One of the things that I learned in my theological study about the ministry of the deacon in the church is that deacons are helper of the priest in administering graces in the form of sacraments to the people of God, in particular in the ministry of proclaiming the Gospel. At this moment I wish to ask my nine companions to stand-up and face the people, and may I ask the people to look at these ten young men very carefully as they stood in front of you. People of God these are your deacons who are sinful, imperfect, and unworthy to be called ministers of God. These ten men are the gifts of God for the whole Church.

24 hours a day and 7 days a week of being together, I could honestly say that we are sinful in many ways. We are imperfect compared to the others and unworthy to be in the altar of God. With all of these negative qualities we have, you might ask what make us stand-up here and ask for the gift of Ordination? Brothers and sisters it was our hope in the love of Christ that moved us to do this act of faith. We experienced his love and we keep on longing for it.

It was the love of Christ that impelled us to have the strength to say yes even with our imperfections for in our imperfection we relay all the more in the perfect love of God making us to realize that without him we could do nothing for we are nothing without his love. Our experience made us to believe that with the love of Christ, something will come out good from these imperfect, unworthy individuals. All we have to do is to believe and put all our hopes in the power and mercy of the love of Christ.

This is the first thing that we want to teach to you as deacons, “to preach what you believe and live what you preach.” We believed that Christ is the one who called us for this vocation. He was the one who first believed that we can do something for the Church and we just live this belief by submitting everything to his love.