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.

A PRAYER FOR PRIESTS

Yesterday, our brother Joseph was ordained a priest of Jesus Christ in the Archabbey Basilica by our local bishop Lawrence Brandt.  Here is a prayer for all priests by the late Archbishop of New York, John Cardinal O'Connor:

 

Lord Jesus, we your people pray to You for our priests. You have given them to us for OUR needs. We pray for them in THEIR needs.


We know that You have made them priests in the likeness of your own priesthood. You have consecrated them, set them aside, annointed them, filled them with the Holy Spirit, appointed them to teach, to preach, to minister, to console, to forgive, and to feed us with Your Body and Blood.

Yet we know, too, that they are one with us and share our human weaknesses. We know too that they are tempted to sin and discouragement as are we, needing to be ministered to, as do we, to be consoled and forgiven, as do we. Indeed, we thank You for choosing them from among us, so that they understand us as we understand them, suffer with us and rejoice with us, worry with us and trust with us, share our beings, our lives, our faith.

We ask that You give them this day the gift You gave Your chosen ones on the way to Emmaus: Your presence in their hearts, Your holiness in their souls, Your joy in their spirits. And let them see You face to face in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread.

We pray to You, O Lord, through Mary the mother of all priests, for Your priests and for ours. Amen.

March, 1995

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.

Pope declares year of the priest to inspire spiritual perfection

By Carol Glatz 

Catholic News Service

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI declared a year of the priest in an effort to encourage "spiritual perfection" in priests.

The pope will open the special year with a vespers service at the Vatican June 19 -- the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the day for the sanctification of priests. He will close the celebrations during a World Meeting of Priests in St. Peter's Square June 19, 2010.

The pope made the announcement during an audience March 16 with members of the Vatican Congregation for Clergy.

He met with some 70 participants of the congregation's March 16-18 plenary assembly, which focused on the missionary identity of the priest and his mission to sanctify, teach and govern.

During this jubilee year, the pope will also proclaim St. John Vianney to be patron saint of all the world's priests. At present he is considered the patron saint of parish priests.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the death of this 19th-century saint who represents a "true example of a priest at the service of the flock of Christ," the pope said.

St. John Vianney is widely known to Catholics as the Cure (parish priest) of Ars who won over the hearts of his villagers in France by visiting with them, teaching them about God and reconciling people to the Lord in the confessional.

In his address, Pope Benedict said the priestly ministry consists of total adherence to the ecclesial tradition of participating "in a spiritually intense new life and a new lifestyle which was inaugurated by the Lord Jesus and which the apostles made their own."

Priestly ordination creates new men who are bestowed with the gift and office of sanctifying, teaching and governing, he said.

The pope underlined the necessary and "indispensable struggle for moral perfection which must dwell in every authentically priestly heart."

The pope said he was calling for the special year for priests in an effort to foster the priest's yearning "for spiritual perfection, upon which the effectiveness of their ministry principally depends."

"The awareness of the radical social changes over the past decades must stir the best ecclesial energies to look after the formation of priestly candidates," the pope said.

This means great care must be taken to ensure permanent and consistent doctrinal and spiritual formation for seminarians and priests, he said, specifying the importance of passing down, especially to younger generations, "a correct reading of the texts of the Second Vatican Council, interpreted in the light of all the church's doctrinal heritage."

Priests must also be "present, identifiable and recognizable -- for their judgment of faith, their personal virtues and their attire -- in the fields of culture and charity which have always been at the heart of the church's mission," he said.

"The centrality of Christ leads to a correct valuation of ordained ministry," he said, adding that, without priestly ministry, there would be no Eucharist, no mission and even no church.

Therefore, he said, it is crucial to make sure that new bodies or pastoral organizations are not set up "for a time in which one might have to 'dispense with' ordained ministry based on an erroneous interpretation of the rightful promotion of the laity."

"This would lay the foundations for further diluting the priestly ministry, and any supposed 'solutions' would dramatically coincide with the real causes of the problems currently connected with the ministry," he said.

Interesting Article (May the Angels Lead Father Theodore into Paradise)

From: www.courier-journal.com

Posted on April 29, 2009

The Rev. Theodore Heck, believed to be the world’s oldest Benedictine monk, died at age 108 today at St. Meinrad Archabbey in Southern Indiana.

Heck, who died a month before what would have been his 80th anniversary in the priesthood, was a former professor and rector at St. Meinrad’s college and seminary. The monastery said he was the oldest monk in the monastic orders following the tradition of St. Benedict.

In a monastery interview posted on YouTube, Heck said in 2006 he still enjoyed the monks five-times-a-day gatherings for prayer.

“As long as I can hear and I can pray, I’m glad to be with them,” he said.

“Everybody needs a family life of some kind,” he added. “Here we are kind of a spiritual family of young men and older men living together in harmony.”

A native of Chariton, Iowa, Heck was born on Jan. 16, 1901 and was later raised in Missouri and Indiana.

Photo Courtesy St. Meinrad Archabbey

He enrolled in the high school seminary at St. Meinrad in 1918, professed his vows as a monk in 1923, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1929.

He earned a doctorate in education at Catholic University of America and taught for more than 50 years at both the high school and graduate seminaries at St. Meinrad. As rector, he oversaw the accreditation of St. Meinrad’s undergraduate and graduate programs.

The high school and college programs have since closed, but the graduate School of Theology continues to operate.

At age 70, a time when most people have wrapped up their careers, he began a 17-year term as pastor of St. John Chrysostom Parish in New Boston, Ind.

The funeral will be Saturday.

Benedictine monks make vows committing themselves to lives of prayer, obedience, celibacy and stability, or staying rooted in their community.