I’ve come across some remarkable and moving stories about how men chose to become deacons — or, rather, how God chose them. It’s the ordination season, after all, and it makes good copy. Take, for example, this little gem from Charleston, South Carolina, about a new deacon named Paul Mahefky:

“There were guys who said they had thought about and planned for it,” Mahefky told The Times. For him, though, “It just totally appeared.”

After taking an early retirement, Mahefky and his wife, Diane, moved from Virginia to Beaufort, S.C.

“I was sitting at St. Peter’s Church in Beaufort. I had just finished daily Mass. Probably for the first time in 25 years, I really had nothing to do.”

Mahefky, in his early 50s at the time, wondered how he would occupy himself.

“I got up out of the pew, walked out the door, and there was Deacon Mike Beeler standing there, asking me, ‘Would you think about going into the diaconate?’”

“It was just like the Almighty ambushed me,” Mahefky said. “Just one door away, outside. There it was.

“I was so taken aback. I got a little fearful. At that flashpoint I thought about how much had been given to me, how blessed I had been. How could I say no?”

Go and read the rest and — to quote the great old hymn — “ponder anew what the Almighty can do.”