This is a terrific portrait of a deacon who is continuing to serve, despite some serious limitations. It comes from the Substack of award-winning New Orleans writer and editor Peter Finney, Jr.
For the last two years, Deacon W. Gerard Gautrau’s 73-year-old earthen vessel has manifested the creeping fault lines of a spinal fusion and the onset of Parkinson’s.
The physical limitations of a man who spent five decades crunching numbers as a certified public accountant, managing employees in the commercial cleaning industry and responding to what he perceived as God’s quiet call to serve as a permanent deacon in the Catholic Church have in some ways made him a spectator in life.
On a scale of 1 to 10, his informal pain level is “somewhere between 7 and 8, 24 hours a day.” Deacon “G” takes no pain meds because he says his mind is “foggy enough.”
“But I never say, ‘Lord, why me?’ Not one time,” Deacon G said. “My prayer is, ‘Lord, into your hands I commend my spirit’ and ‘Not my will but your will be done.’”
Deacon G’s bad back has forced him to spend most waking hours these days in the La-Z-Boy in his St. Rose home, and trips to the grocery store that used to be serenely uneventful are now an obstacle course in which he navigates both the known – his pain – and the unknown – his balance.
“When I go to a grocery store, lots of times I can barely make it out because I’m in so much pain,” he said. “I’m holding on to the basket to make sure I can get back to the car to support myself. I never go through a store with just a walking stick because if I do, I’m scared if I have to carry something else.
“I know that lots of people are praying for me. I can’t imagine how bad it would be if I didn’t have the prayers. I always tell my wife (Laura), ‘Don’t worry about the things you can’t control’ because she worries too much. But it’s a good thing she worries about me. She takes care of me.”
Deacon G has been unofficially retired from his diaconate duties at St. Ann Parish in Metairie for the last two years. He’s unable to attend Mass there because sitting for an hour in a wooden chair is impossible, even with the help of a soft cushion.
Just before Palm Sunday this year, Deacon G approached St. Ann’s pastor, Father Billy O’Riordan, with a proposal that had kept coming up in his prayer as he recited the Liturgy of the Hours twice a day in his recliner.
For the previous several months, Deacon G had been offering brief written reflections in the St. Ann bulletin on various spiritual themes, but he was searching and praying for ways to do more.
What would happen, he thought, if he could touch people’s hearts without ever having to leave his recliner?
Thus was born the “Gentle Servant Line,” a 24/7 telephone outreach that people can call for Catholic prayer and support. Deacon G provided the Good Servant Line – (504) 221-4449 – whenever people feel the need for prayer, spiritual guidance or compassion.
