On 16th October in the parish chapel of Nanzan Catholic Church in Nagoya, 4 SVD confreres were ordained priests for the Japan province of the Society of the Divine Word. Originally, Bishop Nomura of Nagoya diocese was asked to be the main celebrant of the ordination Mass, however, sudden change of his schedule made him unable to join the celebration. Therefore, I was asked to be there, at the last moment, to ordain these 4 confreres. Fortunately, I did not have any particular program on the ordination day, so that I was able to be in Nagoya for the ordination, though I could not join the celebration after the Mass in the evening. After all, I am privileged to ordain all together 9 SVD confreres this year; 5 in Ghana and 4 in Japan.
All the 4 new priests were from countries other than Japan but they had been in Japan for quite sometime to complete their theology formation in Nanzan University in Nagoya. In fact, there are no Japanese seminarians among temporary professed members of the SVD in Japan at this moment. The seminary community in Nagoya is quite international. Family members of the new priests all managed to acquire visa to Japan and join the celebration.
The ordination Mass was con-celebrated by more than 40 priests and the chapel of Nanzan which could contain more than 500 people were packed wall to wall. Since the rector, Fr. Xavier and the prefect, Fr. Narui, trained their seminarians very well in liturgy, the ordination Mass was so solemnly performed that, time to time, I have to be directed by them how to behave well as a bishop during the Mass. Though there were no dancing for the Mass, such as in Ghana, it took 2 and half hours to complete the ceremony. Congratulations for the newly ordained SVD Fathers and I will be waiting to welcome you in my diocese.
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