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Hamilton Diocese is very proud to be the first diocese of New Zealand to initiate the Permanent Diaconate. Since the ordination of Deacon Mike Ryan, the value of the Permanent Diaconate has been experienced in this diocese. In recent years we have been able to put in place a valuable training programme that has led to the ordination of eleven other deacons. Others are currently in formation. The Permanent Diaconate is certainly a blessing to this diocese and is appreciated by the whole of the diocese, priests and laity. As you visit this website, I pray that your faith and appreciation of all that God does in his Church will be deepened. Please pray for the Permanent Deacons of this diocese who serve us so enthusiastically. God bless you Yours sincerely in Christ +Denis Browne BISHOP OF HAMILTON
Welcome to the website of the Hamilton Diocesan Diaconate. If you are seeking information about being a Deacon, please go to our Diaconate Information pages. There is a prayer request service, and under Liturgy, links to current readings and the Ordo. Our news page contains both local and overseas Catholic news. We provide a commentary each week on a current topic or the reading.
Requests rss
of Faithful rss
The World Meetings of Families will open with an international theological and pastoral congress that will be held in Milan and other cities and dioceses of Lombardy. Some 111 speakers from 27 countries will join 5,000 participants from 30 May to 1 June. The plenary session will be held at Fiera Milano City. More than a million people are expected for the final mass. More.......
Copies of the new translation of the missal were sent to dioceses on Friday 17 February
2012 and are now being distributed to parishes.
The missal is in English and Maori
and is the first bilingual missal approved for use in New Zealand.
The Ascension of Jesus Author Ranosonar: Wikimedia Commons
Gospel Mark
1st.Reading
Acts 1; 1 -
In the gospel of Mark, we have only a brief description of the Ascension. In fact the words of Jesus quoted by Mark had been given at a meeting prior to that wonderful event. Matthew's account is almost as brief; he does mention the great mission that Jesus instructed the apostles to undertake, but there is no mention of the Ascension event itself. In his gospel, Luke elaborates briefly on some of the events during that last 40 days that Jesus spent with His friends, and then an equally brief narrative on the Ascension of Jesus.
It is then, in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles that Luke gives us a more in depth rendition of the events leading up to Jesus' Ascension and the event itself. One cannot help but feel a deep sympathy for the apostles; here was their master, who, after having been killed in a most ignominious fashion was taken from them. But to their amazement He rose from the dead, and they came to the realisation after a little prompting, that he really was the Messiah -
It took the two angels to snap them out of a trance-
