Pope Leo XIV celebrates the 43rd anniversary of his priestly ordination

Pope Leo XIV today celebrates the 43rd anniversary of his priestly ordination. On June 19, 1982, Robert Prevost was ordered priest by the Belgian archbishop Jadot, in the Santa Monica chapel, a few meters from the Vatican. I was 27 years old. He had pronounced his votes five years earlier, on September 2, 1978, to enter the order of San Agustín.

The Chapel of Santa Monica, located next to the Plaza del Santo Office – where the Pontiff currently resides – is a particular symbolic value for Leo XIV. Not only was the place of his ordination, but it was also the church that was assigned as a cardinal title in September 2023, a few months before his election on May 8.

As reported Vatican Newsthe commemorative stamp of its ordination includes an image of the Last Supper, taken from a Russian iconography of the fifteenth century, and a few words of St. Augustine that still resonate strongly in their ministry: “I cannot feed you with ordinary bread, but this word is your portion. I nourish you with the same table that nourishes me. I am your servant.”

These words – extracted from sermon 339 of the Bishop of Hippo – marked the spirituality of the young Augustine priest, who would have shortly after a missionary to Peru, where he exercised his ministry for almost two decades, in particular in the mission of Chulucanas, Piura.

Also in the work Exhibition about psalms (Psalm 103, III, 9), St. Augustine said: “You are a good servant of Christ if you serve those to whom Christ has served … He has made my servant who, with his blood, made you free … that He granted us to perform this service well, because, we want or not, we are servants; but if we are for our own will, we do not serve for necessity, but by charity.”

This spirit of service was evoked by Pope Leo XIV in his First homily of priestly ordinations as bishop of Rome, On May 31 in the Basilica of San Pedro, when he conferred the presbyteral order to eleven deacons.

Before them, he said: “The love of Christ possesses us. It is a possession that frees and enables us not to possess anyone. Free, not possess. We are of God: there is no greater wealth than appreciate and share. It is the only wealth that, when shared, multiplies.”