Diaconate Ordination

Congratulations to Br. Maximilian and Br. Jeremiah who were ordained to the Diaconate by the Most Reverend Lawrence E. Brandt, Bishop of Greensburg, on Saturday, April 14, 2012. As Deacons, they will serve the Church as Ministers of the Word, of the Altar, and of Charity. Through their new duties, may they be recognized as disciples of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who came to serve, not to be served.

Friend and Graduate of St. Vincent Seminary to be ordained priest

 

Bishop David Zubik will ordain three men to the priesthood at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 26, at St. Paul Cathedral. The future priests are Deacons Robert Fleckenstein and Thomas Gillespie, both of Incarnation of the Lord Parish on Pittsburgh’s North Side, and Deacon Brian Noel, whose home parish is St. Paul Cathedral.

 

The ordination Mass will be cablecast live on the Christian Associates channel in the city of Pittsburgh.

 

Deacon Fleckenstein is the son of Wayne and Mary Kathryn Fleckenstein. He has one sister, Julie.

 

He attended St. Angela Merici School in White Oak, McKeesport Central Catholic, St. Joseph Regional School in Port Vue and Serra Catholic High School in McKeesport. Deacon Fleckenstein earned a bachelor’s degree in religious studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, graduating in May 2000.

 

Past employment has included work as assistant manager at Spencer Gifts, youth minister at St. Columbkille Parish in Imperial and St. Joseph Parish in O’Hara Township, and most recently as liturgy coordinator at Incarnation of the Lord.

 

In fall 2004, Deacon Fleckenstein was accepted into the priestly formation program and began studies at St. Paul Seminary and Duquesne University. He completed the pre-theology program and graduated with a master’s in philosophy in May 2006. He entered St. Vincent Seminary in fall 2006 and has completed his fourth year of theological studies.

 

Deacon Fleckenstein was involved in a summer pastoral experience at St. Joseph in O’Hara Township during his time at St. Paul Seminary. In summer 2007, he was assigned to Sacred Heart Parish in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood, and he returned there for summer 2008.

 

On June 13, 2009, he was ordained a deacon at St. Paul Cathedral by Bishop Zubik. Deacon Fleckenstein was assigned for a pastoral experience at St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Glenshaw for summer 2009.

 

Deacon Fleckenstein plans to celebrate his first Mass of Thanksgiving at Incarnation of the Lord Parish at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 27. Father Thomas Sparacino, pastor of St. Richard Parish in Richland Township, will deliver the homily.

Our Brother Bonaventure becomes a Father again!!!

Father Archabbot Douglas poses with our Bishop Lawrence Brandt and our Father Bonaventure, OSB

 

 

Father Bonaventure poses with his three daughters after the ordination

Click here for more pictures of the Ordination

Brother Bonaventure Curtis, O.S.B., To Be Ordained To Priesthood On May 29, 2010

Brother Bonaventure Curtis, O.S.B., a native of southern California, will be ordained to the priesthood at Saint Vincent Archabbey by Most Rev. Lawrence E. Brandt, J.C.D., Ph.D., Bishop of Greensburg, on Saturday, May 29, 2010. Brother Bonaventure was raised in Minneapolis, MN and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in 1970, majoring in English and Secondary Education. He taught senior English at Coon Rapids Senior High School for two years before returning to southern California in 1972.

After successful business ventures in insurance and donut shops, he entered Western State University / Thomas Jefferson College of Law, San Diego, in the Fall of 1975 and completed his studies for the Juris Doctorate degree in December of 1977. He was admitted to the State of California Bar Association the following year and practiced law continuously thereafter, including nearly ten years of daily civil litigation practice in the areas of general business and corporate securities matters. During his law practice he was also Chief Executive of one of the nation's largest travel agency concerns and became an expert in the field of franchise law. In the last 15 years of his practice, he focused on contracts, generally in the entertainment industry. He began studies at Saint Vincent Seminary in 2005, following his profession of simple vows as a monk of Saint Vincent Archabbey. His parents, John and Vera Curtis, are both deceased, but were long-time residents of Coronado, California. His sister, a resident of Los Angeles since 1962, is Loretta Roberson. His wife, Roswitha, originally from Innsbruck, Austria, died from cancer in 2000. She was survived by their three daughters, who were raised and continue to live in San Diego: Christina is a first grade teacher at Clearview Elementary School, Chula Vista (a charter school); Stephanie Anne is a CPA and department supervisor at Cubic Corporation, a military-industrial giant headquartered in San Diego; and Katherine Rose is a registered nurse at Mercy Hospital in San Diego.

He entered the novitiate at St. Vincent on July 1, 2004, made simple profession of monastic vows on July 10, 2005, and solemn profession of vows on July 11, 2008. He was ordained to the diaconate on May 30, 2009 by Bishop Lawrence E. Brandt of Greensburg in the Saint Vincent Archabbey Basilica. He will be ordained to the priesthood on May 29, 2010. He earned the master of divinity degree from Saint Vincent Seminary in 2010, with highest honors. He received the Omer U. Kline, O.S.B., Homiletics Award, given by the Rector’s Council to the fourth-year student who has most clearly demonstrated excellence in preaching during his fourth year of study.

Brother Bonaventure has served as an assistant in the Archabbot’s Office (2005-2007), and was named assistant director of Archabbey vocations (2005-2009). While a full-time seminary student, he also taught Language Rhetoric, Business Law, and Introduction to Marketing classes as a member of the faculty of Saint Vincent College from 2005-present. In 2009 he was named secretary to the monastic chapter and the Council of Seniors, a development consultant for Benedictine Military School, Savannah, and acting executive director of the Saint Vincent Summer Theater.

