Ordination of Todd VanderMay to the Transitional Diaconate

Bishop Scott Bullock
Diaconate Ordination of Todd VanderMay
Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Rapid City 
May 24, 2025

These are days of great excitement for our church! Today, one of our own, Todd VanderMay, will be chosen as elect of God and ordained as a new deacon for the sake of the people of our diocese! And, also, by the way, we have a new pope.

I certainly don’t intend to downplay the importance of the election of our new Holy Father with my ironic comparison, but while Cardinal Robert Prevost is now Pope Leo XIV and Todd VanderMay will soon be called, for a while “Deacon Todd,” these elections have more in common than might first meet the eye. And both are a cause for excitement.

At the news conference the day after Pope Leo’s election, Cardinal Dolan reacted in this way: “The fact that he was born in the United States of America, boy that’s a source of pride and gratitude for us. I think that he is a Peruvian citizen as well, but he’s a citizen of the world.  He reminds us that we all have our true citizenship in heaven, as St. Paul taught us.  And that his role is as a universal pastor. Where he comes from, is sort of now a thing of the past. You know, Robert Francis Prevost is no longer around. He’s now Pope Leo XIV. That’s why Jesus changed the name of the first pope, right? ‘You’re no longer Simon; your name is Peter.’ So, he’s a new person. He’s our Holy Father. He’s the successor of Peter. He’s the father of the Church universal. Where he came from: secondary.” 

Cardinal Dolan spoke the truth, most fully seen in the election of a new Pope, that Jesus’ call to service changes us, with his power, into new persons more fully in the image of Jesus.

The common ground between Pope Leo XIV and Deacon Todd VanderMay then is this: Jesus will have made them new men, newly conformed to the Lord in a way that the old man has passed away, and a new man will emerge, if each responds with a consent like that of Mary, “Let it be done to me according to your word.” 

While we today do look back in gratitude to all those who have had a hand in forming this man into the one he is today — his parents Steve and Vicki and his family, his seminary formators from Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Winona Minnesota and the Saint Paul Seminary (today represented by Father John Gallas), his brother seminarians (many of whom are here today).  All these have had a hand, an important hand, in bringing you to this day, Todd.

But now we look forward to the powerful hands that will go to work. Not so much these hands, though God will use them, but even more the hands of Jesus. Those hands which you can see now, with hindsight, have gently and patiently guided you to this moment. A moment when, by the sacramental character of Holy Orders, Christ will make you into nothing less than a new man. 

While the ordination rite offers an optional text for a homily apparently to keep the preaching of us bishops on track, I will not be using that option. But it does begin in this way: “Beloved brothers and sisters, consider carefully the nature of the rank in the Church to which this man is about to be raised. Strengthened by the gift of the Holy Spirit, he will help the bishop and his priests in the ministry of the word, of the altar, and of charity, showing himself to be a servant of all.”  

While at first this seems like a brief listing of the things to be done — ministry of the word, of the altar, and of charity — it is more about how God will change the man through ordination. Where it says,  “Strengthened by the gift of the Holy Spirit, this deacon will show himself to be a servant of all.” 

The implication of the man transformed through ordination to the diaconate then is this: the Holy Spirit makes the man no longer his own. He now is dedicated not simply to his own aspirations, his own goals, but now, by the work of the Holy Spirit, he has a new heart with new aspirations and a new goal — simply, and astonishingly, to be of service to all.

The promises that Todd will make soon, that follow in this ordination reflect that new heart that the Holy Spirit has been forming over your seminary years. To serve the people in charity; to proclaim the gospel in fidelity to our tradition by word and deed; to live a life in chaste celibacy that reflects the chaste and celibate dedication of Jesus himself, who lived this way of love in order to serve. To pray for the Church and the whole world. To minister at the altar as a way to become more like Christ, and to live in obedience to me and my successors that contributes to the harmony and mission of the Church. In all these, you become a servant and a man for others. 

The Gospel that the Church has selected for you today lays out this path of service, after the pattern of Jesus the Deacon. There, Jesus calls to his followers saying, “Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Here, Jesus calls the greatest among us to be a servant. The Biblical word behind our English translation is diakonos — deacon after his own example. He also calls us to be a slave — a doulos. In the Biblical language, to be possessed by another — possessed by Jesus. 

By your free will, after years of prayer, the Church asks you simply to lay aside the old man and put on a new man, a diakonos after the pattern of Jesus Christ the Deacon. The one who came not to be served but to be a diakonos and to give your life as a ransom for many. Furthermore, becoming at the same time by your free choice of love a slave, a gift, a possession, you become Christ’s. To be used by him, through your obedience to Him, for salvation of others. 

Your service as a deacon will be thus, with the power of the Holy Spirit, to become more than your human actions, which always seem to come up short. It will become a ransom, a healing of charity that hearts you cannot yet even see, long for. Trust that Jesus can and will do this through you! 

Let us now proceed to the Ordination Rite, beginning with your promises to desire to become this new man of service, this diakonos, and more fully a possession of Christ, his beloved son and servant, to be received and strengthened by the Holy Spirit. To make your service of love indeed a ransom, a saving remedy for the world in need!  

This is indeed a day of great excitement! Like the day of the birth of a new child, so we are about to witness the birth of a new man, a diakonos after the pattern of Jesus the Deacon for the salvation of the Church and world! 

May Mary, the Mother of Deacons, present our sincere prayers for you as this new diakonos to her Son. That your life may indeed be one of service that is configured to nothing less than Christ the Deacon. To minister with his saving love to a world that anxiously awaits this love.