From Fort Worth
I'm writing this from the National Association of Deacon Directors Convention in Fort Worth, where I've been exhibiting for Deacon Life and Domus.
It's been a good week of conversations - deacon directors and formation directors from dioceses across the country, talking about what deacons need and how formation happens. I'm learning a lot, and I'm grateful to be here.
But I'm also limping.
Slower Steps
I ran 19.3 miles at Walt Disney World two weekends ago and felt fine.
Then I ran a local 5K last Saturday, pushed too hard, and could barely walk by that afternoon.
Runner's knee, and a week of learning to go slow.
My hotel here in Fort Worth is two blocks from the convention center. Two blocks is normally nothing. This week, it's a journey. Each step deliberate. Each step felt.
Here's what I'm finding: forced slowness creates space for prayer. When each step requires attention, you become present. I've been offering each step for someone - a family member, a friend, an intention.
And I'm suddenly able to understand the older parishioners I serve - the ones who take a few extra minutes to get into the church, who work for every step. I've always been patient with them. Now I understand what it costs them just to show up.
Read the full reflection: Slower Steps
This Sunday
Fifth Sunday of Easter.
Thomas asks a perfectly reasonable question: "Master, we do not know where you are going - how can we know the way?"
He wants directions. A map. Step-by-step instructions.
And Jesus gives him something else entirely: "I AM the way, and the truth, and the life."
The disciples keep asking for SOMETHING - directions, visions, information - and Jesus keeps answering with SOMEONE. Himself.
Every other religion gives you a path. Christianity gives you a Person who says, "I AM the path."
This week's 2 Minute Homily: The Answer Is a Person
What I'm Reading
Offer It Up: Making Sense of Suffering - The Bishop's Bulletin (Diocese of Sioux Falls) A beautiful piece on redemptive suffering with real stories of people who have learned to offer their pain for others. The grandmother praying a rosary through cancer pain, offering a bead for each grandchild. This is what I'm learning this week with my knee - in miniature.
What Is Redemptive Suffering? - Discerning Hearts Podcast with Deacon James Keating Deacon Keating explains how suffering can be transformed into love and union with Christ. Good formation for anyone trying to understand what "offering it up" actually means. (Deacon Keating has spoken to the deacons of our diocese and is speaking here at the NADD Convention this week too).
One Thing I Learned This Week
At the convention, a deacon director told me: "The men who thrive in diaconate formation are the ones whose wives are genuinely part of the journey - not just supporting from the sidelines, but formed alongside them." He was suggesting a component for the wives in Deacon Life.
That's exactly what we're building at Domus. Household formation. Not just the individual, but the whole domestic church. And now I need to think about how to integrate the deacons' wives into Deacon Life too.
Try Domus
If you haven't yet, here's the invitation:
WeAreDomushttps://wearedomus.com/.com - Start a free trial of any of our formation properties. Hearth & Altar for families. Eventide & Altar for the second half of life. Iron & Altar for men. Vessel & Altar for women. One reading. Five minutes. Every day.
WeAreDomus.com/Daily - Sign up for the free Domus Daily email. Daily news for families through a Catholic lens. No subscription required.
LuxPerpetua.net - Ordo: A Chronicle of Lux Perpetua continues to unfold. Chapter 7 of The Living Thread is now live. A serial novel about custody, memory, and the light that was never put out.
Final Word
"By his passion and death on the cross Christ has given a new meaning to suffering: it can henceforth configure us to him and unite us with his redemptive Passion."
— Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1505
Slower steps. Offered steps.
Deacon Michael
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