Two new deacons, the Rev. Liana Gallant and the Rev. Karen McBride, were ordained on May 26 in Christ Church Cathedral in Ottawa.
The Rev. Canon Ken Davis offered the sermon, and he began with an unexpected pause of silence, a reminder “that all faithful ministry begins by waiting on God.” He noted that is intentional in Anglican worship. In the “arrangement of the elements in every sacramental liturgy we offer, God always speaks first. Prayer, maybe ordination, and Eucharistic sharing and sending out into the world only happens after we have waited on God, listened for a word, and then only then do we respond and act.”
Although the silence was only 30 seconds, he noted that it likely seemed much longer in a society where silences generally are uncomfortable and filled as quickly as possible. Taking time to pause for quiet reflection is counter to the pressure to do everything faster, he said. “Some things need to be done fast, of course they do, but there is a kind of tyranny of fast in so many other aspects of our lives. And so, in reaction to this, we get things called slow movements, the slow food movement, the slow art movement, the slow music movement.”
But long before those movements were movements, there was a teacher offering an example of slow in popular culture, Davis said. The Rev. Fred Rogers, a graduate of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, “did something unique in his time on television as many of us or our children might remember fondly…. He would stop …and he would listen, and he would give space for his listeners to answer his questions. Fred said in an interview once, ‘I don’t think we give that gift anymore, the gift of silence. He was afraid that we were more interested in information than in wonder, and in noise rather than in silence.” Davis suggested that everyone could benefit from a bit more of Rogers’ “attentiveness, his sincere affirmations of others, and his quiet vulnerability.”
Davis added that the first line of the reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians that day: “Look at what is before your eyes,” goes with the notion of slowness or of letting God speak first. And he observed that both deacons being ordained would have done a lot of listening and waiting to hear what God’s spirit was saying as they discerned their calls to ministry.
He explained that there are two variations on the vocation of deacon in the Anglican Church. The Rev. Liana Gallant is a vocational deacon “called and equipped, nurtured and affirmed to be set apart as a model servant leader, set apart to herald and then find ways to help the whole church meet the needs of others in the world.”
The Rev. Karen McBride was ordained as a transitional deacon. “God is about to bless this church with a faith-filled, accomplished, loving, and inspiring new deacon … on her way to continue growing into God’s call to serve us as a presbyter or a priest among us, God willing.”
Both kinds of deacons are servants of the Word, “and both Liana and Karen … will be living proclamations of the good news of our Lord Jesus, who came not to be served, but to serve and give his life for healing and wholeness of life for the whole world,” he said.
Gallant told Perspective she felt called to a life of service from her youth when she was deciding whether to study nursing or social work. She chose nursing, and says that over the years both career and volunteer opportunities opened pathways that further developed that initial call. “This was especially so in my awareness of a desire to serve people who often experience illness, poverty, loneliness and marginalization within today’s busy society.”
With time, she said, her sense of vocation became more refined, more spiritual, and led her to investigate becoming an Anglican deacon. “In simplest terms, the role of the deacon is to have “one foot in the church and one foot in the world” — and this is clearly where my heart lies.” She is currently involved in a new initiative to provide hospice care in the Perth and Smiths Falls area as a member of the board of directors of The Hospice Hub.
“Ordination brings with it new responsibilities, new relationships and new paths. Most especially it brings a new and deep grace, a fresh outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit, for which I am immensely grateful,” she said. “It’s with a profound joy that I look forward to what lies ahead of me, in my own life and in the lives of those whom I will love and serve as an Anglican deacon.”
Prior to pursing her call to ordained ministry, the Rev. Karen McBride held senior roles in national education associations, working with universities, colleges and school boards across Canada. She was also very active in lay ministry in the last decade at her home parish of Christ Church Cathedral, notably as “lead parent” for the Cathedral Girls’ Choir for seven years and as a member of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa’s Refugee Ministry Management Board. With degrees in history and international affairs, Karen is now completing a Master of Master of Divinity degree at Saint Paul University.
She says she feels “blessed and enthusiastic to begin ordained ministry, at a time of great vibrancy in the diocese and to continue to share the good news of God’s love for all in this new capacity.”
Davis concluded with an excerpt of the poem “Continue” by Maya Angelou.
My wish for you
Is that you continue
Continue
To be who and how you are
To astonish a mean world
With your acts of kindness.
Continue
To allow humor to lighten
the burden of your tender heart.
Continue
In a society dark with cruelty
To let the people hear the grandeur
Of God in the peals of your laughter.
Continue
To let your eloquence
Elevate the people to heights
They had only imagined.
Continue
To remind the people that
Each is as good as the other
And that no one is beneath nor above you.
…
Continue
To dare to love deeply and risk everything for the good thing.
Continue
To float happily in the sea of infinite substance
Which set aside riches for you before you had a name.
Continue.
And by doing so,
You and your work
Will be able to continue
Eternally.
Christ Church, Bells Corners — Deanery of West Ottawa