarkable. After many joys and struggles, I am now a deacon. Even though there will be few opportunities to preach, baptize, witness marriages, or perform funerals (thank God) in this part of the world, there are endless opportunities for “serving at tables”.
I conclude with the brief greeting given just before the final blessing on the day of my ordination: “Many years ago the Lord Jesus called me to become a missionary and priest. I resisted for a long time until one day I finally said “yes” to him. This day is perhaps the most beautiful and significant day of my life because many of my dreams have just been fulfilled. First, because on the day in which the Church celebrates the Universal Kingship of Christ, I have been ordained a deacon. Second, it happens in a country like Mongolia where Jesus is not well known and you all are just beginning to write your own version of the Acts of the Apostles.
We missionaries leaves our families, friends and homelands not just because Jesus is the King of the Universe but first and foremost because he has become King of our hearts and lives. He holds everything and each one of us in his pierced hands. We are here because we want that each of you also “inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mat 25, 34).
