THE GOSPEL of the day was about Zacchaeus, a rich tax collector who was short of stature but long on curiosity about Jesus of Nazareth. Knowing that Jesus was passing by, Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree for a good view. Jesus saw him, called him by name and invited himself to the tax collector's home.

For weeks before Deacon Bob Broyles was to preach on this reading on Nov. 5 at St. Brigid's parish in Westbury, he kept turning it over in his head. As he thought about it, he recalled a story about his grandson, Michael DeSantis, who had heard this gospel in nursery school and told his teacher: "I know someone like Zacchaeus: my grandfather. He's short, he's always running around doing things, and he climbs trees with us."

Whatever else Broyles decided to say in his homily, he was certain that he wanted to include the story of his grandson. And why not? One of the strengths of deacons is precisely that they are married men, who can enliven their homilies with parenting stories or tales from the world of work.

"I like to preach, because I think I have something to say," said Jim Morris, another of the five deacons at St. Brigid's, who taught in New York City schools for 35 years and now works three days a week for the United Federation of Teachers. "I have a perspective from my life's experience."

The deacon has a foot in two worlds. Like laymen, he has a job, a mortgage, children and often grandchildren. But he is not a layman. His ordination makes him a cleric. He has powers to baptize, to preside at weddings, to preach the homily at mass. When he vests for liturgies in a long white vestment called an alb and drapes over it a stole, the symbol of clerical office, he looks like a priest, and is often mistaken for one. "The minute you put your `pajamas' on, you're `Father,' " said Jack Falls, another St. Brigid's deacon.

But the deacon cannot offer mass, hear confessions or administer the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. Some of that may change, though. Late this month, the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy meets in Rome to discuss questions about the future of the diaconate, such as: Should the church allow deacons to anoint the sick? Should it ordain women as deaconesses?

Up to now, the restored diaconate has been totally male. But the Canon Law Society of America, a group of lay people and clerics that studies church law, accepted a report last month saying that canon law could easily be amended to make possible the ordination of deaconesses. One reason offered by those who oppose ordination of women as priests is that there is no evidence of female priests in Christian scripture or tradition. But there is clear scriptural and other historical evidence of women serving as deaconesses.

Ordination of deaconesses is not the only question. As the number of deacons increases and the number of priests declines, the hierarchy is looking anew at the roles of clergy. "I think the diaconate is really in a serious transition situation, because the church itself is going through a significant redefining of ministries," said Deacon John Pistone, executive director of the National Association of Diaconate Directors.

The origins of the diaconate lie in the Christian scriptures, which refer to the office of deacon -- from the Greek diakonos, meaning servant or helper. For centuries the diaconate had ceased to exist in the Western church as a separate, permanent office, though seminarians were ordained deacons as a temporary step on the way to priesthood. The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) set in motion a restoration of the permanent diaconate. In 1967 Pope Paul VI issued guidelines for this ministry, and in 1968 the American bishops received permission to establish the permanent diaconate.

Since then it has expanded rapidly. The Diocese of Rockville Centre has 199 deacons and 359 active diocesan priests, and the Diocese of Brooklyn has 141 deacons and 492 active diocesan priests. There are 11,452 deacons in the United States, with 1,938 in training. "They've grown about five percent a year," Pistone said. That growth is in sharp contrast to the declining numbers of priests, a decline that is partly related to mandatory priestly celibacy. If both trends continue, early in the next century deacons will outnumber priests.

Though there is no certainty about what will come out of the meeting in Rome, it seems clear the role of deacons will keep growing. "I see them as a tremendous possibility for the church," said the pastor of St. Brigid's, Msgr. Francis X. Gaeta. "I think now is the time to say, `Here is this body of men. How can we better employ them?' " Falls said.

The deacons at St. Brigid's were all very active in parish work before they applied for the diaconate, which fits the national pattern. "Most men who are called to the diaconate are already serving the church through ministries of service," Pistone said. Usually the men have stable families and stable jobs, which means they are mature -- at least in their late 30s and early 40s, when they decide to apply.

Falls, Morris and two other St. Brigid's deacons, Bill Byrne and Phil Matheis, were in the first class to study for the diaconate at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, starting in early 1977. Broyles was in a later class. Other dioceses had established the diaconate several years earlier.

