2024 Vocations Awareness Supplement
Deacons share the good news at work, ‘using words if necessary’
In this Oct. 16 photo outside a fire station in Avon, Deacon Jerome Bessler, a battalion chief for Washington Township Avon Fire Department, displays one of the pocket crosses he carries with him on emergency runs to share with those impacted who might find it helpful. (Photo by Natalie Hoefer)
By Natalie Hoefer
Since 2008, the archdiocese has been blessed with the ministry of men ordained as permanent deacons. Currently, 63 active deacons are assigned to parishes throughout central and southern Indiana
Their mission is three-fold: to assist at liturgies, to serve in a ministry of charity outside of their assigned parish and to proclaim the Gospel at Mass.
Like all Catholics, deacons are also called to proclaim the Gosepl in their daily lives, “using words if necessary,” as goes the quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.
Such daily proclamation of the good news includes their workplace.
“Deacons don’t get paid, so unless you’re retired, you still have to earn a living,” says Deacon Jerome Bessler, a battalion chief for the Washington Township Avon Fire Department.
The Criterion spoke with Deacon Bessler of St. Roch Parish in Indianapolis, Deacon Mark Schmidl of All Saints Parish in Dearborn County and Deacon Steven Tsuleff of
St. Michael Parish in Brookville and St. Peter Parish in Franklin County to learn how their diaconate mission of proclaiming the Gospel plays out in the workplace. (Related: See more stories about religious vocations)
‘Helping them find some closure or peace’
As a fireman, helping people was already part of Deacon Bessler’s job. But being a deacon added a new element to that service.
For starters, he became a chaplain for the Hendricks County Fire Department and joined a peer support group that “just listens” when firefighters and medics need to talk after a difficult run.
He also offers a listening ear while at an emergency.
“If I’m not in charge as medic on a run, I assign myself to talk with the family,” says Deacon Bessler, 56, who was ordained in 2022. “Maybe we weren’t able to revive a loved one after a cardiac arrest. Or maybe there was a suicide. It’s just being an ear for them and helping them find some closure or peace.
“I ask if there’s a pastor or priest I can call. If I find out they’re Catholic, I can walk with them in the faith.”
Sometimes in traumatic situations, Deacon Bessler proclaims the Gospel in a more tangible way.
“I carry pocket crosses,” he explains. “If I think it will help, I’ll give one to someone and say, ‘No matter what you do, hang onto the cross. Take all your problems and give it to the cross.’ ”
Deacon Bessler witnesses to the Gospel at work in simpler ways, too.
“We see people that don’t really make a lot of smart choices, and those choices cause others or themselves to get hurt,” he says. The tendency is to “want to judge [them] without knowing who they are or what they’ve been through.
“I tell them we’ve got to put ourselves in their shoes. I’ve used the phrase [from John 8:7] quite a bit, when it comes to judging people: ‘Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.’ ”
Deacon Bessler witnesses without words as well. Before carrying a pocket cross, he used to carry a small rosary of 10 beads in his pocket.
“If a conversation was not heading in the right direction, I would pull it out and put it on the table, and when I did that, the conversation would change,” he says.
Since beginning his diaconate journey several years ago, “People I never would’ve expected come up and share their faith with me,” says Deacon Bessler.
“Some guys of faith will ask me to pray for them. I used to say, ‘Yeah, I will.’
“But now I’ll say, ‘How about we pray right now?’ And we stop and pray. That’s something the diaconate put in me is that the time to pray is right now.”
‘I just try to meet them where they’re at’
Deacon Tsuleff’s co-workers have known of his calling from the start: The week he began his job 11 years ago as a commercial production editor and videographer for Local 12 WKRC-TV in Cincinnati, he also started his diaconate formation classes.
“I don’t hide the fact that I’m a deacon,” says Deacon Tsuleff, 62, who was ordained in 2017. “When you come into my office, you’ll see a crucifix on my desk and a picture of me and my wife the day I was ordained. On the wall there’s a picture of the archbishop and Pope John Paul II, and a statue of Mary and a Bible on my bookshelf. I don’t blatantly have spotlights on anything, but they’re there.”
These silent objects are one way Deacon Tsuleff proclaims the good news at work. The second form is also silent: listening.
“The biggest thing is people know they can sit down and talk with me, and that I’ll listen and hold everything in confidence,” he says.
The nature of their faith—or lack thereof—is not an issue.
“They know what it means for me to be a Christian, and whether they are or not, I don’t force anything on them,” says Deacon Tsuleff. “I just try to meet them where they’re at. I don’t force anything.”
Deacon Schmidl’s co-workers seek him out, too—even though he works from home in his job as a regional manager overseeing building maintenance of commercial properties.
“ ‘Oh, by the way, before we hang up’—that’s how it tends to be,” he says of co-workers seeking his pastoral care.
But there’s another way he says his role as a deacon helps him spread the good news at work.
“A lot of it is through organic conversation.,” says Deacon Schmidl, 52, who was ordained in 2022. “I’m very open about being a deacon. So, when people ask, ‘What did you do this weekend,’ I can say I did a wedding on Friday night and a baptism on Sunday.”
Being a deacon draws lots of questions from co-workers, he says—Catholic and non-Catholic alike.
“It gives you that opportunity to talk about the Church in general,” says Deacon Schmidl. “Some will tell me they’re Catholic but don’t go to Mass, so we’ll talk about that.
“I get a lot of great questions just out of curiosity, and I love sharing the answers.”
One of his favorite questions concerns how much he gets paid as a deacon.
His answer: “Well, nothing here—but the eternal pay is great!”
(For more information on the diaconate, go to www.archindy.org/deacon or contact Deacon David Bartolowits
at 317-236-1493 or dbartolowits@archindy.org.) †
