Celebration of the Feast of St. Pius X

The feast of St. Pius X, Patron of the Seminary, is celebrated every year on 21 August. It is indeed the most important day for each of us to welcome our Ordinati, who were ordained at the end of the last academic year. We also extend a warm invitation to external members of our seminary, who contribute much to our seminary formation. The Ordinati of 2019 returned to the seminary now as priests to celebrate the Festal Eucharistic celebration. The seminary staff and the visiting professors concelebrated at the Eucharistic celebration.

Fr. Ashwin Castellino, in his homily, highlighted the soft-hearted nature of St. Pius X as being perhaps very necessary for today's’ Church. Having had an intense pastoral experience for the last few months as a priest, he feels that people are largely adapting to a new religion, and that is ‘No Religion.’ This is the biggest challenge we are facing today. Apart from this, as future priests, be mindful that we will be torn between two major challenges in our ministry: ‘To be a pastor and an administrator’ and ‘to be social and spiritual.’ Pope Francis says as priests we are excellent in giving advice but ‘our hearts don’t weep with the people who are suffering.’ We over spiritualize everything even when people are suffering. Let us try to fall in love with Jesus and break ourselves for the suffering people; this will make us more humane and soft hearted like our Patron St. Pius X.

After the Holy Eucharist, we gathered together to congratulate and felicitate our newly ordained priests. The deacons dedicated a special song for the Ordinati, highlighting their qualities and interactions when they were in the seminary. Fr. Sachin Muntode addressed the gathering and expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the staff and community of St. Pius. A sumptuous lunch concluded the festal celebration.