"To Form Future Priests" - New Seminary Project
http://www.newseminaryproject.org/ -
SSPX and related priests describe the joy and hope brought on ordination day - the great grace that each vocation is, and so, the profound importance of the new SSPX seminary in
Virginia and the formation of holy priests.
"
It's difficult to live a
Catholic life in these days - and when you see the ordinations and you see a young man being ordained, a Day of Ordination, it's a day of great hope, because God, as we know in our minds and in our hearts that He won't abandon His people - but this is something very concrete.
Ever since the crisis in the
Church, people, to show their great
Faith in the Church, or great hope that the Church continues in all its doctrinal purity and missionary zeal, they now makes these pilgrimages, we can say, to ordinations, to see the priesthood conferred on these young men.
When I had joined the
Benedictines in
Europe, each year, the big event was to go to
Econe for the ordinations. And there was such a great spirit, seeing representatives of all the orders there, the traditional orders
... seeing the elders of the clergy, older priests coming in to lay their hands on the ordinands; it was the event of the year. And in this spirit of hope... that God is with us; and we are in the heart of the Church.
People realize that here God is continuing to form, to give priests for their soul.
We've got that bloodline that goes back to
Our Lord Jesus Christ and the
Last Supper when he gave those apostles, celebrated that
Mass and gave them power to do what these priests now have the power to do. To confess sins, to absolve sins, and to be the Christ amongst us, both
Victim and the one that does the victimizing.
The priest as the mediator between God and man and so he's able to give
Sacraments to the faithful, just one ordination and the Sacraments he can provide and everything of that nature, is a great grace for all of the faithful that he will be able to see.
A priest is set aside, he's meant to be different, he's meant to be a leader amongst men; and so for the SSPX it's very clear - we are here to form priests. And we are here to form priests for
Holy Mother Church, for the work of
Tradition, and for souls.
It signifies that many vocations come to us from families, true Catholic families that have many children, that the good
Lord chose to send a vocation; that is a great hope of the Church.
If we look back a little bit more than forty years here, in the
United States, the
Society just arrived with a couple of priests. Over this forty years this group of priests developed to a group of 95 priests is a more or less exponential growth.
The seminary is all about forming priests. We're a priestly society, we take care of faithful, we take care of parishes, but we need priests to do that.
Of all the projects that we could possibly do in the Society, this new seminary is the most important project.
The formation of the seminarians, which is the formation of the priests, is the formation of the officers of the Church. When you support the formation of the seminarians, you support the building of the Church.
It's fitting, perfectly fitting, that we do all we can, all our best, to build seminaries, and to form vocations, to form future priests, the future of the Church.
The seminary project, is for us the perfect realization of the Archbishop's spirit, which was full of hope - and a magnanimous spirit. To put the light on the hilltop, so that all may see, and be attracted, by this beacon of light which is the place where priests are made."
-- For more information go to http://www.newseminaryproject.org/ - produced by
Joe Carroll,
Visual Contrast Media, in association with
St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary and the United States
District of the Society of
St. Pius X. ©
2015 –
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