When Deacon Vernon Krajeski married his wife, Catherine, in 1958, he never expected to become a deacon. At that time, the permanent diaconate had not yet been restored.
In 1972, Pope St. Paul VI issued “Ministeria Quaedam,” reinstituting the permanent diaconate, following the direction of the Second Vatican Council and the history of the early church.
“During Vatican II in the early 1960s, they were talking about restoring the permanent diaconate, and I was reading about that in the paper. At the time, I was in the Air Force in Korea,” said Deacon Krajeski. “I felt a kind of stirring, and I thought, ‘Maybe this is something I need to look into eventually.’ ”
“It was 15 years before I had the opportunity,” he said. “When I did have the opportunity, I felt that the Lord was calling me to it.”
When he was ordained in 1980 in the Diocese of Ogdensburg, N.Y., he was one of about 5,000 deacons in the United States.
“We were brand new. People didn’t know what to do with us, so we plowed a lot of new ground,” said Deacon Krajeski.
When he came to the Diocese of Richmond in 1997, the diocese did not yet have a program for the permanent diaconate — or even a policy on what to with Deacon Krajeski.
“I was kind of a guinea pig,” said Deacon Krajeski. “I got temporary faculties, the diocese came up with a policy, and by the end of 1997, I was serving at St. John the Apostle (Church in Virginia Beach).”
To this day, though officially retired, he still serves at two weekday Masses at St. John the Apostle and offers the homily at least once a week. He marked the 45th anniversary of his ordination at a special Mass last fall, followed by a reception in the parish hall.
Deacon Krajeski has published books of homilies for all three years of the liturgical cycle, Years A, B and C.
“I used to read these books on different homilies to get ideas. But the most recent one I had was from the 1990s,” he said. “I had a lot of homilies I’d written over four decades, so my family and friends said, ‘Why don’t you publish them?’ ”
“Well, I didn’t know anything about self-publishing, so I just started emailing them out to family and friends,” Deacon Krajeski. “I got up to about 200 readers, and one of the guys I sent it to happened to be involved in publishing. He said, ‘Give me some of these, and I’ll see what I can do.’ ”
Published by Bridge Builders Press, the series is called, “Light Our Way, O Lord.”
At 90 years old, neither Deacon Krajeski nor Catherine, 92, plan to slow down.
Of his longevity and mental acuity, Deacon Krajeski said, “I think it might have something to do with taking my vitamins — that, and God’s blessing, of course.”
Over the course of his service, Deacon Krajeski has worked with the Cursillo ministry, prison ministries and with Catherine as a Pre-Cana marriage preparation director.
“I enjoy helping people in their spirituality,” he said. “If I had to pick out the thing I get the most satisfaction from, it’s seeing someone come to a spiritual awakening. We’d go into a prison for a weekend, and you just watch the change that can take place over a short period of time. It’s miraculous.”
Republished with permission from The Catholic Virginian.
