Deacon Darryl A. Kelley’s journey to becoming a Catholic and eventually a permanent deacon is one that he describes as “kind of long,” and going in a direction he was not sure where it would end. During an interview for the Nov. 5-11 National Vocation Awareness Week, he reflected on that journey.

“I was asking the question to myself of how to live an authentic Christian life. It wasn’t clear to me, and I had no clear direction,” he said recalling that time in the early 1990s when he started examining how to better live his Baptist faith. “I even asked people … but I was still in a little fog in that area as far as moving forward in my Christian life.”

At the time, he was a law school student, and he said he began looking at Scripture “with a legal eye” because “in the law, every word means something. I was reading Scripture like I was reading the law.”

While serving as an inspector with the U.S. Marshal Service, the future deacon earned his law degree by attending law school in the evening. He later went to work for U.S. Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Maryland), serving as the senator’s legislative assistant for education and labor issues. He left the federal government, going into private practice and opening his own law firm in Camp Springs, Maryland. He also delved into state politics, and was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates.

In was during his 2003-2007 term as a state delegate from District 26 in Prince George’s County that the future deacon’s journey to the Catholic faith began to take shape.

“At the time, I was kind of pro-life, but I could really have gone either way,” he said. “When the issue of (embryonic) stem cell research was facing lawmakers, the folks from the MCC (Maryland Catholic Conference) were trying to lobby me. I told them we could look for a compromise, but they would not compromise and told me, this is about life.”

He added that when the legislation came to the floor for a vote, “as a Democrat I was expected to support it, but I didn’t. I thought to myself, did I want to stand in front of God and explain that to Him. I didn’t want to, so my conscience kind of made me vote for life.”

About the same time, his daughter Evelyn Renee expressed an interest in attending Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School. She was accepted and started there in 2004. Another daughter, Victoria, began classes there in 2007.

“They were both playing on the softball team and sometimes before a game, they would have a Mass, so we would have the opportunity to attend Mass occasionally,” Deacon Kelley said, adding that he and his wife, Evelyn, liked the teaching they heard.

Deacon Kelley and Evelyn met as students at the University of Virginia, and have been married for 37 years.

He said that when he and Evelyn starting to look at other faiths, “we wanted to go somewhere stable where the teaching doesn’t change.” He said the “overall stance on certain issues in society led us to the Catholic Church.”

Because his law offices were located near St. Philip the Apostle Church in Camp Springs, he saw that the church parking lot often had cars in it. “I always admired how the Catholic Church every day has Mass, not just on Sundays. I really appreciated that,” he said. “I asked my wife one day, ‘Do you want to be Catholic?’ She and the family agreed, so I called St. Philip’s and we started RCIA classes.”

He and Evelyn, daughter Victoria and son Phillip – a graduate of DeMatha Catholic High School – were received into the Church in 2009. Daughter Evelyn Renee was away from home, attending Stanford University in California at the time.

“I found the way to love the Christian life – and that was through the sacraments. That was the ‘aha moment’ for me and that is what I try to teach and preach now …  the step-by-step change in one’s life,” he said.

Deacon Kelley said that after entering the Church, he still kept asking himself “how do I live a holy life in my everyday life,” when “one morning I kind of sat up in bed about 5 in the morning – I think it was inspiration from the Holy Spirit – and decided I wanted to explore becoming a deacon.”

He attended a “Come and See” discernment event for men considering the diaconate, and later “made the decision to go forward – and that was the right decision.”

Deacon Kelley said his wife would attend classes with him, “and it became sort of a date night. After classes we would go out to a restaurant and talk about what we learned in class.”

As his ministry of charity while in formation, the future deacon worked for a year at the Forestville Pregnancy Center, then at a food pantry and later for Catholic Charities’ Legal Network that offers pro bono legal services to those who cannot afford such services.

Over the years at St. Philip the Apostle, Deacon Kelley has served his parish in several ministries, including as an acolyte, lector, RCIA catechist, Bible study facilitator and extraordinary minister of Holy Communion. He formerly served on the Board of Directors for the Forestville Pregnancy Center.

He was ordained to the diaconate in 2019.

At his parish, among Deacon Kelley’s responsibilities are serving at Masses, coordinating RCIA classes and teaching faith formation classes. Outside of the parish, he serves on the Board of Governors for the John Carroll Society, is a chaplain at the Kennedy School for students with disabilities, and is an assistant chaplain for a group of young Catholic professionals in Virginia.

He also assists the Catholic Charities Legal Network at the Susan Denison Mona Center in Temple Hills, Maryland.

“It has given me such an appreciation being a deacon, being a lawyer and helping people. You are delving into the lives of people from a totally different perspective,” he said of his work with the legal network. “People out here are going thought a lot of things in life. I want to help people with the everyday issues of their lives.”

Deacon Kelley said he sees similarities between his role as a lawyer and his role as a deacon.

“As a lawyer, I wanted to be in the community helping people. As a deacon – even though I serve the cardinal, serve at St. Philip and serve at Mass, I still go out and help the people,” he said. “Is it a lot of work? Yes, it is very, very busy. But I feel like this is what I am meant to do – help people.”

On his way to the Catholic faith and to the diaconate, Deacon Kelley said he learned that “the Catholic faith is a beautiful faith. I have been blessed, and my family has been blessed beyond measure because of this journey into the Catholic faith.”

Deacon Kelley said would advise any man considering a vocation as a permanent deacon to “be faithful to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, because that is what I listened to and it has been wonderful.”

(For more information on National Vocation Awareness Week, go to the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops – https://www.usccb.org/committees/clergy-consecrated-life-vocations/national-vocation-awareness-week – or the website of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington – https://adw.org/vocations/vocations/.)