By: Jay Sorgi
The new director of the Diaconate Formation Program is a rarity: once ordained as a permanent deacon, he’s now a priest
There are only a small percentage of priests who know from experience the pathway that candidates for permanent deacon are walking.
Father Jimmy Macalinao, the diocese’s new director of the deacon community in the Diocese of Oakland and the director of the Diaconate Formation Program, is one of those few priests who get that journey, as he became a permanent deacon while single before taking the path of the priesthood.
“I’m blessed in a kind of very unique route before I became a priest, because I was a single permanent deacon. I became the first permanent deacon to be ordained a priest in the Diocese of Oakland,” said Father Macalinao.
“I was able to see the ministry of the permanent deacons in our diocese and in the Church as a whole, which is very crucial.”
Father Macalinao, who came from Manila, Philippines, to the East Bay, is parochial administrator of St. Perpetua Parish in Lafayette. He was assigned to St. Joseph Basilica in Alameda for two years in his permanent diaconate role before entering priestly formation in the seminary.
He shares that while all priests are transitional deacons and understand that particular role to an extent, he understands how most permanent deacons live a different life than he did.
“The permanent deacon is really permanently a deacon, because 99% are married, or sometimes their spouse passed away,” he said.
Father Macalinao worked for 10 years in special education and campus ministry at St. Joseph Notre Dame High School in Alameda and had 10 previous years working with St. Joseph Basilica before entering the permanent diaconate. He said that role didn’t exist at the time within the Catholic Church in the Philippines when he left for America.
“I saw a simple announcement. It was at Agnes Parish in Concord. A man talked about what he was doing as a social justice minister for the parish. I was just impressed, so I inquired,” he said.
“I felt that God was really calling me to be a permanent deacon, a single permanent deacon. I thought I could work and then could minister in the church, because permanent deacons are not paid. ‘OK, this is for free,’ I thought. So I did it.”
While his own calling to the priesthood was different than the one most permanent deacons will take in their lives, he shares the similarities of how such a calling can be one of “magis,” the Latin word for “more.”
“The call to the permanent deacon is a call about service, that God is calling a man in a special way in this case,” he said.
“It’s really God calling you to give yourself more to Him in terms of serving His community in different ways, whether it’s prison, whether with poor people, whether at school or the hospital, or at the parish.”
Father Macalinao understands the permanent diaconate as a two-level, interwoven commitment, one of that kind of direct service, and one of a deep internal relationship with God that he said is non-negotiable.
“There’s that inner steering in the heart that tells you to put yourself in there to offer your life. It’s not about yourself, but about others. It’s looking at other people. It’s the giving. It’s the offering of one’s life for the service of the church, obviously for the service of God,” he said.
“The second thing is so important, the prayer life. If there’s no prayer life, there’s no faith involved, your work becomes like a social agency. The service is the fruit, but the root of everything is prayer, a life of prayer, a life of attentiveness to God’s call.”
The five-year formation process for a permanent deacon requires his family’s deep involvement, and they must approve of the candidate’s choice to enter into formation and the diaconate.
“It’s not easy if you have a family, and your wife is part of the formation as well. No permanent deacons will become ordained unless the wife signs, and so the wife has to be present,” he said.
“I always joke around with the permanent deacons, ‘The real pope is in your house. Your wife is the pope. You better be nice to them, okay? Your vow of obedience should be 101%, otherwise you’re dead. When you get out of the house, you got Pope Leo XIV,’” he adds with a kidding laugh.
Father Macalinao said that after the formation process and ordination, the life of a permanent deacon mixes family life, work and their responsibilities which move within and beyond the walls of the parish.
“We have liturgies. We have meetings during the weekend. We have [Order of Christian Initiation of Adults classes]. We have facilitating retreats. We have visiting the sick. It’s not like 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., or 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” he said.
Father Macalinao said that in recognizing his own humanness, he is awed by God’s trust in him to walk beside those men who are considering the permanent diaconate. It’s that same trust, he said, that allows God to use these men in this unique ministry.
“Despite my weak hands, my weaknesses, the Lord trusts me and trusts all these permanent deacons,” he said.
“Sometimes you’re afraid, you’re anxious that you can’t do it, but God gives you the grace to do it. It’s just like St. Paul. ‘It’s not me who lives, but Christ lives within me.’ You can do all things in Christ.”
To learn more, visit www.oakdiocese.org/diaconate