Michael Koch from Bergkirchgen will be ordained a deacon on October 2nd in the Liebfrauendom in Munich by Cardinal Reinhard Marx and will preach the sermon on October 3rd in the parish church of St. Johann Baptist at 10.15 a.m.
The solemn thanksgiving service will then take place at 6 p.m. in St. Michael in Schwabhausen.
BY INGRID KOCH
Bergkirchen - Michael Koch will become “one of us”, as the pastoral team of the Bergkirchen-Schwabhausen parish association calls it, in which he will work as a “civilian deacon”.
After years of preparation with theology studies, practical assignments and a pastoral course in the St. Jakob parish in Dachau, a new chapter in life begins for the 55-year-old engineer.
The Dachauer Nachrichten asked him a few questions about this.
Mr. Koch, what made you decide to become a deacon?
Michael Koch: It was a long process that began with reading the Bible.
Over the years my interest in theology and questions of faith has developed.
With the papal election in 2005, I was naturally curious about the German Pope from Bavaria.
I was also infected by the hype "We are Pope" at the time and read the writings and books of theology professor Joseph Ratzinger.
The erudition and the deep spirituality of the Pope (emeritus) have impressed me and have shaped me to this day.
How did you manage to combine your studies and practical training as a deacon alongside your full-time work as an engineer?
I didn't start from scratch and have been interested in the biblical texts and questions of faith for a long time.
However, it requires a great deal of discipline and, above all, structured planning to accommodate the training in everyday life.
The interest in theology and, above all, the deepening of faith represent a rich treasure for life, as faith gives stability and security, especially in difficult life situations.
Who supported you on your way?
My family had my back to give me the freedom I needed.
In addition, I was supported by Pastor Albert Hack and Deacon Hans Steiner from my home parish association and accompanied through the training.
I was always able to exchange ideas with both of them on questions of faith and thus delve deeper.
What are your tasks as a deacon in the civilian profession?
I will probably not be able to cover all areas. My service will take place especially on weekends in the Eucharistic celebrations, celebrations of the Word of God, baptisms and weddings. However, I will also try to provide visiting services for sick or elderly people and support the disabled, for which the deacon takes special care and which also gives me a lot of pleasure. In addition, it is very important to me to be able to make a small contribution to narrowing the gap between the natural sciences and theology a little, which unfortunately has not been the case in the last two centuries due to a lot of polemics and many misunderstandings .
I hope that with my scientific training as an engineer and with my theological knowledge I have a good basis for this, because in everyday life I am already very often approached on this topic. It should be remembered that many discoveries and inventions have been made by people with scientific and theological knowledge. A famous example of this is the Big Bang Theory, which was developed by the Catholic priest and astrophysicist Georges Lemaitre. Interestingly, this theory was initially rejected by the famous physicist Albert Einstein, because he still assumed a static and not, like Lemaitre, an expanding universe.