ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Dear Friends in Christ,

What a pleasure for me as Archbishop of Philadelphia to be with you today and to welcome all of you who make up this community of Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary. What a pleasure to celebrate the Eucharist with you and for you. It is a joy to invite all of you to begin a new academic year of grace in the name of Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I greet with profound affection and respect the faithful and dedicated administration, beginning with the Rector, Monsignor Joseph Prior, together with the faculty and staff, who respond anew this year to the Church’s call to serve generously and selflessly the seminary community of Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary, offering all their gifts, talents and energies to this great apostolate, this great ecclesial work of helping to prepare young men for the priesthood.

I welcome cordially our new faculty members whom we are so happy to receive and who will in a few moments edify us by their profession of the holy Catholic faith and their oath of loyalty to the Church.

How pleased we are this afternoon to have present representatives of the Board of Trustees, who serve so faithfully and with such dedication the life of our seminary and seminarians. The Archdiocese is deeply grateful for their extraordinary contribution.

During this Eucharist we experience unity with all the Bishops and Ordinaries who have entrusted their young men to Saint Charles Seminary. We also pray for all the Dioceses and Religious Orders represented here today.

The return of our seminarians from last year, together with the arrival of so many new men gives us the occasion to praise God for His “mighty acts” in their lives. The fact, dear seminarians, that you have just come, or that you have come back, shows the action of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Amidst many invitations and enticements in your lives you have felt an attraction to the priesthood of Jesus Christ, which is a pearl of great price, and with generous love you are here to pursue or to continue the discernment of your vocation. The action of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit are clearly at work in your lives. Blessed be God for His mighty works!

The word of God that the Church and the Lord Himself proclaim to us in this votive Mass of the Holy Spirit helps us in our great act of praise and in our understanding in the Church both of discipleship and the priesthood.

Our first reading describes that great day of Pentecost. And what happened on that day? The Apostles of Jesus were together. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit whom Jesus had promised and whom Jesus had sent them from the Father. And in the power of the Holy Spirit they began to speak. About what? About the “mighty acts of God” accomplished in Jesus Christ.

At Pentecost the promise of Jesus was fulfilled. He had promised to send the Holy Spirit from the Father. He had promised that the Holy Spirit would bear testimony to Him and that the Apostles would likewise bear testimony to Him.

Today, dear friends, in the liturgy of the Church, in our gathering, in this sacred place, the fulfillment of the magnificent promise of Jesus is re-enacted. Speaking to our hearts Jesus says: “I will send you the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth. He will testify to me. He will guide you to all truth. He will lead you to me. I am the truth.”

Dear friends, these words speak also about the most important goal for all of you in this Seminary: To get to know Jesus, in the sacraments, the word of God and in prayer; to be formed into Jesus by the Holy Spirit whom Jesus sends you, and in turn to be able to testify to Jesus by your words and your actions.

In all His faithful people, God intends to perform His “mighty acts,” and He asks everyone to bear witness to them. But, in the Church, Jesus chooses certain men to be His priests, by the power of the Holy Spirit to enter into a particular relationship with Him, and to bear special witness to Him by proclaiming sacramentally His Paschal Mystery. The sacramental proclamation of the Paschal Mystery is the Eucharistic celebration, the Mass. The core of your vocation is the Eucharist, just as it is the source and summit of all Christian life. You are here, dear seminarians, to discern and to love the priestly vocation, which is above all to celebrate the Eucharist for the people of God and for the glory of the Most Blessed Trinity.

The action of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit will make this possible for you. And Mary the Mother of Jesus, by her prayers and maternal love for you, will empower you to find peace and joy, generosity and fulfillment in all your seminary days and in your future priestly life and ministry. Amen.