Finding the ‘secret of happiness,’ three men are ordained to the transitional diaconate

“An absolute blessing.”

That is how Deacon Erin Donlon describes what it is like to now be a deacon of the Catholic Church.

“I’m super excited for that and to just assist at the liturgies, being able to hold the chalice. That’s really what I’m looking forward to,” he says.

Deacon Donlon, along with Hoa Tien Nguyen and Thanh Duc Pham, were ordained to the transitional diaconate by Bishop James Ruggieri on May 25 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland.

“I want to be a holy deacon,” says Deacon Thanh. “Because I received a joyful gift from God, I want to press out that joy to everyone around me. We must be joyful because we are so blessed.”

“I am looking forward to serving the people as a deacon. And I need a lot of prayers so that I can be a good example of Christ, in order to be worthy to sit at the table of the Eucharist,” says Deacon Nguyen

Hundreds of family members, friends, parishioners, religious, and clergy attended the Mass to celebrate the life-changing moment for the three men who are journeying towards the priesthood.

“You have found, really, the secret of happiness in life. It is not through possessing oneself. It is through giving oneself away in love that you become the men of God that you are called to be, that you may be the great saints that you are called to be,” Bishop Ruggieri told them. “This has been imprinted on your souls in the mind of God before you were even formed in your mothers’ wombs.”

Two of the three men ordained, Deacon Hoa and Deacon Thanh, are originally from Vietnam, while Deacon Erin grew up in Maine as a member of Good Shepherd Parish in Saco. Even though they come from different parts of the world, each credits his family for helping him to hear the Lord’s call.

“I look at my family tree, and we have 10 generations of being Catholic,” says Deacon Pham. “My family, my parents, they are devout.”

“There was a very strong Catholic dynamic. Faith was a part of our life,” says Deacon Donlon. “For the first years of my life, we were very consistent about praying the Rosary together.”

“I grew up in a very Catholic, traditional atmosphere, and I was influenced by many priests, but my vocation started from my family,” says Deacon Nguyen. “We have a lot of priests, sisters, brothers, seminarians, and religious in my family.”

Deacon Hoa Tien Nguyen

Deacon Hoa says his childhood home was just 95 steps from the Catholic church, a 1 minute and 35 second walk that he would take twice a day.

“Early morning at 4 a.m., we had to wake up to go to the church,” he says. “We prayed every day. We went to church twice a day, morning for the Mass and evening for group prayer from the community. And for the month of Our Lady, we would go to church three times.”

He recalls wanting to once skip Mass, but his father wouldn’t hear of it.

“I said, ‘I want to sleep. I’m tired,’” Deacon Nguyen says. “He kept silent and got a bowl of water, and he poured it on my face. From then on, I went to church every day.”

Deacon Hoa sees it as his second baptism.

“That is his love for me. He knows what is best for me. He knew attending Mass was the best for me,” Deacon Nguyen a says.

At age 12, Deacon Nguyen says he asked his parents if he could live in the rectory with the priest, something he says is normal in Vietnam for young men who are interested in the priesthood.

“We work. We study. We take care of everything,” he says. “I took care of the pig. I took care of the chicken. I cleaned the rectory. I made the bread for Mass. I rang the bell in the sacristy and set up everything for Mass.”

Even after going to the university, he continued to serve at the rectory and the parish whenever he could. He says while he once considered marriage and becoming a university professor, he realized that wasn’t his path.

“God called me to become a priest. [He] told me to go to the rectory and stay with the priest, do all this stuff, and helped me to persevere, to learn how to persevere to become a priest. That is the calling. It’s unbelievable. It’s hard to express it,” he says. “I feel like I am not happy when I am not choosing God.”

He says entering the seminary in his home diocese requires joining a vocation camp and passing an exam. Because faith is so strong in Catholic Vietnamese families, however, the seminaries are not able to accept all those who wish to enter. Deacon Nguyen says when he was applying, there were 410 candidates for 40 openings, a number that was further reduced when his diocese split in half. He says he just missed being accepted.

Through a partnership between Vietnam and other countries, his bishop proposed sending him to Australia to study, but Deacon Nguyen says he did not want to serve in a rich country, so instead, he went to the Philippines, only to discover he was not happy there. He says he came to believe it was because he was trying to do his will, not God’s, and when given the opportunity to come to the United States, he accepted.

“God’s will brought me here to the Diocese of Portland,” he says.

Deacon Thanh Duc Pham

Deacon Pham also came to the United States through a partnership with Vietnam. He says when his bishop approached him about coming here, he took time to pray about it and decided, through the Blessed Mother’s intercession, that it was where he was meant to go.

“I asked her, ‘Please give me a sign so that I can decide,’” he says. “One day, I went to the church and a lady, whom I didn’t know, she just looked me and said, ‘Are you ready to go to the United States?’ And I said, ‘What?’ I never knew her, and she asked me that question. Isn’t that something? I had never talked about it with anyone.”

Deacon Pham says he has wanted to be a priest since he was a child. Like Deacon Hoa, he recalls rising early every day to attend Mass.

“We had to wake up at 3:45 a.m. to get ready,” he says.

