Member of clergy nearly late to get ice-cream with sprinkles on vacation (9)

'member of clergy' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?

'nearly late to get ice-cream with sprinkles on vacation' is the wordplay.
'nearly late' becomes 'dea' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'to get' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'ice-cream' becomes 'cone' (I've seen this in other clues).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'on vacation' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (after the inside letters have vacated the word).
'sprinkles' with its centre taken out is 'ss'.
'dea'+'cone'+'ss'='DEACONESS'

Can you help me to learn more?