Bishop institutes Hoffman as acolyte, Novotny as lector at the Pontifical College Josephinum

Preaches on Mary’s Immaculate Conception and the mystery of the Church

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Several men in particular stages of priestly discernment and formation at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Worthington, Ohio, received important new roles in the Church on Dec. 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

Bishop W. Shawn Mc­Knight, an alumnus and a former professor and vice-president at the Josephinum, instituted several men as lectors and acolytes during Mass in the seminary’s St. Turibius Chapel.

Among those instituted as lector were Christopher Hoffmann of the Jefferson City diocese. Phillip Novotny, also of this diocese, was instituted as a lector.

Lectors are commissioned to proclaim the Word of God in the liturgical assembly and to instruct the faith.

Acolytes are entrusted with attending to the altar, assisting the deacon and priest at Mass, and distributing Holy Communion.

Bishop McKnight pointed out that lectors bring the message of salvation to those who have not yet received it.

“Thus, with your help, men and women will come to know God our Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, Whom He sent, and so be able to reach eternal life,” the bishop said.

He noted that acolytes assist the bishop, priests and deacons in carrying-out their ministry, and give Holy Communion to the faithful during the liturgy and to the sick.

“Because you are specially called to this ministry, you should strive to live more fully by the Lord’s sacrifice and example of charity,” Bishop McKnight stated.

He noted that being instituted as lector or acolyte is permanent, regardless of whether or not further discernment leads to priestly ordination.

“By virtue of the graces you received in Baptism and Confirmation, dear sons of holy Mother Church, you are eligible for these liturgical ministries that were once associated with the Sacrament of Holy Orders,” he told the candidates for lector and acolyte.

“Your baptism makes you eligible, but the fact that you are on the path to ordination to the Sacred Priesthood is why Holy Mother Church has chosen you to perform these ministries as a means of discerning and preparing you for the sacred ministry to be carried out in the Person of Christ, the Head of the Church.”

“She was chosen”

Bishop McKnight preached about the relevance of Jesus’s mother — who is also mother of the Church — being free from the stain of original sin from the moment of her conception.

Her Immaculate Conception foreshadowed the gift of sanctifying grace that would be given to all the baptized.

“Her unique role in the history of salvation, as ordained in God’s providence, came with a unique, prevenient grace, won by the foreseen merits of her Son on the cross,” the bishop noted.

That special grace meant that she was free from sin throughout her life.

Likewise, he stated, “with the graces of the baptismal font, we were washed clean from sin, original and actual, as we were immersed into and participated spiritually in the death and resurrection of our Lord, and made temples of the Holy Spirit.”

All who are baptized receive the call to live the fullness of grace, “by offering ourselves in gratitude to the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit,” he noted.

Bishop McKnight emphasized that Mary’s unique role, ordained by God, did not make her a goddess.

“No, she was a woman, of flesh and blood, human as we are human, and so we neither worship nor adore her,” the bishop stated.

Rather, Christians rightly celebrate and give thanks for Mary, and honor, love and venerate her.

“For she was chosen,” he noted, “in God’s providence, to accept her role in the history of salvation with freedom.”

Namely, she was completely free to say “yes” to the Angel Gabriel when he announced to her that she would be the mother of the Savior.

Her “yes” was a manifestation of her abiding faith. But she was more than just another disciple.

“For she — whose Only Begotten Son, as He hung upon the cross, chose her, His Mother, to be our Mother also — helps the Church to be more fruitful, day by day,” Bishop McKnight stated.

Stewardship, co-responsibility

Bishop McKnight urged the men who were being called to serve at the altar as acolytes and to proclaim the Word of God as lectors to recognize the diversity of charisms given by God to His Church through its many members.

He pointed out that those who share in the ministerial Priesthood of Jesus Christ are called through their role as leaders to foster, promote and exercise the common priesthood of the faithful.

“It is the whole people of God, in a co-responsible fashion, that carries-out the most supreme action of the Church — the celebration of the Eucharistic Mystery,” he stated.

Likewise, all people are summoned to offer themselves in sacrifice to the Father by the invocation of the Holy Spirit and through, with and in the perfect sacrifice of the Sacred Heart of the Son.

“All are called to offer their gifts and talents, laid at the feet of the successors to the Apostles, to carry-out the mission of the Church,” Bishop McKnight stated.

“And all are called to give thanks to the Father for the spiritual blessings we have received,” he said.

Bishop McKnight emphasized that Mary, having given herself entirely, wholly and completely to God, stands as the ultimate model of discipleship.

He pointed out that in Mary, the Church revives the gift of a mother’s love — “a mother who nurtures, intercedes for and loves with an unconditional and unflinching love.”

“There is no day in which we ought not to seek her intercession,” the bishop noted. “But on this day, especially may her prayers for us help us to be more faithful and holy members of the Body of Christ as we partake in the Sacrament of Eucharist.”

Keep them in prayer

Mr. Hoffmann and Mr. Novotny are second-year theologians at the Josephinum.

Bryce Smith, a seminarian of the Jefferson City diocese, is enrolled in the college’s undergraduate pre-theology program.

Please pray for them and for all who are discerning a possible calling to the Priesthood.

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