Dcns. Alex Becker, Peter Danner, Joel Kolb, Andrew Swietlik, Redmond Tuttle and Nicholas Waddell were ordained to the diaconate for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee April 26 in anticipation of their ordination to the priesthood next year.  They are shown with Rector Fr. Luke Strand, Archbishop Jeffrey S. Grob, Vice Rector Fr. John Baumgardner and archdiocese Vocations Director Fr. Michael Malucha. (Photo courtesy of Saint Francis de Sales Seminary)

Dcns. Alex Becker, Peter Danner, Joel Kolb, Andrew Swietlik, Redmond Tuttle and Nicholas Waddell will always remember the date of the funeral of Pope Francis.

But for them, April 26, 2025, will have an even deeper and more personal significance: On the very same day the Church laid the Holy Father to rest in Rome half a world away, she also ordained six new deacons for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

For there is always new life, even on days clouded by death. That’s the story of salvation right from the very beginning, after all.

The Church is a family, Archbishop Jeffrey S. Grob said during his homily that morning, and “the family is meant to continue.”

“And see what God brings to birth today, in you,” he said to the Saint Francis de Sales Seminary men to be ordained as deacons in preparation for their anticipated ordination to the priesthood in one year.

A portrait of Pope Francis, resting against a black-draped stand, remained to the left of the ambo in the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, where it was placed Easter Monday, April 21, the day Pope Francis died.

“It’s a blessing to be together in this time that they call interregnum, with the sleep and passage of Pope Francis and his burial today, and all the time of waiting, mourning, election, praying and sitting with the Holy Spirit, trusting that God will continue to guide her Church with holy wisdom and discernment,” Archbishop Grob said at the ordination Mass that took place at the Cathedral.

Turning his remarks to the ordination at hand and the momentous mission about to be assumed by the ordinandi, Archbishop Grob went on to invoke the words of Peter and John from the liturgy’s first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles: “It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.”

“May we have that inscribed on the backs of our eyelids,” Archbishop Grob said. “May it be impossible for you not to speak about what you have seen and heard.”

For these young men, bearing witness as deacons preparing for priesthood will mean assisting in the ministries of the Word, the altar and of charity — “showing yourselves to be servants of all,” the archbishop said.

As ministers of the altar, “you will proclaim the Gospel, prepare the altar, and distribute the Body and Blood of the Lord to the faithful,” Archbishop Grob said. “You will also be tasked to encourage believers and unbelievers alike by soundly preaching and teaching the Catholic faith, to preside over public prayer, administer the Sacrament of Baptism, assist at and bless marriages, bring Viaticum to the dying and conduct funeral rites.”

In their ministry as deacons, these men will be facilitators of God’s grace, Archbishop Grob said. So he urged them to take to heart the words of St. Polycarp, an early Church Father who wrote of the duties of deacons in his Epistle to the Philippians, imploring them to “be merciful, diligent, walking according to the truth of the Lord, who became the servant of all.”

“But also remember, my very dear sons, that all of this takes place most powerfully only as you continue to personally lose yourself in God,” the archbishop said. “It takes place in a human person, with all of the challenges and baggages (and) obstacles that come with being human, when you cooperate with the help of his grace and by your willingness to grow in knowledge of yourself.”