Deacon Joseph Michalak is performing two jobs for the archdiocese this spring as he wraps up his longtime role as director of the Institute for Diaconate Formation at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul and begins his job heading up the new Office of Synod Evangelization. And on Sundays, he preaches at the Little Sisters of the Poor in St. Paul.

“I’ve got so many unanswered emails,” said the 63-year-old father of five, a member of St. Joseph in West St. Paul. “The key is becoming more comfortable with failing and not being able to reach my measure of how a job ought to be done but simply being faithful to the most important things in any given day.”

Q) You’re in a season of transition.

A) It’s a training in deeper listening. I feel like I’m back in school — back in the school of the Holy Spirit.

Q) What helps you listen better?

A) I recently got off Facebook, and I don’t miss it one iota. Daily Mass, if possible. Daily lectio divina. A daily Holy Hour, in addition to the Liturgy of the Hours. You put it all together, and I try to take a couple hours a day in prayer. And the busier I get, the more important it becomes to do that. It sounds counterintuitive, but I know from experience that if I devote more time for prayer, I get more done — and what I do, I do more fruitfully.

Q) You also have the support of a men’s group.

A) There are four of us, and the range in our membership is from 15 years to 40 years.

Q) Your intellectual load is demanding — teaching, preaching, leading retreats. How do you balance that out?

A) It’s therapeutic to do physical labor. And it gives me an avenue into reality that simply can’t be gained through cognitive work alone. A very interesting book I read recently was Matthew Crawford’s “Shop Class as Soulcraft.” He’s a philosopher and an expert motorcycle mechanic.

I love doing construction. My wife, Anne, and I live in a 1912 two-story brick house in St. Paul that has needed two major remodels. I was the general contractor and apprenticed myself to the plumber and then learned plumbing. I worked alongside an electrician and now I do all my own electrical, and I do concrete work. It’s sort of Benedictine: Pray and work.

Q) I’m hearing from more people taking up hobbies that involve working with their hands.

A) When I’m teaching deacons and their wives come along, I can’t tell you how many will be knitting or crocheting in class. They say, “I hope I’m not distracting you, but I receive more if my hands are moving.” I’m honored they want to be more engaged.

Q) Does working with your hands help you process the day?

A) When I’m doing physical labor, I don’t tend to think about much. I delight in my surroundings. The work itself becomes a form of prayer.

One thing I’d really like to learn is bricklaying. I’ve had a little experience building dry stone walls — walls without mortar. My ideal sabbatical would be to go back to England, where I used to live, and take a summer course out in the countryside learning how to build dry stone dykes.

Q) You have more interests than time!

A) I always have multiple books going at one time. I ended up in theology, but I’m a student of history and I find quantum mechanics absolutely fascinating — and anatomy and biology. I’m trying to get into the habit of asking God what he wants me to read and study.

Q) Does God make it clear?

A) Oh yeah! I have a little process, making a pile of books and over several days, I just wait. I don’t go with the first impulse. It’s a good rule of thumb for when you want to buy something.

I know what I want, but I just wait. And over the course of a few days, I end up pulling something out and then others, and then I’m left with one — “Oh, that’s what he (God) wants me to read.” He keeps directing me back to Scripture and to virtue — understanding what virtue is and how it works.

Q) Both your parents died last year. Has that loss shifted you?

A) Yeah, I’m on deck!

Life simplifies. I find in me a desire to be sure that, of all the things I’d like to do in life still, my children walk with God and they know the joy of doing his will first.

For anybody whose parents die — it’s a complex reality. Both my parents were diagnosed with cancer, and as my mom was dying, my father had a major stroke. She died in April, and he died in December. We like to joke that they couldn’t bear to do a Christmas apart from each other.

One of the hardest things was leaving the home I grew up in. It was the first level of grieving. But as Paul says: We grieve, but not without joy. We always grieve in Christ, which means he doesn’t take away the grief or the suffering, but he’s with us in it. I’ve definitely experienced that.

Q) What advice would you give someone who feels spiritually adrift?

A) I would say three things. First, ask: What do you want? What are you looking for? Jesus asks that question over and over again in the Scriptures. He’s trying to put people in touch with the deepest desires of their heart.

Second, are you following Jesus? If we’re not following him by engaging him in those daily habits of prayer, worship and Scripture, how can we listen to him?

And third, be generous. Even if we don’t know ultimately what we’re supposed to be doing, respond generously whenever you can. Serve those in need. Because generosity opens us up to receive what God wants for us.

Q) What are your key takeaways from the Synod?

A) From the beginning, the archbishop always had an end in mind, and the end was the renewal and the reunification of the local Church — ultimately through a re-encounter with the living God. And what rose to the top was parents want to help their children encounter God. People want their parishes to be more outward focused, missionary, evangelistic, to help others encounter God.

That’s why the archbishop’s new pastoral letter so strongly emphasizes the mysteries of the Upper Room, especially the mystery of the Pentecost — that’s the love of God poured into our hearts. We can no longer assume people know that that’s the core of being a Christian, that the love of God is poured into our hearts.

Q) That’ll be your focus in your new job.

A) I’m not a program manager. My main task is to help hold the vision before us and to help form leaders that themselves will form others in helping as many people as possible turn toward the reality of God.

Q) What do you know for sure?

A) I know that God is “I am,” and I am not God — however much I sometimes want to be. Secondly, I know that I am loved by him beyond all my deserving. And the last thing is that suffering can be a gift of love because it can bring us closer to the one we love.