By Bishop James Conley
Friday, I will have the tremendous joy of ordaining three men to the diaconate and Saturday, two men to the priesthood. This is the last time we will be ordaining deacons and priests on the same weekend. As we move into conformity with the new Program of Priestly Formation (PPF) mandated by the Holy See, our next deacon ordination class will be in December of 2026, after completion of their formal theological studies. Those newly ordained deacons will then spend six months of pastoral ministry in a parish and in a high school classroom before they are ordained priests in May of 2027.
For these men, this weekend has been anticipated for many years—typically eight years for those ordained to the priesthood, seven for those ordained to the transitional diaconate. One of the three deacons, Patrick Burke from St. Wenceslaus in Wahoo, will be ordained to the permanent diaconate, the second to be ordained in the Diocese of Lincoln. Patrick will carry out his diaconal ministry at St. Wenceslaus, in addition to prison ministry at the Saunders County Jail. He has undergone four full years of formation and training for the permanent diaconate through the Archdiocese of Omaha. For all these men, their process of discernment in union with the Church, their prayerful study, and their patient perseverance has readied them for this new configuration to Christ.
Of course, no vocation comes to fruition without God’s grace and providence. And His help will continue as these five men receive a share in the sacrament of Holy Orders and prepare to follow Christ in imitation of his sacrificial love for the Church. Please join me in a prayer of gratitude for the gift that they have become and, through the vocation opening before them, the gift they will soon be to the diocese and to the Church.
The readings in the priestly ordination Mass are different from those in the diaconate ordination Mass, but both highlight Christ as high priest and servant. Those who receive holy orders are embracing the same life of self-sacrificial love led by Our Lord. These generous men will not merely dispense sacraments or preside at Masses, weddings, and funerals—though we are grateful for this crucial way they will serve the diocese. By God’s gracious design, this weekend He invites them even more deeply into a life-giving love for others. In the words of Pope Leo XIV in his homily last Sunday at his Mass of Inauguration: because we are “touched by the infinite and unconditional love of God,” can we offer ourselves “without reserve and without calculation” (Pope Leo XIV, May 18, 2025).
It is a path that I know from firsthand experience has many trials and struggles, but also many great joys—including the joy of knowing they are following Christ in laying down their lives and loving His Church. We hear sometimes that we only have one life to live. True enough, but I would rephrase it as we only have one life to give. And since we were made to love, which is the ultimate act of self-gift, by giving their lives for Christ and His Church, these men will have the opportunity to become even more like Jesus and, therefore, more fully themselves, and what they were created to be from all of eternity. For man “cannot really find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et spes, 24).
One of the main ways Jesus will bring about this conformity to Himself is through suffering. The idea of suffering for the good is not always easy, but it is something all of us are called to embrace, whether clergy, religious, or layman. Suffering is unavoidable in this life, but when we unite it to Christ’s suffering, He gives it a new purpose, and our pain can become a blessing to others.
We each have our own suffering, but priests and deacons are called to take on the additional weight of ministering to those who suffer. They walk with the faithful through both the joys and the sorrows of life, and hopefully you have been blessed by a priest or deacon who has walked alongside you. In this way, they can be instruments of Christ, suffering or rejoicing alongside others as Jesus did. But acting in the person of Christ for others, clergy can sometimes forget that Christ is there with them too, even as they walk with others. It’s a beautiful example of God’s providence that sometimes in ministering to others, they implicitly minister back to us by their witness.
Through this weekend’s ordinations, all five men will be drawn more deeply into the three-fold office of Christ: priest, prophet and king. They will more intimately partake in the one, true sacrifice of Christ in perfect worship to the Father, whether by offering the sacrifice of the Mass as priests or assisting as deacons. Priests will become dispensers of mercy by receiving the power to forgive sins and offering last rites; deacons will join more deeply into the Church’s communal life by presiding over baptisms, funerals, and weddings.
As prophets, they will teach the saving truths of our faith in their words and in their deeds. They have grown in knowledge of the faith over many long years of study and will need to keep nurturing and developing their understanding since our faith is inexhaustible. They will also teach through the witness of their lives. None of us—clergy or lay—should ever underestimate the impact of our presence, regardless of what words we might speak. Our lives can be the most powerful witness to Christ we offer those around us.
Lastly, as kings, the newly ordained will govern their local parish in charity. This weekend I will remind the men that to govern others well, they must first have mastery over themselves, which only comes through participation with grace. The governance aspect can be the hardest part of Holy Orders; it can be challenging when clergy are sent to a new parish, where they must start afresh in building new relationships and earning trust. I have been impressed by and grateful for our lay faithful’s generous reception of the Lincoln clergy sent to minister to them. Friendly, faithful, and filial Catholics in the flock make transitions and governance so much easier, and I thank you for all the ways you have helped your shepherds. It is a great comfort to know that the parishes receiving the newly ordained will welcome and support them.
Over the years we have been blessed with many priestly vocations in the Diocese of Lincoln. Mindful that a vocation to the priesthood is a gift from God, I have always tried to give back to the Lord in gratitude by releasing priests to serve outside the diocese in places of need. This year, I released two of our priests to serve in full-time active duty in our military services. In addition, I released one priest to work full-time in seminary formation and another to serve as a chaplain at a thriving Catholic college in desperate need of priest chaplains. This is in addition to the Lincoln priests who are already serving needs in various capacities outside the diocese. We know that God is never outdone in generosity. I attribute the 16 men who entered the seminary last fall and the 11 men who are already “in application” for the seminary this fall, a direct fruit of this generosity.
We know, however, that in releasing priests to serve needs outside the diocese, it has made it more difficult to fill assignments here in the diocese. To help alleviate this, I am inviting the lay faithful to exercise a more active role in pastoral leadership in accord with their baptismal calling. For example, while we continue to assign priests to teach theology in our high schools when we can, I am very grateful for those lay religion teachers who are competent, mission oriented, zealous and effective teachers of the faith, and who have stepped up to fill a need. I would like to see more of this in the future.
So again, I ask for your prayers for the men being ordained this weekend. It is an incredible gift to receive a share in the sacrament of Holy Orders, but we mere mortals rightly tremble before so great a calling. To live it well is only possible through God’s grace, and you can help shower graces down upon them through your prayers and sacrifices. May Mary, the mother of Jesus and the mother of the Church, lead these men closer to her Son, so that they may love you the way she loves Jesus and His Church.
