By John Pankratz
Of all the promises that I will make at my ordination to the diaconate in October, I think that the promise of respect and obedience to Bishop Warfel and his successors is the most counter-cultural and the most challenging promise of them all. To place my life under the obedience and service of another human being seems to be a gross violation of my own autonomy and freedom. Yet this is not so, and in fact I think that the faithful and joyful living out of this promise speaks most truly to who I am and what I am before God and before my fellow man. There are two main points that I would like to reflect on to illustrate how obedience is truly a great source of life.
The first point is the recognition that my life does not belong to me. My life has been given to me as a gift, both by being created and by being redeemed by Jesus Christ. I am called to receive my life as a gift and not to grasp onto it as if I am at liberty to recklessly do with it what I will. Rather, I am called to receive the gift of my life so that I can give it away, and to recognize that my life only has meaning in the measure that I give it away for the good. And because God himself is the greatest good then the ultimate meaning of my life is to give it back to him.
This brings me to my second point, that service to God is the true meaning of freedom. Refusal to serve God is a turning in on myself which ultimately brings about slavery and my own demise. On the contrary, turning towards God and giving myself over to him in loving submission is the ultimate freedom and the highest meaning for my life. God is worth giving everything to, and anything that I experience as an apparent loss is nothing in comparison with the infinite riches that a servant of God is given. I may give God everything, yet I lose nothing.
These two points relate strongly to my promise of respect and obedience because this promise is the particular way in which God is calling me to give away my life as a gift by serving him in his Church as a future priest. This lifelong service requires a total commitment, which does not limit or diminish my freedom but opens new horizons that allow me to give myself even more fully to God and to others. And importantly, this particular promise of total commitment to God as a priest in the Church cannot be made privately or in a vacuum, rather it is substantiated and ratified in the person and office of Bishop Warfel, who as a successor of the Apostles is a representative of Christ and a representative of Christ’s Church. Through my promise of respect and obedience to Bishop Warfel, I unite myself to his apostolic ministry that has been handed on to him through the ages from Jesus himself. My life has meaning and freedom to the degree that I lovingly serve God, therefore my faithful promise of respect and obedience to the bishop will become a true source of life and grace both for my ministry and for my soul.
John Pankratz is a seminarian for the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings currently studying in Rome and is expected to be Ordained a Deacon in October 2020.
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