When he was five years old, he remembers being curious about what the priest was drinking during consecration and asking his grandmother about it.

“She said, ‘That is the blood of Christ. Actually, it is made from wine. It is made from grapes.’ And I said, ‘I love grapes! That is my favorite fruit.’ I said, ‘I want to become a priest so I can drink that.’”

He and a friend, who is now a seminarian in Thailand, used to act out the Mass, using rice cakes for hosts and towels as vestments.

He, along with all his siblings, was also active at church. He was an altar server, a choir member, a youth ministry participant, and an emcee for the Mass.

“We have an emcee in Vietnam that will guide the people and let them know what is next,” he explains.

Deacon Pham says he first pursued joining a religious congregation, perceiving religious order priests to be more holy than diocesan ones.

“Where my parish was located, in the district, there were many religious orders around us: Dominican, Franciscan, Benedictine. They came to my parents and to say Mass, and I said, ‘Wow, this is so holy. I want to become holy like them.’”

He studied with the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) for four years before entering mandatory military service for two years. Upon returning home, he began serving at his parish again, where a priest suggested that perhaps the diocesan priesthood was his true calling.

“After three days of retreat, I said, ‘You are right.’ And I decided to apply to my diocese in Saigon,” he says.

That would then lead him to the United States and to Maine. He says, while it has been difficult to learn the language, he believes this is where God wants him to serve.

“I feel the only thing that kept me here and kept my vocation is God. God is everything for me,” he says. “He is present, so I can do everything.”

Deacon Erin Donlon

Deacon Donlon says from a young age he felt pulled in two directions: the priesthood and the military. He says his parents often invited priests to their home, so he got to know them and feel comfortable around them.

“I had a very beautiful pastor in Father [Renald] Labarre. He was just an incredible witness, an incredible example. Just his personality and his intentionality to know people was really inspiring,” says Deacon Donlon.

Donlon and his twin brother, Ryan, were altar servers at a young age, and each year, his parents took them to a discernment camp in Wisconsin, where some cousins lived.

“It was just built around guys getting together, just having fun. It was an incredible camp that also enhanced my vocation because I got to be exposed to some seminarians and stuff,” he says.

However, his family also has a strong military background. Both his grandfathers were captains in the U.S. Navy, and his father was a commander in the Navy, as well as an ROTC instructor at Massabesic High School. As a result, Deacon Donlon says when it was time for college, he only had two choices in mind: Maine Maritime Academy, which he attended, and the U.S. Naval Academy.

While at Maine Maritime, his faith remained active. He even started a Knights of Columbus council there, which led to him being chosen as chairman of the Knights’ college councils. It was through that connection that he was invited to attend a retreat at the United States Military Academy at West Point. While there, a priest whom he didn’t know posed a question to him.

“He said, ‘Are you thinking about becoming a priest?’ I said, ‘Who told you that?’ And it turned into a three-hour conversation. He said, ‘Have you thought about the military archdiocese and being co-sponsored and becoming a chaplain?” Deacon Donlon says.

The priest directed him to a discernment retreat, which Deacon Donlon says reignited his vocational call. At the end of his junior year, he told his military advisor and then the commanding officer of Maine Maritime Academy of his desire to pursue the priesthood.

“He said, ‘We need Catholic chaplains. We really need Catholic chaplains. Let’s make this work,’” Deacon Donlon says.

Deacon Donlon is now jointly sponsored by the Diocese of Portland and the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA. If he is ordained a priest, he will first serve here in Maine and then later as a Catholic military chaplain. In recognition of that, one of the concelebrants of the ordination Mass was Bishop Joseph Coffey, auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese.

During the ordination rite, the three ordinands resolved to be consecrated for the Church’s ministry by the laying on of hands and the gift of the Holy Spirit, to discharge the office of deacon with humble charity, to embrace the celibate state, to deepen their lives of prayer, and to conform their way of life always to the example of Christ.

Each then promised respect to Bishop Ruggieri and his successors, after which they lied prostrate while the Litany of Saints was sung, an act of submission to the will of God.

“When I lied down on the floor, I just remembered all the saints, especially my religious saint, St. Francis Xavier, and also the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs,” says Deacon Nguyen.

“I was completely nervous walking up there, but once I was down on the ground, it was OK. I thought, ‘The Lord has this. I don’t.’ It was just an overwhelming sense of peace and joy,” says Deacon Donlon.

The bishop then laid hands on each of the three in silence, after which he prayed the Prayer of Ordination.

“I felt the Holy Spirit upon me, and I prayed to the Holy Spirit, please, please make me to be a holy, holy deacon and then a holy priest in the future,” says Deacon Pham.

Now ordained, the three were vested with stoles and dalmatics, symbols of the diaconate, after which the bishop handed each of them a Book of the Gospels, counseling them to “receive the Gospel of Christ whose herald you have become. Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach.”

As deacons, the three can share the Gospel readings, preach at Mass, assist at the altar, bless marriages, baptize children, and preside at funeral services outside of Mass. They are also called to the ministry of charity. It is anticipated that all three will be ordained to the priesthood in 2025.