VATICAN CITY – The statues, murals and other works of art that fill St. Peter’s Basilica are valuable. And those of religious persuasion would even argue that the bones of St. Peter, buried beneath that church’s high altar, Are more so. But being ordained to tend Christ’s sheep in the proximity of Peter’s relics is certainly beyond price.
Such was the case for two seminarians of the Diocese of Providence, who were ordained Oct. 4 to the transitional diaconate at the Altar of the Chair. Newly-ordained Deacons Jeremy Rodrigues of St. Elizabeth, Bristol, and David Thurber of Our Lady of Consolation, Pawtucket, will be ordained to the priesthood for Providence next summer at the conclusion of their studies.
One of the final steps along the path to the priesthood, the transitional diaconate is also the first of the sacramental holy orders, in which a seminarian is configured to the image of Christ the Servant. As deacons, Rodrigues and Thurber were commissioned to
baptize, to witness marriages, to serve at the altar and to preach the Gospel.
“You are being ordained to serve,” said Archbishop John P. Foley during his homily at the ordination Mass. “’What can I do for you?’ This could be the daily prayer of a deacon,” the archbishop added.
A Philadelphia native and the former head of the Vatican’s Communications Council, Archbishop Foley was the main celebrant at the ordination of the 21 men who make up the Pontifical North American College’s fourth-year class. Also among the prelates present at a ceremony rich with circumstance, pomp and symbolism was Bishop Thomas J. Tobin.
“Not just the place of their ordination is special, but the fact that they’ve had the opportunity to study in Rome, for three years so far, at the heart of the Church,”
Bishop Tobin said in an earlier telephone interview. “This gives them a pretty strong sense of the universal nature of the Church, which is not just the parish to which the will be assigned –the Church has a universal dimension that really reflects the body of Christ.”
Bishop Tobin said he has every confidence in the potential of Deacons Rodrigues and Thurber, whom he called “very talented, very intelligent and very devout. I have every confidence that they’re going to be outstanding young priests.”
As he began the two-hour-long Mass last Thursday, Archbishop Foley expressed similar confidence in all the men he was about to ordain. “With the thousands of friends and Family here, this almost seems to be A beatification ceremony, not an ordination,” he said. “Let’s pray that these young men can live up to that challenge.”
Calling to mind the Gospel reading, where Jesus commanded his disciples to “love one another as I have loved you,” the archbishop said, “This love is an infinite love.”
He said the new deacons’ commitment to lifelong celibacy would make Christ’s love especially visible to the people of God. Citing Pope Paul VI’s encyclical “Sacerdotis
Coelibatus,” the archbishop said their continence would have a threefold role: Ecclesiologically, the deacons would be able “to devote themselves entirely to the needs of others”; eschatologically, they would be “evidence that we do not have here a lasting city”; and christologically, they would be able “to imitate Christ as closely as possible” Through a total self-giving.
“Your ministry is of a humbler kind,” Archbishop Foley said, noting that they had chosen to be ordained on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, whom he called “one of the Church’s most famous deacons. It is recorded in the Fioretti that St. Francis served his brothers and lepers. He did this because he saw in them the image of Christ,” the archbishop said.
Following the archbishop’s homily, the 21men,who came to Rome to study three years ago from the United States and Australia, were Named individually. As Rev. Mr. Rodrigues’, then Rev. Mr. Thurber’s, names were read, they stood, faced the archbishop and said, “Present.”
Then, after promising obedience to their respective bishops, the 21 men lay prostrate as a few hundred priests and the thousands of family, friends and acquaintances in attendance knelt and prayed the litany of supplication. Rising, each man came forward for the archbishop to lay hands on him, ordaining him a deacon.
Together with newly ordained Deacon Justin Kizewski of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wis., Rodrigues was chosen to minister at the altar during the Liturgy of the Eucharist that immediately followed their ordination.
Both Rev. Mr. Rodrigues and Rev. Mr. Thurber will serve as deacons in the Eternal City while completing their required fourth year of theological studies.
For Rev. Mr. Rodrigues, much of this service will occur at the U.S. Naval Base in Naples, where he ministers during many weekends. “I would say the opportunity to preach, and to baptize in Naples, is what I’m most looking forward to,” he said.
Interviewed at the North American College after his ordination, Rodrigues was surrounded by his extended family. “Practically everybody’s here,” Rev. Mr. Rodrigues’ father Joseph said. “It’s very emotional, very exciting.”
As for Rev. Mr. Thurber, he said he is most looking forward to preaching – something he did for the first time the following day, Oct. 5, for an intimate group of five family members.
Rev. Mr. Thurber said he was overcome during the Mass at St. Peter’s by the significance of his ordination. “It seems so surreal right now,” he said at the reception. “It hasn’t really set in yet. To think, you’re just a poor human person and still God can use you.”
