Friday, March 15, 2019

Abp Prendergast Confers Minor Orders in the Traditional Rite

Last month (February 18), His Excellency Terrence Prendergast SJ, Archbishop of Ottawa, conferred tonsure and the minor orders on a Jesuit seminarian from the Irish province in the traditional rite at St Clement’s, the FSSP parish in Ottawa. Our thanks to photographer Jacquie Fournier, and to Mr Ian Gallagher for sharing these photos of the event with us. (They only cover the beginning of the ordinations.) Congratulations to Mr Theodore Avram SJ, and thanks also to Archbishop Prendergast for his generosity to the followers of the traditional rites!

The ordination was conferred within a prelatitial Mass, the Votive Mass for the Propagation of the Faith.
The ordinand kneels before the bishop with a lit candle in his hand, as the latter recites a prayer over him.
The bishp sits, and the ordinand comes forward, while the choir sings an antiphon from Psalm 15, “It is thou that wilt restore my inheritance to me.”, and the first few verses of the Psalm.
The tonsuring.
After the singing of the Psalm 23 with the antiphon “He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and mercy from God his Saviour, for this is the generation of them that seek the Lord.”, the bishop recites another prayer. The ordinand then comes forward, and is clothed by the bishop in a surplice.
The admonition before the conferal of the minor orders.
After receiving the order of Porter, the ordinand is taken to open and close the doors of the church...
and ring the bell.
He then returns to the bishop; the ordination to the lectorate follows.

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