Several years ago, I was working on a film for an archdiocese and in reviewing their YouTube channel I was dumbfounded at the amount of catechetical videos featuring ASL (American Sign Language) as I flippantly said to myself, “Why so many videos for the deaf?”
Two years ago in Maryland I found out why and my heart was forever changed and moved.
Can you imagine growing up in a home where all of your family members can hear and talk except you? Now imagine going to mass with them but not being able to understand what is going on or if you happen upon a rare mass where someone is signing the mass they’re all the way in the corner far from what is taking place on the altar. How are you to follow along and pray holy mass? In reality, even your greatest efforts to engage with the liturgy are fits and stops because the person translating is missing most of the theology the priest is referencing as they’re not familiar with the faith or they’re having to figure out what words to use in real time because Father took no time before hand to share with the signer what he would be preaching on. As you look around for others like yourself you quickly you start to realize that you are only one of two or three in the church. Would you feel a part of the parish community? Would you want to return?
When I first met Fr. Depcik I was amazed at his presence and deep love for Our Lord. He truly loves being a priest to both hearing and deaf Catholics and yet, he carries a heavy cross in knowing that the vast majority of Catholics who are deaf simply stop going to Holy mass by the time they become young adults and never return. How would you bring them back? Where would you begin? How could one of just a handful of priests trained in ASL take on such a monumental task of satiating the great need of inviting back members of the catholic family who really have no fundamental understanding of what and Whom they are missing each Sunday?
“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Matthew 28:19-20
As a church, we have received a specific request by Jesus Himself to baptize all souls and teach them everything He taught including the tradition handed down to us through the centuries, the deposit of faith. I partnered with the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception to produce this story for their EWTN show, Living Divine Mercy available at: DivineMercyPlus.org.
If you are weary, discontent or frustrated by the Church, experience in this heartwarming story a face of your Catholic faith you probably didn’t know existed. Father Depcik surely is a shepherd after the Lord’s Heart and although he daily faces insurmountable challenges he has discovered the transformative power of bearing his cross to follow the Lord.
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