{"id":4589,"date":"2023-12-01T17:29:18","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T22:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/?p=4589"},"modified":"2025-01-28T09:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:18:09","slug":"called-to-christs-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/2023\/12\/called-to-christs-ministry\/","title":{"rendered":"Called to Christ’s Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"
Deacon Peter Barcellona, part of Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology\u2019s first diaconal formation program in 2015, has a ministry marked by its \u2018depth and breadth.\u2019<\/div><\/div>\n

By Kevin Coyne<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The letter was from the bishop\u2019s office and Peter Barcellona found it waiting for him when he returned to his Woodbridge home from a 2011 Easter-break trip to Washington with his youngest daughter. He had received several letters from the bishop\u2019s office over the last year or so, mileposts along his latest faith journey, and this was the one that would tell him if he had reached his destination or not.<\/p>\n

It would tell him whether he could take the decisive next step on the long road to becoming a deacon in the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time a letter would come to me, I would say, \u2018OK, they\u2019re probably going to kick me to the curb now,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

His hands shook as he opened it. He wasn\u2019t out on the curb \u2014 he had passed the last stage of the discernment process and been accepted into the first class of the new Center for Diaconal Formation at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology at Seton Hall University. Classes would start in the fall. But before he told anybody he took the letter and drove to his parish church, Saint Anthony of Padua in the Port Reading section of Woodbridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe church was open, and it was dark,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I went in and I laid the letter at the tabernacle, and I went face down on the floor right in front of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was 50, with four daughters and two grandchildren, and he had already given much of himself to others. He had started a network of local food pantries that he still ran and had traveled overseas as a lay missionary. He had also endured much in his own life, having survived cancer. Twice.<\/p>\n

Four years after that day he got the letter, he prostrated himself again. This time it was in a cathedral filled with light and hundreds of other people, as he and 17 other men were ordained as deacons at Saint Francis of Assisi in Metuchen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s a wonderful example from the very beginning of Peter\u2019s deep humility, for all that he has accomplished and the things he\u2019s done,\u201d says Deacon Andrew Saunders, director of the Center for Diaconal Formation. \u201cIt\u2019s that sense of humility that allows deacons, that allows Peter, to do the work of Jesus Christ. It\u2019s not our ministry. It\u2019s Christ\u2019s ministry flowing through us, and he got it from the get-go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deacon Barcellona \u2014 who was honored with a Seton Hall Servant Leader Award in 2015, the year he was ordained \u2014 learned about service growing up the youngest of eight children in a family with deep and enduring roots in Woodbridge. His grandfather was a barber in town, his father a police officer, and his mother always had enough food in her kitchen to feed whoever tumbled in at suppertime. All eight children \u2014 seven boys, one girl \u2014 went to the parish school, Saint James.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were always taught to give more than we take,\u201d he says. \u201cMy parents were very, very community-active people in town.\u201d<\/p>\n

He started giving at a time in his life when other people might have been inclined to start taking: when he was in his late 20s, he found himself a single father raising two girls under the age of 4. A friend of his, also raising two sons alone, had an idea. \u201cSo he said to me, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s go work at the food pantry,\u2019\u201d Deacon Barcellona recalls.<\/p>\n

Well, why not? Saint James had a food pantry, but its hours were short and irregular, and it was never open in the evening, the only time some people could get there. And the parish had helped his own family after an on-the-job motorcycle accident had put his father out of work for months. They opened the pantry on Thursday evenings. \u201cWhat did we know about running a food pantry? We knew nothing, but we dove into it and the kids were working beside us,\u201d he says. \u201cI think that\u2019s the seed that was planted. We were two single fathers floundering in the sea of life, and it was like, \u2018Where are we going with this?\u2019 It fueled my passion for giving back to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within three years, his volunteer work at the pantry had led to the townwide organization he helped start and still runs: We Feed Woodbridge, which has grown since 1992 from five pantries to 11, serving an average of 1,400 families a month. His full-time job as a public health investigator for Woodbridge Township helps keep him in contact with the network of donors who provide food and the community of clients who need it.<\/p>\n

