Seminarian John Pankratz with his parents, John and Brenda, at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Christmas 2018.
By John Pankratz
Shortly before I am ordained a deacon on October 1st, I will make a solemn profession of faith and take an oath of fidelity. I think that there is an aspect of each that is quite ordinary, and an aspect of each that is quite extraordinary. In the case of my profession of faith, it is ordinary in the sense that it is nothing new for me. At my baptism as an infant my parents professed this very same faith for the first time on my behalf almost twenty-eight years ago. And since I have been old enough to speak, I have professed this faith myself every Sunday at Mass as do each of you when we recite the creed together. Additionally, with you, I have solemnly professed this faith every Easter as an explicit renewal of my baptismal promises. Therefore, for me to do so again on the eve of my diaconate ordination is nothing out of the ordinary.
However, just because professing our faith is ordinary for us as Christians because of how often we do it, the act of doing so is itself quite extraordinary. As I reflect on it, I think first about how much the articles of our faith in the creed have cost. Above all, our faith cost the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. We would not have our faith had he not come to die for us. Following in Jesus’ footsteps, I think about the many early Christian martyrs, who were ready and willing to shed their blood rather than deny a single article of the faith. Without their manifold witness we would not have the precious articles of our creed. The faith of the Church may be written down in ink, but it was ratified in blood. By making my solemn profession of faith before my diaconate ordination, I am implicitly saying that I am willing to stake my life on this creed. In other words, like the martyrs I am by God’s grace saying I will die for this faith and value it above life itself. This is indeed an extraordinary claim, yet I make it every Sunday along with each of you every time we recite the creed together.
In contrast, taking an oath of fidelity is a much more extraordinary act, as taking any kind of oath is a rare occurrence. In fact, in my entire life I have never taken an oath before. Oaths are rare for good reason because to call upon God as a witness before others is an extremely serious matter that should never be taken lightly. Therefore, one should only take an oath in the gravest of circumstances. Taking an oath of fidelity before my diaconate ordination certainly qualifies as a grave circumstance, and this speaks to the great responsibility that I am undertaking upon my ordination.
Yet while an oath is an extraordinary act, the particular oath that I will be taking is an oath of fidelity, and fidelity is a very basic and ordinary disposition of the Christian life. All of salvation history can be read as the story of God’s fidelity to his people. The climax of God’s fidelity is Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross in which he lays down his life as his pledge of unending fidelity to us. In response to this kind of love every Christian is called to live a life of fidelity toward God, because fidelity is the prerequisite for love. God has been faithful to me my entire life, and my oath of fidelity to him in my new role as a deacon is simply an explicit extension of the ordinary fidelity that I am called to have towards him. In this way my oath of fidelity is an extraordinary act promising an ordinary Christian disposition. Please pray for me that God may preserve me in my profession of faith even unto death, and that he may preserve me in my fidelity to him throughout the course of my life.
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