Rev. Mr. Derek Hooper raised to order of deacon

I am excited to spend my life in prayer and service for you, and I am incredibly grateful and blessed to live out my vocation in this diocese.”

Rev. Mr. Derek Hooper

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Ministry in the Church is a gift that helps preserve all the faithful in their relationship with Jesus and with one another.

“Let us pray that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us in the celebration of these sacred mysteries may bind us together more firmly in charity,” said Bishop W. Shawn McKnight at the ordination of Rev. Mr. Derek Hooper, a seminarian for the Jefferson City diocese, to the diaconate.

About 80 people attended the Ordination Mass on May 30 in the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Jefferson City, while several hundred more watched over livestream due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rev. Mr. Hooper hopes to be ordained a priest of the diocese next year, but he will also remain a deacon for the rest of his life.

As such, he will serve as “a pastoral bridge between the shepherds and their flocks with a special mission to remove the barriers and walls that might separate pastors from their flock,” said Bishop McKnight.

“With your natural gifts and the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit,” Bishop McKnight told Rev. Mr. Hooper in his homily, “you shall assist your bishop and his priests to help meet the pastoral obligations we have to those in our local Church.

“You will become a sacramental icon of Christ the Servant, Who came not to be served but to serve,” the bishop told him, “even to His death on the Cross.”

He will proclaim the Gospel, prepare the altar for the sacrifice, and help distribute the Body and Blood of Christ to the faithful. He will teach and encourage believers and non-believers in Church doctrine and will preside at public prayer.

The bishop reminded Rev. Mr. Hooper to lead by example, becoming blameless in the sight of God and serving joyfully as if He were serving Jesus Himself.

“From now on, you are not only a hearer of the Gospel, you are also its minister,” the bishop said.

Among the concelebrating priests at the ordination were: Rev. Mr. Hooper’s brother, Father Gabriel Greer, a priest of the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas; Father Michael Baldwin, a priest of the Wichita diocese, who helped Mr. Hooper put on his deacon vestments during the Mass; Father Daniel Merz, pastor of the Linn and Frankenstein parishes and diocesan director of the permanent diaconate; Father Jason Doke, diocesan moderator of the curia; Father Stephen Jones, president of Helias Catholic High School in Jefferson City, where Rev. Mr. Hooper taught for a year before continuing his seminary formation; Monsignor Gregory Higley, pastor of the Hermann and Rhineland parishes, where Rev. Mr. Hooper will minister this summer; and several other priests of the Wichita diocese.

Fellow seminarians of the Jefferson City diocese were the altar servers.

Dying to self

During the Ordination Mass, Rev. Mr. Hooper stated his willingness to serve Christ’s people, proclaim the faith in word and deed, pray daily for the people of the world, and do so obediently and respectfully to the bishop.

He then prostrated himself before the altar, as a symbol of his dying to self and of his complete helplessness apart from God.

The congregation and choir chanted the Litany of the Saints, including Servant of God Father Emil Kapaun, a candidate for sainthood, who was a priest of the Wichita diocese.

While placing his hands on Rev. Mr. Hooper’s head, Bishop McKnight, in the name of Christ and His Church, called upon the Holy Spirit to set the new deacon aside for holy service in the world.

Bishop McKnight then presented to him the Book of the Gospels.

“Receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Whose herald you have become,” he said. “Believe what you read. Teach what you believe. Practice what you teach.”

Grace and gratitude

The congregation sang “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent” as Rev. Mr. Hooper prepared the altar for the Eucharist.

“Holy Father, Your Son chose to wash the disciples’ feet and so set us an example,” Bishop McKnight prayed at the Offertory. “Accept, we pray, the oblations of our service and grant that by offering ourselves as a spiritual sacrifice, we may be filled with a spirit of humility and zeal, through Christ our Lord.”

At the end of Mass, the bishop prayed that Rev. Mr. Hooper would have a fruitful ministry and “be found faithful as a minister of the Gospel, of the sacraments and of charity.”

The bishop was quick to thank Rev. Mr. Hooper’s family and the Diocese of Wichita, from which he came.

Rev. Mr. Hooper will assist Msgr. Higley in Hermann and Rhineland this summer, then will begin his final year of seminary studies at Mundelein Seminary in Chicago this fall.

“I look forward to growing in love and service of God with the people of the Diocese of Jefferson City,” he stated. “I am excited to spend my life in prayer and service for you, and I am incredibly grateful and blessed to live out my vocation in this diocese.”