THE GOOD NEWS
ARCHBISHOP BELTRAN

HOME

PAST
GOOD NEWS

May 25, 2008

The Good News...

...Ordinations

Over the next few months, the Church of our Archdiocese will celebrate three ordination ceremonies.  Four young men will be ordained priests and one of our priests will be ordained a bishop.  How blest are these men to be called to these ministries by the Lord. How blest are we to share in these ceremonies and in their future priestly service to God’s people.  Chron-ologically the ordination ceremonies are:

On Friday evening, May 30, three young men, currently deacons, will be ordained priests at the Cathedral of Our Lady. This ordination ceremony will take place at 7 p.m. The three young men to be ordained are Joseph Schwarz from Holy Trinity Church, Okarche, Christopher Tran from Saint Andrew Dung-Lac Church, Oklahoma City, and James Andrew Wickersham from Saint Thomas More Church, Norman. These three are being ordained for the service of the Church of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.  They will begin their first priestly assignments in June.

On Thursday afternoon, June 5, one of our own archdiocesan priests, Bishop-elect Anthony B. Taylor, will be ordained in Little Rock, Ark., to be the bishop of the Diocese of Little Rock.  His ordination is scheduled at 2 p.m. in the Statehouse Convention Center. A number of chartered buses will be traveling from several locations in Oklahoma to Bishop Taylor’s ordination in Little Rock.

On Thursday afternoon, Aug. 21, Brother Boniface Copeland, OSB, will be ordained a priest in Saint Gregory’s Abbey Chapel, Shawnee. Brother Boniface is from Oklahoma City, a graduate of Bishop McGuinness High School and now a professed monk at Saint Gregory’s.

Ordination in the Catholic Church is a sacred rite of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. The ordaining bishop, through the imposition of hands and the prayer of consecration, confers the Order of Bishop, Priest or Deacon.  These three sacred orders, bishop, priest and deacon, constitute the entirety of the sacrament of Holy Orders. There are no other ordination rites or ceremonies in the Catholic Church. Through the ordination rite, bishops, priests and deacons are given the Order to exercise a sacred power which comes from Christ on behalf of the Church.  These men, called by God and by the Church, are ordained to serve God’s people and to lead the people on the pilgrimage of life to life everlasting in heaven.

In addition to proclaiming the Good News of Jesus, priests and bishops celebrate the sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance. They are ordained specifically for this purpose.  Therefore, without priests and bishops, there would be no Mass nor any sacramental forgiveness of sins.

While we will greatly miss Bishop Taylor’s priestly ministry among us,   we are pleased to share him with the universal Church as directed by Pope Benedict XVI.

As Catholic people of this Archdiocese, we should be very grateful to the Lord for calling the three new priests for the Archdiocese and one new priest for Saint Gregory’s Abbey. How wonderful it would be if we had this same number of priests ordained every year. Then, instead of closing parishes and reducing the number of Masses, we could do the opposite! Therefore, all of us must pray daily for an increase of vocations to the priesthood.

At this time, I also wish to remind any young man who has graduated from high school and any young man with college credits who is contemplating a priestly vocation to contact me or your pastor or the vocations director. We stand ready to help you in your search. We will pray with you and for you. We ask Almighty God to bless and help you.