All Things Deacon Related
by Bishop Joensen | June 23, 2025
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Deacons have been on my mind recently for several reasons. In this month of June, the Church commemorates two deacon saints: Ephrem the Syrian, and Ferrutio, deacon and martyr of Besançon, France. Proclaimed a Doctor of the Church, Ephrem is more broadly known for his popular hymns, poems and sermons composed in the Fourth Century. He eventually taught at the School of Edessa, the birthplace of the Syriac language. He died while ministering to plague victims.
Ferrutio, more obscure by our reckoning, is said to have been converted to Christianity by St. Polycarp, and was ordained deacon by the luminous St. Irenaeus of Lyon (famous, among other things, for his claim, “The glory of God is the human being fully alive.”) Ferrutio was sent by Irenaeus to evangelize at Besançon, where he was beheaded for the faith in the persecution of Severus in 211 or 212 A.D.
Closer to home, it was my privilege on June 6, a different sort of “D-Day” (deacon day), to ordain L. Stanley Mannion Asjes to the diaconate for our Des Moines Diocese at the Basilica of St. John. In my homily, I wove together now Deacon Stan’s own personal life story with the Church’s understanding of the role and ministry of a deacon. The school of his own family, with his parents Kate and Dave and five siblings, remains a cradle of conversion and deeply committed faith, sharpened by their collective intellects and wits.
By nature, Deacon Stan is disposed to serve a cause, a community greater than himself. He has long been a bona fide believer, aided by the robust Basilica faith community from which we hope to see many more young men follow their own path to the diaconate and priesthood. Yet it is no slight to suggest that as he came into his own as a young man, his head ran ahead of his heart, indicating a potential passion waiting to be activated.
But the God who suffers patiently for us, Jesus Christ, is gracious and merciful—and relentless. His heart is open, inexhaustible, deep and inviting. June is the month of the Feast of the Sacred Heart as well. As our late Holy Father Francis reflects in his letter, Delexit Nos, “On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ,” God’s desire for us results in something unexpected and previously unknown starting to speak in our heart. God breaks through merely superficial knowledge, and begins to set our life in order by means of the heart. “It is not about intellectual concepts that need to be put into practice in our daily lives, as if affectivity and practice were merely the effects of. . . the data of knowledge” (DN n. 24).
Further, “Accepting his friendship is a matter of the heart; it is what constitutes us as persons in the fullest sense of the word.” The believer “presses on in love and adoration, in pleading for forgiveness and in willingness to serve in whatever place the Lord allows us to choose, in order to follow in his footsteps” (DN n. 25).
The Sacred Heart of Jesus, embodied in the Most Blessed Sacrament, manifests the desire of Jesus for our love. Francis concludes, “Once the faithful heart realizes this, its spontaneous response is one of love, not a desire to multiply sacrifices or simply discharge a burdensome duty” (DN n. 166). The disciple whose heart has been activated in joy by the closeness of Christ and his Spirit within one’s very soul embraces the mission to bring Christ’s love to the world. He or she is freed to commit one’s whole being in service to the Kingdom, even unto death (cf. DN n. 205).
Those who know Deacon Stan Asjes, including his formators, peers, and those whom he has served in pastoral placements, have testified that he is appropriately hospitable and vulnerable with others, and is well-disposed to pray for and with them.
Deacon Stan will not only help guide others to the saving waters of baptism in the role of Master of Ceremonies as he did at the Cathedral of St. Ambrose’s Easter Vigil this past Holy Saturday so that I might perform the sacred rite; he himself will proclaim Jesus and then “go down into the water” as he administers the Sacrament of Baptism.
He will pray and ponder God’s word and listen attentively to others as they pour out their sorrows and sighs, their unmet longings, so that hidden depths of the Scriptures will be brought to the surface to prompt conversion and refresh hope through his preaching.
This summer Deacon Stan will serve the faithful in the parishes of Cass County. And in the coming academic year, in the “synthesis phase” of his overall formation before what we hope is his eventual ordination to the priesthood on June 26, 2026, he will be especially dedicated to serving men who themselves feel the tug on their hearts to a possible priestly vocation in a preparatory year program at St. Paul Seminary.
Throughout this period, he will assist the priestly order not only in his sacramental ministry at the altar, but in being a conduit of communication and charity responding to the needs of God’s holy people. Beyond Deacon Stan’s own personal gifts and talents, he will share in my ministry as bishop, though not yet the priesthood, revealing the love of the Father as an icon of Christ and faithful servant spurring others to social justice in a prophetic manner (see Kansas City, Kansas Archbishop Sean McKnight, Understanding the Diaconate, pp. 38-43, 200-02).
I’m also spurred to think of deacons by my June interviews with the 18 married couples and one widower who have been engaged in the initial, two-year “aspirancy” phase of formation for what we call the “permanent diaconate.” They have undergone scrutiny of their personal backgrounds and qualities, and have given evidence of the mutual support of spouses and solid foundation of their marriages and family life.
These men range in age from their thirties to sixty, and represent geographic, ethnic, and occupational diversity from around the Diocese. Under the overall guidance of Des Moines Diocese diaconate director Deacon Jim Houston and formation director Deacon Matt Halbach, they have made several retreats, attended conferences, and are being formed in different styles of prayer, including undertaking the daily discipline of the Church in praying the Liturgy of the Hours—some gather virtually to do so each morning at 6:30 a.m. And they’ve been taking classes remotely in English and Spanish through the resources of the Josephinum Diaconate Institute based in Columbus, Ohio.
In their written reflections and our conversations, some common themes emerged: they have struggled at times to reprioritize a new balance of family, work, prayer, and study. They have discerned what they have needed to let go of, and to “become more docile to the Holy Spirit which has allowed [them] to accept the yoke of formation and its various demands as the Lord’s will for [them].” Many of them have been away from studies for years, and have been humbled in trying to appropriate new habits of learning and theological language conveying God’s self-revelation and the Church’s teaching.
Yet they have also discovered afresh that they are beloved sons of the heavenly Father, and are entering more deeply into friendship with Jesus Christ, into the mystery of the divine life of the Holy Trinity dwelling within the Church. They are becoming better listeners, husbands, and fathers, even as they undertake a more “hidden life” where becoming takes precedence over doing.
I was moved and inspired by the dedication of these 19 aspirants and their spouses. I will be gladly poised to preside at the rite this Fall when they will formally move from “aspirancy” to the “candidacy” phase of their formation, where discernment and service will take on a new intentionality as the prospect of diaconal ordination in 2028 draws ever closer.
Should they ultimately be ordained to serve in the Diocese of Des Moines, they will be subject to my decree concerning clerical attire of deacons, dated June 9, the Memorial of St. Ephrem, A separate article in this issue of The Catholic Mirror provides more details, but the basic rubric as of Sept. 1, 2027, is that deacons will only be permitted to wear grey clerical shirts that will distinguish them from priests in the course of their ministry. These opportunities include the celebration of liturgical rites, sacraments, marriage preparation, ministry to the sick and vulnerable in care institutions, teaching and forming others in the faith, and offering blessings and commending the dead according to the Lord.
June. Deacons. Thank you, God, for giving the Church this sacred order as a sacramental sign of service, a gift of the Holy Spirit that enables men to distinctively tend to the human and spiritual needs of God’s people in the Diocese of Des Moines. They build us up in hope and trust that God is always near us, accompanying us and drawing us into communion in the heart of Jesus, the life of the Holy Trinity.