By Caitlin Wojtasek
2024 marks the 50th Jubilee of the Permanent Diaconate here in the Archdiocese of Denver. Through preaching, service, worship and prayer, deacons serve the people of God in unique ways through their various ministries and lives. This article is one of a series of articles the Denver Catholic will publish in 2024 which will feature local deacons and/or a diaconal ministry. There are many Deacon Saints who were martyred for their faith. In this year of Jubilee, the deacons of the Archdiocese of Denver are asking for prayers through the intercession of Saint Euplius of Cantania, deacon and martyr. Learn more about this Deacon Saint here.
For Deacon Derrick Johnson, the heroic efforts of first responders on 9/11 were life-changing. They inspired him to change his career path, leave the ROTC program at CU Boulder and pursue firefighting.
In 2005, Deacon Johnson became a Denver firefighter. “I had my dream career,” he said, but something was missing.
Deacon Johnson grew up Catholic but, like many, stopped practicing his faith in college. “I sort of drifted away from it. I never denied it, but I didn’t see the relevance in my life,” he said. But he did feel relevance and meaning in his occupation as a firefighter.
“I loved my job. I loved the guys. I loved being in the firehouse. I loved the culture, all the good stuff that came with it,” Deacon Johnson added. He bought a house, married the woman of his dreams and together they welcomed their son into the world in 2010.
“I had hobbies, I had friends, I had all these good things. But there was a loneliness in my heart,” he said.
After his wife’s grandmother’s passing, and his wife’s own desire to return to the Catholic faith, Johnson began taking confirmation classes with a date set to be fully welcomed home into the Church.
This time of renewed faith and falling in love with Jesus was also marked by the tragic deaths of several firefighters to suicide.
“We were starting to have some talks about mental health at the fire department,” Deacon Johnson remembered. “We were starting to look at how firefighters deal with PTSD, how firefighters deal with compartmentalization, how we medicate ourselves and how we treat ourselves for the things that we see on the job.”
No matter the type of call–whether one they expect to receive or another, tragic emergency–Deacon Johnson said that serving people in need, especially in the darkest moments, takes a real toll.
“The calls that go outside of the norm are the ones that are especially horrific,” Deacon Johnson said, reflecting on the tragedies that weigh on firefighters and that can often lead to anxiety, depression, PTSD and, at times, suicide. “In my heart, I just felt a stir, like there’s something that I need to do that God’s asking me to be an instrument for, but I didn’t know what that was.”
Even in such darkness, God continued to plant seeds in his heart as even before Deacon Johnson was confirmed in 2014, a dear priest friend of his, Father Bill Breslin, told him that he should consider becoming a deacon.
“I laughed and I said, ‘Father Bill. I’m a really bad Catholic. I don’t know what you’re talking about, being a deacon.’” Even though Johnson laughed it off, that conversation and the idea of becoming a deacon took root in his heart.
Johnson was confirmed in December 2014 at his home parish of St. John in Loveland, which had seen five priestly and five diaconate vocations in the span of just a few years.
Even though he was relatively new to the faith, the draw towards the diaconate continued.
“I just kept on feeling these nudges, whether that was homilies, or whether it was parishioners coming up and talking to me randomly about their lives,” Deacon Johnson said.
But the thought of becoming a deacon and the formation and education that would be required felt daunting.
“I had just been confirmed, and we had a young child, but I said to my wife, we just need to on one of these discernment retreats, just to go and see, because this feeling isn’t going away,” he recalled.
Through the ups and downs of the formation process, God continued to draw Deacon Johnson to himself and give him peace in this call.
“I kept on feeling the call of, it’s not just for you. This vocation is intended to give back to the fire department, to give back to your brothers and sisters on the job who are struggling and need to hear a story like yours,” Deacon Johnson said. “It was very clear that God was asking me to do work as a chaplain.”
Convicted by this call, and with the support of his family and priest friends, he was ordained a permanent deacon on June 26, 2021.
In addition to his diaconal role at Assumption Parish in Denver, he continues as a lieutenant with Denver Fire and manages the chaplain corps for the Denver Fire community.
Deacon Johnson works with the department’s wellness coordinator and peer support network while also managing an ecumenical team of chaplains that serves the community’s spiritual needs. In collaboration with local psychologists and therapists, the chaplain corps provides a necessary outlet for the men and women of Denver Fire in processing what they experience on the job.
Much of his work in the chaplain corps involves being present in the firehouse and being available for conversations that may lead to something more. Because Johnson has worked as a fire fighter for 20 years, he knows the specific hardships and pitfalls that accompany this line of work. He understands the layers of trauma and complexity that come from working a job that involves life and death.
“It’s these little conversations that happen, the little phone calls or text messages that occur. It’s people stopping by my office who want to talk about something to do with the fire department, and then all of a sudden, three hours later, we’re in the nitty-gritty of a marriage, or of a loss that they’ve experienced, or something that they’re processing,” he said.
“I can empathize with what they’re experiencing, whether that’s from a traumatic first responder call, whether that’s in their marriage or their children, or with their family or friends because I am one of them,” Deacon Johnson added.
In addition to being physically present in the firehouse, Johnson often wears his clerics as a visible sign of not only his personal faith, but also of his generous response to the Lord’s call.
“During our fire academy graduations, I come dressed in my clerics, and I give the blessing,” Johnson said. “Just standing up there with the collar, standing up there not as Lieutenant Derrick Johnson, but rather Deacon Derrick Johnson plants a lot of seeds.”
Deacon Johnson knows that God has invited him to a specific mission through his work as a deacon-firefighter. His spiritual witness to his brothers and sisters at Denver Fire is all the more powerful because he stands with them side by side in their heroic work.
“I try to do my part to live up to what great things I have been given. God has done so much in my life and has asked me to use those talents to glorify him,” Deacon Johnson said.
And while that double calling could feel daunting or overwhelming, Johnson feels only peace.
“My job is to introduce Jesus, but the sparks that fly from that, that’s God’s work,” he concluded.
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