3 St. Vincent Monks installed as Acolytes

(From Left to Right): Fr. Lester Knoll, OFM Cap. (St. Vincent Seminary Spiritual Director), Br. Francis Ehnat, OSB (installed), Bishop George Murry (Bishop of Youngstown, Ohio), Br. Gabriel Myriam Kurzawski, OSB (installed), Br. Nathanael Polinski, OSB (installed), Fr. Justin Matro, OSB (Rector, St. Vincent Seminary)

Ordinations

Nice short film by Grassroots on the Archdiocese of New York Ordinations, worth a look:

Pics from our Br. Bonaventure's Diaconate ordination

Photos by Kim Metzgar, Archabbey Publications

Our Brother Bonaventure Curtis, O.S.B., was ordained to the diaconate on Saturday, May 30, 2009 by Most Rev. Lawrence E. Brandt, Bishop of Greensburg, in the Archabbey Basilica Choir.  Here are some pictures from the Ordination.

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Diaconate Ordination

Our Brother Bonaventure, OSB will be ordained a transitional deacon this Saturday, May 30, 2009 at 10:00 AM in the Archabbey Basilica.  All are invited to attend this special liturgy in the life of the Church and our community.

Saints Stephen and Bonaventure...pray for our Brother Bonaventure.

Papal Ordinations

This year St. Vincent is blessed to have 3 of our Brothers ordained to the Holy Priesthood on 3 different continents.  Our Joseph, OSB was ordained a priest here at the Abbey (North America) last week.  Our Brother Benoit, OSB will be ordained in Italy (Europe) in a few weeks as well as our  Brother David, OSB in Taiwan (Asia).  Indeed God is good!

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI ordained 19 priests and urged them to make sure their ministry is not contaminated by a worldly mentality.

Priests should dedicate their lives to prayer and service and never lose sight of the self-sacrifice of Christ, the pope said during the lengthy liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica May 3.

The Mass marked the annual celebration of the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. The new priests, who will serve in the Diocese of Rome, included 13 from Italy and six from other countries on four continents.

After prostrating themselves on the floor of the basilica as a litany of the saints was chanted, each of the candidates knelt before the pope as he imposed his hands on their heads, part of the ordination rite.

In his sermon, the pope quoted the First Letter of John, who contrasted the spirit of the Gospel with the spirit of the "world," a term he used to refer to all that is hostile toward God.

St. John said that "the world does not know us" because it did not know God, a lament that remains true today, the pope said.

"It’s true, and we priests experience this: the ‘world,’ in John’s meaning of the term, does not understand the Christian, does not understand the ministries of the Gospel — in part because, in fact, it does not know God, and, in part, because it does not want to know him," he said.

Accepting God would place this worldly attitude in "crisis," the pope said.

"Here we need to pay attention to a reality: that this ‘world,’ in the evangelical sense, threatens even the church, infecting its members and the ordained ministers themselves," he said.

"The ‘world’ is a mentality, a manner of thinking and living that can pollute even the church, and, in fact, does pollute it, and, therefore, requires constant vigilance and purification," he said. The Christian vocation, he said, is to be free from evil and different from the world, though living in the world.

The pope emphasized the centrality of prayer in the life of each priest. This prayer should be Christ-centered, and its highest form is the Eucharist, he said. From prayer comes the effectiveness of all other priestly ministry, he said.

"The priest who prays often and prays well becomes progressively expropriated from himself and increasingly united with Jesus, the good shepherd, and the servant of his brothers," he said.

The pope, who recently turned 82, looked good during the two-and-a-half-hour Mass. It was his last major liturgy before his departure May 8 on a weeklong pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Afterward, at his noon blessing, the pope urged the entire church community to pray for priestly vocations.

The pope recently proclaimed a year for priests that will run from June 2009 to June 2010. In recent years, Vatican statistics have shown that the number of priests and seminarians in the world is increasing somewhat, but not as fast as the general Catholic population.

A few Pics.

Here are a few pictures of our Father Joseph's, O.S.B. ordination to the Holy Priesthood.

 

Archabbot Douglas, Bishop Brandt, and the newly ordained Father Joseph, O.S.B.

  

Father Joseph, O.S.B. processes out of the Basilica

  

The Celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist

  

Father Joseph, O.S.B. and Archabbot Douglas exchange the sign of peace to Father Joseph's family

  

Archabbot Douglas congratulates Father Joseph, O.S.B.

  

Bishop Brandt lays hands on Father Joseph, O.S.B.

 

Father Joseph, O.S.B. poses with his classmates and friends, Deacons Michael Zavage and Daniel Langa of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.  Deacons Mike and Dan will be ordained to the Holy Priesthood on June 27, 2009 at St. Paul Cathedral in Pittsburgh for the Diocese of Pittsburgh.  Please pray for these three young and zealous men of God.

Br. Joseph Adams, OSB to be ordained to the priesthood!!!

We are happy yo announce that our Br. Joseph Adams, OSB will be ordained a priest of Jesus Christ this Saturday, May 11, 2009 in the Archabbey Basilica at 10 AM.  All are invited to attend this special event in the life of our community and of the universal Catholic Church.

Diaconate Ordination

(St. Anthony - considered the Father of monks and St. Stephen, Deacon and first martyr for the faith)

Please remember in your prayers our Brothers Joseph Adams, O.S.B. and Benoit Alleggia, O.S.B. who will be ordained transitional deacons tomorrow at 10:00 AM in the Archabbey Basilica. All are invited to attend to support our brothers as they draw closer to priestly ordination.