"God really loves me, and he wants me to do this"

Some months before he knelt in front of his Bishop, Colin Page lay on his bed one evening at the seminary and felt something he had never expected. “I just laid there and thought, ‘God really loves me, and he wants me to do this, and I want to do it,’” he said. He had been an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion in his parish, one of the people who help give out Communion at Mass, for more than twenty years. When his parish priest asked whether he might go further, Colin’s answer came from a simple conviction: “I always feel that when your parish priest asks you something, Jesus is asking you.” Even so, it had never occurred to him the road might lead here.

On Saturday morning, in a warm Cathedral on the feast of St Benedict, it did. Bishop Patrick McKinney laid his hands on Colin and on Chris Jones, ordaining both men to the permanent diaconate, a ministry most often carried by married men with jobs and families.

Preaching at the Mass, Bishop Patrick told the congregation why the role matters. "The role of the deacon is so important because he reminds both the priest and the bishop with whom he ministers that the very heart of all ministry is indeed service," he said. Then he offered an image to hold onto. "Perhaps a good understanding of the service offered by the deacon is to think of him as an ambassador," he said. "The deacon is called to act and speak in the name of the one who sent him." The reward, he added, "is not therefore any personal glory or social recognition, but rather the grace that comes from living a life of generous, joyful service to the glory of God."

For Chris, Saturday’s ordination was the culmination of a journey that began with a question he could not shake off. Years ago, his parish priest asked, out of the blue, whether he had ever thought about the Diaconate. “Once that seed was planted in my mind, it was very difficult to forget it,” he said. “It kept coming back and kept coming back.” Saying yes changed him. “It’s changed my life. It’s changed me. It’s changed my faith,” he said. His wife, Susie, watched it happen. Colin’s wife, Christine, noticed too. “Do you know something? You’ve changed,” she said one night at home. “She didn’t say, ‘And for the better,’” he recalls. But he knew what she meant: a deeper understanding of the faith he thought he already had.

Both men are quick to say the calling was never theirs alone. Five years of formation - one day a month at Oscott, the seminary near Birmingham, and evenings of study at home - asked a great deal of their families, too. “There’s things that we would’ve done in the past as a family that have been put on hold for a few years,” Chris said; his wife, Susie, gave him “real interest, real support” throughout. Colin’s wife, Christine, long active in their parish, and helping mind three grandchildren under five, knows home life will change again, but as he puts it, “it’s important to us that we give to Jesus.”

Neither man is under any illusion about what comes next. Colin’s parish alone spreads across four churches, and much of a deacon’s week, he expects, will be spent visiting the sick and the elderly who can no longer get to Mass. Chris is less certain how his own days will map out, but he knows what he’s looking for. “I think one of the things that I’ve really enjoyed, and it’s really a privilege, is to serve and work with other parishioners,” he says.

There were nerves on Saturday, both had admitted it before the ceremony. “I’ll be nervous. To say otherwise, I’d be lying,” Colin said. “But at the same time, I’m looking forward to it.” Chris hoped his own anxiety wouldn’t take over: “I just hope that doesn’t come to dominate... I’m hoping I’m going to enjoy it.” What stays with Colin is not the ceremony but what it means: “It’s what you receive on the day, the grace, and what you do with it afterwards, that God’s looking for.”

Chris and Colin will take up their ministry in their parishes over the coming weeks Chris at the Parish of St Ralph Sherwin, Derby and Colin at the Parish of Our Lady and All Saints,Mansfield.

If you’ve ever wondered whether God might be asking something of you, you can find out more by contacting the Diocesan Vocations Office: vocations@dioceseofnottingham.uk