Ordinations of Five New Priests and One Deacon
On May 22nd, our religious family here in the United States had the great grace of receiving five new priests of Christ and one new deacon. They were ordained in Washington, DC at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception by Bishop Roy Campbell.
Though all six of these young men received their formation at the Fulton Sheen House of Studies Seminary (IVE Seminary in the Archdiocese of Washington), two of the new priests are monks of the contemplative branch of the Institute of the Incarnate Word and finished the last few years of their formation in the IVE monastic seminary in El Pueyo, Spain.
Please join us in giving thanks for the gift of these newly ordained and in praying for the that they may truly be priests according to the Heart of Christ!
Below we share with you a video and some photos from the Ordinations, as well as a reflection on the priestly vocation from an Argentine writer.
When You Consider
by Hugo Wast, Argentine writer (1883-1962)
When you consider that not even the Blessed Virgin Mary can do what a Priest does…
When you consider that neither the Angels, nor the Archangels, nor Michael, nor Gabriel, nor Raphael, nor any of those princes who defeated Lucifer, can do what a priest does…
When you consider that Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Last Supper performed a miracle greater than the creation of the universe with all its grandeur, by turning bread and wine into His Body and His Blood to feed the world; and that this portent, before which angels and men kneel, is daily repeated by a priest…
When you consider that other miracle which only a priest can do: to forgive sins, and that what he ties in the depth of his humble confessional, God, obliged by his own words, ties in the heavens, and what he unites, God instantly unties…
When you consider that humanity has been redeemed and that the world subsists because every day men and women nourish themselves from this Body and this redeeming Blood that only a priest can consecrate…
When you consider that the world would die of the worst hunger if it lacked that bit of bread and that bit of wine…
When you consider that this could happen, because priestly vocations are lacking; and when this happens the heavens will shake and the earth will explode as if God’s hand had stopped holding it; people will shout out of hunger and anguish, and they will yearn for that bread, and no one shall be able to give it to them; they will long for the absolution of their sins, and no one will be able to absolve them; and they will perish with their eyes open watching the worst of horrors…
When you consider that a priest is more needed than a king, more than a soldier, more than a banker, more than a doctor, more than a teacher, because he can replace all of them, but none can replace him…
When you consider that a priest celebrating Mass at the altar has a dignity infinintely higher than a king; and that he is not a symbol, not even an ambassador of Christ, but the same Christ who is repeating the greatest of miracles…
When you consider all these things, you realize the immense need for promoting priestly vocations.
You realize the eagerness that in old times, each family yearned that a priestly vocation would sprout, as a flower a lily, from its bosom.
You realize the immense respect people used to have towards the priest, which is reflected in their laws.
You realize that the worst crime ever is to impede or discourage a vocation.
You realize that if a father or mother obstructs the priestly vocation of their son, they are renouncing an incomparable title of nobility.
You realize that a seminary or novitiate is more than a church, more than a school, more than a hostpital.
You realize that to help to construct or sustain a seminary or a novitiate is to multiply the births of the Redeemer.
You realize that to award a scholarship to a young seminarian or novice, is to smooth out the way towards the altar for a man who during half an hour, every day, will be much more than all the earth’s dignitaries or all heaven’s saints; because he will be the same Chrsit sacrificing his Body and Blood for the life of the world.