"We watched while some other dioceses got started first, and we saw the need and saw the value of having it in our own diocese," said Auxiliary Bishop Emil Wcela, who served on a diocesan committee on the diaconate, in his role at that time as rector of the seminary.

For St. Brigid's, the first formal step toward the diaconate took place a few months before the training began, when the pastor at the time, the Rev. Frederick Schaefer, arranged a meeting at the School of the Holy Child in Old Westbury. It included Byrne, Falls, Matheis, Morris and two others who were later ordained deacons but have since moved out of the parish. Each of the men had a firm grounding in parish life, and each felt a call to the diaconate.

"There are two people responsible for the call, as far as I'm concerned: my wife Eileen and Fred Schaefer," said Byrne, who had worked his way up from office boy to executive vice president in a Manhattan advertising firm by the time he felt the call.

For years Byrne had been going to daily mass at St. Brigid's, but he still sensed a lack in his spirituality. One morning after mass Schaefer invited him to the rectory for coffee, and they talked about prayer. Later, Byrne's wife became involved in the charismatic prayer group, but its emotional worship style was not to his taste. Then Eileen was diagnosed with cancer. The evening before her surgery she went to the prayer group, but he stayed home.

"I'm sitting here saying to myself, `You bastard, you know that she wants you to be with her," Byrne said. So he went to the meeting. "It was all the weird stuff that I imagined it was, and yet, in the midst of that weirdness, there was obviously a love and a warmth in that room." He kept going. Not long after, Schaefer called and asked if he'd thought about the diaconate. Since his family had already put up with his 10 years as a Village of Westbury trustee, Eileen and the kids were amenable to this new demand on his time. "She said, `If that's what you want to do, by all means,' " he recalled. "The kids said to me, `You ought to do that, Daddy.' "

The charismatic prayer group was also an element in Jim Morris' growth toward the diaconate. He and his wife Dorothy had long been active in the parish, launching a high school religion program and working in Pre-Cana instruction for engaged couples. But Morris also felt an incompleteness. "There was a point in my life when I said, `My spiritual life is not as good as it used to be when I was in high school or college,' " he said. So he started going to mass daily at Elmhurst Hospital, where he worked with emotionally disturbed children. Together he and Dorothy went on a number of couples' retreats. "We were looking for more," he said. "There was a yearning that we had."

At a training day at the seminary, Morris met a nun who taught at Holy Trinity Diocesan High School in Hicksville. She invited him to a charismatic prayer group at the school. "It was just such a beautiful experience," he said. But Dorothy, coping with five kids, was reluctant at first. "This one night, I had everybody ready for bed," she recalled. "I just said, `I'll be going with you tonight.' " Then they began having charismatic meetings in their own home, which evolved into the parish charismatic prayer group.

His attraction to the diaconate grew from that quest for a deeper spirituality, combined with a sense that it would be an opportunity for service to others, as teaching had been. In the years after he was ordained, doctors, nurses, therapists, beauticians and others at Elmhurst Hospital began to seek him out for spiritual counseling. For Morris and his wife, who has always worked closely with him in his ministry, the diaconate is not an isolated reality, in some separate box. "My work life and my spiritual and diaconal life are one," he said.

The oldest of the St. Brigid's deacons-to-be was Phil Matheis, now 80, whose long career included a Silver Star in World War II, high visibility in the Long Island building industry as a vice president of Title Guarantee Co., and an array of volunteer projects, such as work at the A. Holly Patterson Geriatric Center in Uniondale. He had also volunteered for Catholic Charities, winning its Caritas Award, and served as the diocesan chairman of the Nocturnal Adoration Society. But he had never felt any attraction to ordination.

One weekend he and his wife Doris were having lunch at the Shelter Island parish of Msgr. James Griffin, the director of the Nocturnal Adoration Society. Some visiting nuns said that they had just attended the first ordination of deacons in another diocese. "Jim Griffin says to me, `Did you ever think of becoming a deacon?' " Matheis recalled. "I said, `I don't even know what the heck they are.' "

But once he learned that the diocese was accepting applications, he signed up -- even though he was nearing retirement age. It seemed a natural progression. "I've been a very fortunate person that's never been separated from his church," he said. "I never had a period of being angry with the church or being out of step with the church."