But then came cancer. He was 36, and testicular cancer spread to the lymph nodes in his abdomen and a lung. \u201cWhen I was diagnosed I said, \u2018Whatever your will is, if this means the end then I\u2019m OK with that.\u2019 I made my peace with what I needed to make peace with,\u201d he says. \u201cI knew the kids would be taken care of, I had put things in place, but I was going to fight until
\nI couldn\u2019t fight anymore, which I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

And which worked, it seemed, until a little more than a year later, in 2000, when cancer was back in his lung. Forty debilitating hours of chemotherapy a week wasn\u2019t enough; he had surgery to remove part of his lung.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have that kind of come-to-Jesus moment your whole perception of what life means totally changes,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He started saying yes even more often when he heard calls to serve. Travel to Guatemala with the Diocese of Metuchen\u2019s Catholic Charities Solidarity Team? To El Salvador with the Maryknoll missionaries? Sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked locally with the marginalized \u2014 I never use the word \u2018poor\u2019 \u2014 and those who are food insecure for quite a long time,\u201d he says. \u201cOnce I had that first trip to Guatemala, it kind of just fueled my passion for not only helping the marginalized locally but the marginalized globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Barcellona said yes when a friend who was a deacon suggested he become one, too. The program he attended at Immaculate Conception Seminary was among the first in the United States to bring diaconal candidates to study in a seminary, the start of a movement to make the formation process more intellectually rigorous. He had been to community college and a business college but he didn\u2019t have a bachelor\u2019s degree, and despite all that life had taught him he worried about how he would fare in a classroom. And by now, he had two more daughters. But for the next four years he spent evenings and Saturdays in theology classes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After ordination he was assigned to Saint Anthony of Padua, where, like most deacons, he assists at Masses, performs baptisms, marriages and other rites. He has conducted the marriages of two of his daughters (the other two were married before he was ordained), and baptized the three of his five grandchildren who were born after he became a deacon. He has become especially adept at a task that at first he wasn\u2019t sure he would be up to.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTo break open the scriptures and preach? That\u2019s a lot of responsibility,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

His life continues to give him much to draw upon in his homilies. His mission work has expanded since his ordination: Tanzania, Lebanon, Egypt. When he preaches on Luke 16: 19-31, the story of the rich man who ignored the beggar Lazarus at his gate, embedded in his message are his memories from Tanzania of holding a 4-year-old girl with malaria, and celebrating Mass under a tree with worshipers who brought a live chicken for the offertory. Also embedded is his knowledge of how much difference clean drinking water and a nurse who can provide basic immunizations can mean to a town in Guatemala.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe we have walked down a street and come upon someone calling out for food or help? What are we inclined to do? Do we make believe we do not see them? Do we glance elsewhere, so that our eyes do not meet theirs?\u201d Deacon Barcellona preached one week at Saint Anthony. \u201cJesus is saying to us, \u2018Wake up! You still have time. Look around and see.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He is now the director of the group he accompanied on his first trip to Guatemala, the Diocese of Metuchen\u2019s Catholic Charities Solidarity Team, and he serves as a global fellow ambassador for Catholic Relief Services, the American church\u2019s agency for international humanitarian work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes him different than most other deacons that have come through our program is the depth and breadth of his ministry,\u201d Deacon Saunders says. \u201cWhat he has been able to do is take those experiences and come back and preach on them and make people aware of some of the things that are going on around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deacon Barcellona often travels to schools and parishes far from his own, spreading the word about the work of Catholic Relief Services, telling stories and showing images of the people he\u2019s met and the places he\u2019s been overseas, carrying that message from the Gospel of Luke.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not looking for a handout \u2014 all they want is to have their story told, so they\u2019re known,\u201d he says. \u201cMy work is all about telling the story.\u201d His cancer never returned, and when he does his five-mile walks now he says he would never know he\u2019s missing half a lung. He has plenty of breath to keep talking.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kevin Coyne The letter was from the bishop\u2019s office and Peter Barcellona found it waiting for him when he returned to his Woodbridge home from a 2011 Easter-break trip to Washington with his youngest daughter. He had received several letters from the bishop\u2019s office over the last year or so, mileposts along his latest…<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingCalled to Christ’s Ministry<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":5632,"featured_media":4648,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[259,317],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-2020-2024","category-profile","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5632"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4589"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4618,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4589\/revisions\/4618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}