Transitional Diaconate – Life on the Chrism Trail

Homily for the Ordination of Blake Ryan Thompson to the Transitional Diaconate

Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Husband of Mary

March 19, 2025
St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church
Arlington, Texas

Numbers 3:5-9
Psalm 23:1-3, 4, 5, 6
Acts 6:1-7b
Luke 2:41-52

Today is a joyful day in the life of the local Church of Fort Worth as we celebrate the ordination to the transitional diaconate of Blake Thompson who has persevered through discernment, study, ministry, and prayer for the last eight years to arrive at this point of firmly saying “yes” to Christ’s call to him to follow Him in giving himself entirely to Christ and to His Church. This evening our relative and friend, Blake Thompson, will solemnly promise to live a life imbued by celibate chastity in total dedication to the Kingdom of God as established by Christ and manifested through humble service to the People of God. He will promise to pray daily the Liturgy of the Hours with and for the People of God here and throughout the world. Finally, he will be ordained to give himself as a minister of charity and as a herald of the Gospel of Christ, to preach at liturgies, to preside at weddings and funerals, and to administer the sacrament of Baptism within the Church.

Homily for the Ordination of Eric Flores and Benjamin Grothouse to the Transitional Diaconate

Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord

March 25, 2023
St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Church
Flower Mound, Texas

Numbers 3:5-9
Psalm 40:7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 11
Acts 6:1-7b
Luke 1:26-38

Today, our friends and relatives, Eric Flores and Ben Grothouse will be ordained deacons of the Church. As deacons of the Church, they will be responsible as ministers of the Gospel, ministers of the sacraments, and ministers of charity. These three ministries at ordination will be bound in their souls with God’s love. They require their attentiveness to these sacred responsibilities that can only be nourished through prayer – their own and the prayers of others, the prayer of the Church. Each of these ministries is intimately related to the other and to neglect one is to neglect all three and to become lost from what it is that Christ is calling them to do.

Homily for the Diaconal Ordination of Austin Hoodenpyle, Randolph E. Hopkins, and Brandon LeClair

May 21, 2022
St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Church
Flower Mound, Texas

Numbers 3:5-9
Psalm 89:21-22, 25, 27
Romans 12:4-8
John 15:9-17

“The Levites shall discharge the obligations of Aaron and those of the whole community before the tent of meeting by maintaining the tabernacle. They shall have responsibility for all the furnishings of the tent of meeting and discharge the obligations of the Israelites by maintaining the tabernacle. You shall assign the Levites to Aaron and his sons; they have been assigned unconditionally to him from among the Israelites.”