Like Matheis, Falls came to the diaconate with experience in the military, business and volunteer work. After World War II his Marine Corps battalion was on a Mediterranean cruise when a small launch sank and he saved the lives of eight men, winning the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. Back home, influenced by Thomas Merton's autobiography, "The Seven Storey Mountain," Falls thought about becoming a Trappist monk. He hitchhiked to Merton's monastery in Kentucky and spoke with him. "He told me go out and get some life experience, fall in love," Falls said.

Falling in love was easy. In 1951, after a second tour in the Marines, he married someone he had known since elementary school in Ozone Park. As he began his business career, as a buyer at American Can Co., he and Ginny started what became a family of seven girls. Then, through a Trappist friend, they became involved in a lay apostolate among the poor of Chile. In 1962 they sold their 22 shares of American Can, their house in Seaford and their car and moved with their first five daughters to work in the slums of Chile for three years. "It solidified our willingness to give of ourselves," Falls said.

That commitment to service made a decision for the diaconate easy, and it led Falls to leave the private sector to work for 10 years at the diocesan level as associate director of human development. Only one element seemed jarring: the requirement that, if a deacon's wife should die, he must not marry again. "It sounded very adolescent," Ginny said. To at least one of their children, the concept was confusing. When Jack started his training, Rosemary, then 8, expressed reservations to Ginny. "She put her arms around me and said: `In two years, when daddy becomes a deacon, do you have to die?' "

The classes at the seminary, open to both the deacons-to-be and their wives, began in January, 1977 -- every other Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. In June, 1979, Bishop John R. McGann ordained the first class of deacons for the Diocese of Rockville Centre: 24 for Nassau and 25 for Suffolk. At the start, there was some uncertainty about what their roles should be.

"Pastors asked me, `What am I supposed to do with this guy?' " said Byrne, who began working in the diocesan office of the diaconate right after his own ordination, then became the first deacon to serve as its director, from 1980 to 1988.

The most visible role was to assist the priest at mass, by proclaiming the gospel and reciting some parts of the liturgy. They also began presiding at baptisms, weddings and at wakes. But in the early years some parishioners complained about having a deacon officiate instead of a priest.

During one baptism one man raised his hand with a question. "He said, `Where are the priests today?' " Matheis recalled. "So I said, `I've been assigned to do the baptisms.' " The man persisted. " `What authority do you have to do baptisms?' I said, `By the faculties granted to me by Bishop John McGann after my ordination.' " They went on with the baptism, and later the man's wife apologized to Matheis. "I'm sure he said, `My kid's getting second-class treatment,' " Matheis said.

Similarly, Morris recalled the wake of a local public official, whose relatives made their feelings clear to the pastor. "They called down and told Fred, `We don't want a deacon. We want a priest,' " Morris said. Schaefer, supportive of the deacons' role, responded: "The deacon is going to do the wake, or else you're not going to have anybody."

In the years since, that has changed. "There's less and less of that kind of story," said Deacon Gerard Wilson, the director of the diaconate for the Diocese of Rockville Centre. "I think the support is getting much, much better."

When the first class of deacons was ordained after two and a half years of study, they were permitted to preach at weddings, wakes and baptisms, but not to preach at Sunday mass, for which they had to take additional training. But this year Wilson asked McGann to change that, so the diocese wouldn't ordain deacons not fully prepared to give homilies.

"We asked that it become a three-year program where all the training would take place before ordination," Wilson said. McGann agreed. Before entering the program, deacon candidates must first complete two years in the diocesan pastoral formation institute, which trains lay people for a variety of roles. Once they have completed that, they go through the three years of the diaconate program, receiving training for preaching throughout those three years.

In effect, it now takes five years to become a deacon. Then he becomes available as he is needed: during the work week at his secular job, for counseling people who ask for help; in the evenings, for wakes, meetings with engaged couples and parents preparing for baptisms; on the weekends, for marriages, baptisms, proclaiming the gospel at mass and preaching.

For deacons, as for priests, preaching well is not easy. "I agonize. I'm up all hours of the night," Falls said. "I drive Ginny crazy." The priests preach weekly, but the deacons only once a month. That gives them more time to prepare, but it has drawbacks. "We don't preach enough," Broyles said. "To me, it's like bowling. You've got to play enough to get a decent score."

Another difficult role of the deacons is comforting mourners at wakes. "I accomplished it by saying, `Here's a chance to be with people who are really hurting,' " said Matheis, who lost his wife last year and feels that the loss made him more compassionate. His wit, down-to-earth style and wide circle of friends make him a comforting figure. "Phil is like family to us," said Anne Josey, after Matheis had led the prayers at her daughter's wake last month. Such relationships often help. Broyles recalled one wake for a young woman. "My daughter played ball with this girl," he said. "I knew the family, and I could relate to it."

