FSSP Ordinations in Auxerre Cathedral

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The website of the Fraternity of St Peter’s European seminary at Wigratzbad, Germany, has posted photographs of the priestly ordinations held this past Saturday in the cathedral of Auxerre, France. His Eminence Jean-Pierre Cardinal Ricard, archbishop of Bordeaux, ordained Fathers Pierre-Emmanuel Bonnin, Cyrille Perret, Antoine de Nazelle et Sébastien Damaggio. (Shown from left to right before processing into the church.)

Here is a just a small selection (which was not easy to make among so many beautiful images) of the more than 200 photos; the complete set can be seen via Googlephotos or Flickr. Below the break, you can see a photo of one of the most beautiful customs associated with the traditional ordination rite, although not formally part of it. After the priest’s hands are anointed, they are bound with a cloth to keep the oil in place for the rest of the ordination ritual. Once the ritual is complete, he presents the cloth to his mother; it is a long-standing tradition that when a priest’s mother dies, she is buried with the cloth between her hands, to symbolize that she gave a priest to God, and will be rewarded for this in heaven. (Last year, we posted a photo of a priest giving the cloth to his mother to our Instagram account, which automatically reposts everything to our Facebook page, where it surpassed every record for views and likes by an enormous margin.)

NLM is very happy to offer warmest congratulations to the newly ordained priests and to their families, as well as to the Fraternity of St Peter, and likewise, our thanks to Card. Ricard for his pastoral solicitude on behalf of the Fraternity and the faithful who follow the traditional liturgy. In this season when so many priestly ordinations are taking place throughout the world, let us remember to thank God for all the blessings and mercies He gives us through the ministry of the priesthood, for the families in whom religious vocations are born and fostered, to pray for their increase, and for all of our bishops and clergy.

The sermon, preached at the beginning of the ceremony, rather than after the Gospel.

Fr John Berg, the Superior General of the F.S.S.P., reads the call to orders.

Towards the end of the Litany of the Saints, (for which the ordinands proestrate, while all other kneel) the bishop rises, receives his crook and miter, then turns to the ordinands, and sings the invocations, “That Thou may deign to bless + these chosen ones. - That Thou may deign to bless + and sancti+fy these chosen ones. - That Thou may deign bless +, sancti+fy and conse+create these chosen ones.”, making the sign of the Cross over there where I have put the + sign.

The imposition of hands by the Bishop.

All the priests present lay their hands in turn on the heads of the newly-ordained.

The anointing of the hands.

The “traditio instrumentorum – the handing over of the instruments” of priestly sacrifice,

Fr Bonnin hands the cloth with which his hands were bound to his mother.

The deacon of the Mass prepares the altar.

Each of the newly ordained priests concelebrates Mass with the bishop, kneeling at a small desk with a Missal on it. They are traditionally accompanied by older priests to help them through the ceremony.

Until the end of the ceremony, the new priests’ chaubles are pinned up at the back; at the end of the ordination right, they are unpinned by the bishop, as a symbol that he has released them to the exercise of their priestly ministry.

The final admonition to the new priests.