Deacon Shane Hyland, 3 April 2025
Deacon Shane Hyland is one of the brand-newest in the country! He was ordained for the Diocese of Lismore on the 23rd of February, 2025. So he has a wonderful perspective on the value of the diaconate, following a journey of call and discernment, ministry and life.
As a “young fella”, Shane was dragged to church by his mother, but began to enjoy the ministry of altar serving, which kept him “busy and not bored.” However, he lost that positive regular routine through high school and the early years of his young marriage to Leanne.
After five or six years, they were having children and wanted to reconnect with church and community. Sr Mary had taught Shane to play hymns on the guitar, so he got involved with the music ministry in Warnervale, Central Coast NSW. Through the music, he really enjoyed “leading people spiritually into liturgy, bringing them together to participate more fully in the Mass” through the music.
Later, Shane and Leanne went through a “whole bunch” of difficult, life-changing moments. It made him question everything and he stopped attending church. One day, Shane was sitting in the chapel praying when he experienced a message from God: “You’ve tried to do life your way, now it’s time to do it my way.” Leanne, who had been praying for Shane to return to church, encouraged him to learn more about God and his calling. For the first time after 10 years of marriage, they prayed together – “it was a very powerful experience for us.”
There was a permanent deacon in their parish, which prompted Shane to learn more about the ministry. And he “stumbled across one part of the deacons ministry: to proclaim the Exsultet at the Easter Vigil.” Shane, as a cantor, found that he could do that even as a lay person, without the preface. But it made him think more about becoming a deacon.
Shane started his discernment with the Diocese of Broken Bay in 2015. He studied theology and, although he had “barely scraped through the HSC”, loved it and did very well. To survive as a family, he also studied a Masters in Teaching and began to teach religious education. Leanne kept encouraging Shane as the diaconal formation program developed – at first it was just him, then a couple of others joined in.
Shane went on to do pastoral placements in parishes and in a prison, which was “probably the coolest thing I’ve done and the most challenging.” Unwilling at first, Shane ended up visiting as a sessional chaplain every week for 2 years, providing a liturgical service that was very special to him.
At one point, the Hylands moved diocese, and then Shane had to begin discernment again with another bishop. Bishop Greg Homeming in the Diocese of Lismore wanted to be certain that the community would accept Shane and his ministry as there was less experience of permanent deacons in the diocese – the other three had retired and the last one was ordained 35 years ago.
Now, as a religious education teacher and ordained deacon, Shane feels that it is on the margins that “deacons come into their own.” He actually sees many similarities between schools and prisons, and encounters many who are unused to parish Masses and church practices. However, he sees “a deep hunger for God in the hearts of both groups of people”. At a parish, they may not experience the support of their families or feel welcome or accepted. Yet ‘on the margins’ is where they can feel the spirituality and belonging of the Church, represented in the presence of the deacon.
Unlike the priests who visit for monthly Masses at his school, Deacon Shane is able to spend much more time getting to know the students. He works with the youth minister and prayer teams, learning about some very big and traumatic things that the students are going through. Then he is able to pray over them and to bless them. He listens to them, encourages them and shares some scripture for them to take away.
Shane experiences a “powerful thing” when he blesses and allows the Holy Spirit to work through him at these times. He knows that anyone can bless, and it meant a lot when his grandmother used to bless him as a child. However, he finds it hard to explain, but as a deacon there is “something extra, to have the authority of the Church behind me.”
This is the value of the diaconate that Shane has found. He sums it up in one word: presence. It is about “having someone there in a place where there hasn’t been the Church’s presence.” Students are curious about him when he wears his collar around the school, and it opens up conversations about their own spirituality. He can accompany people on their spiritual journeys, and he is a real physical connection between the parish and the schools. It is bringing the church to the margins, and inviting the margins to the church. Thanks, Shane!
Liturgy on the Margins 