At baptisms and weddings the deacons also frequently have connections with families. One of Matheis' employees had a baby and waited until after Matheis' ordination to have the baby baptized, "the first sacrament I ever celebrated," he said. Matheis officiated at the wedding of his own son, Felix Jr., and at the weddings of five children of his niece, Anne Marie Nataro. He often reminds John, her only remaining unmarried child: "I'm getting closer to the Lord every day. Get going. Get somebody."

When couples come in seeking a wedding, the parish's executive secretary, Adriana Miller, assigns them to either a priest or a deacon, on a rotating basis. Whoever interviews the couple later performs the wedding. If the couple ends up with Broyles, they sometimes have a surprise when the wedding date approaches and they show up for a license at Hempstead Town Hall: Broyles works there, and he issues licenses. He also serves as an advocate for couples seeking annulments.

Broyles spent most of his business life working in the office end of the construction industry, until downsizing struck. He went to work in the Nassau County senior citizen department, then took the Hempstead job. Broyles grew up in a large family, the youngest of eight children -- including one who became a Christian Brother, the principal of Bishop Loughlin High School in Brooklyn, and one who became a Dominican nun. His wife Millie is the oldest of eight. They have eight children.

For years he had been active in the parish, serving as president of the Holy Name Society, working in the Catholic Youth Organization and running a variety of fund-raisers. "I was not too aware of the diaconate," he said. Then he heard that Matheis was becoming a deacon. "I said, `What is that old renegade doing?' " Broyles recalled. "I got very interested in it. I applied for it." He was ordained in 1985.

Millie Broyles is shy, but her support has been pivotal to her husband's ministry. "She's the rock in back of me," he said. The same is true of the other deacons' wives. Doris Matheis, for example, made her husband's albs and stoles, but she made no fuss about the time he had to spend on his ministry. "She made it possible by making it comfortable," Matheis said.

Now that he is a widower, Matheis must stay unmarried if he is to remain a deacon. "I didn't know that Doris was going to predecease me, but I knew if it happened, this was the way it was going to be," he said. "I was willing to take that chance, even if Doris died two days after I was ordained."

The death of Byrne's wife, Eileen, put him in the same position. "The church does not understand the void that is created by the loss of a partner of over fifty years. Particularly when you're married to a babbling brook, as she was, the silence is sometimes deafening," he said. "I really have no interest in getting married. I have a real need for companionship, for somebody to hug and be hugged by."

Whatever their marital situation, the deacons have also assumed the role of sympathetic listeners -- both in the parish and at work. Byrne remembered a colleague who approached him on the fairway. "He said to me, `How'd you get mixed up in this church stuff?' " Byrne told him it was through prayer. The man said he never remembered to pray. "I reached down and picked up a pebble," Byrne recalled. "I said, `Put this in your pocket. Every time you touch it, just say, `Jesus, help me.' I said, `That's prayer.' For five years the guy walked by me in the locker room and said, `I still have it.' "

One of the most moving moments of Matheis' diaconate was in one of those quiet interactions. It was during a hospital visit in Glen Cove, with the Rev. Michael Maffeo, one of the priests at St. Brigid's. Maffeo is young enough to be his son, but they have similar senses of humor and enjoy each other's company. During their visit to a terminally ill woman, she and her husband celebrated their 50th anniversary, with the whole family present, and renewed their marriage vows. Then Maffeo went to his car, got the anointing oils and administered the sacrament of the sick. "It certainly was a very touching moment," Maffeo said.

Administering the sacrament of the sick is one role that many deacons would like to perform themselves. In addition, Broyles said people seeing him in church before daily mass have sometimes assumed he is a priest and asked him to hear their confessions. "Why shouldn't I be able to help somebody like this?" he said. "I absolutely wish I could do it for them.' "

Whether or not deacons acquire a larger role, the key to the diaconate will not be its liturgical functions, but the spirit of service to others that is the root of the word deacon and the core of the Christian gospel.

"The most important thing I am is a sign of what the whole church is called to be," Morris said. "When you think about that, it's an awesome responsibility. This is what I want people to understand, that what I am, what I'm called to do, is what the whole church is supposed to be."