On Sunday 7 September, at the Basilica of the Most Holy Mary of Capodimonte (Naples), our religious brother Alfredo Tortorella of the Province of Sicily and Naples was ordained a priest.

The following are his words which he spoke at the end of his first Holy Mass which he celebrated with relatives, religious brothers and friends on Monday 8 September at the ‘St. Mary of Graces’ Parish in Melito, Naples.

‘I would like to communicate to you for a few minutes what I feel inside; I would like to express to you for a second the gratitude that I feel towards God: not so much because I have received something or because I have reached a goal or things of that kind…those are human things. What I feel is wonder: the Lord, who is so great, He, who is love, passes by way of me, small and human as I am like all other people…Certainly not because I am better, absolutely not…this for me today is the greatest mystery. And as Msgr Lemmo said in his homily at my diaconate, this has taken place from hand to hand, in history, for millennia.

On the day of my thirty-sixth birthday, the Lord, with loving Providence, wanted for me a change in my being: it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me…to use the words of the Apostle Paul.

I pose to myself so many questions. I believe that one amongst many is the most important: Am I worthy of thus? This is the question that the bishop yesterday addressed to my Provincial Superior…someone, therefore, answered it for me.

Then the litanies of the saints were sung and I saw that very many interceded for me, not only here on earth but also in heaven: it was the celestial and earthly Church that prayed for me and her prayers, your prayers, have been, and are, my strength.

With so much grace, and so much nearness, I dare only say: thank you!

Thank you for the life which you, my parents, gave to me: thank you, father and mother, for becoming collaborators of God in giving me life; father and mother, you have taught me that in life we are never alone. There is always a remedy, a solution, somebody who will help us.

I thank my family: first of all you Maria and Giovanna, my sisters: to be your brother has helped me to make me feel that I am a brother of the world, a brother to everyone. And I thank my wider family: uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces, and also my grandparents who are in heaven: each one has been for me an instrument of good God! To my wider family I say, especially to its young members, do not waste your lives running after something that is not bread, wearing clothes that are too tight or large…life is a precious gift!

I thank the priests and the women religious of my childhood and my teenage years, the first faces of the consecrated Church that I met: I think of my teacher at elementary school, Sister Enrichetta, today a missionary in Indonesia, and the Handmaidens of the Eucharist. And then I think of the priests of this church in Melito, Don Luigi Marano, Msgr. Chianese, Don Ciro Papa, who now sing the lauds with the angels! I think of Don Mario Tornincasa, of Don Nicola Longobardo, and of Msgr. Lucio who yesterday ordained me a priest, and before I joined the Camillians of the great role played by Don Maurizio Pepe, Don Italo Mastrolonardo and Don Michele Madonna: thank you for your paternity, I will be eternally grateful to you! Sincere thanks also to Don Giovanni Tolma, Don Luigi Coppola and the other priests who are my friends and are present here today. Today, my joy is great because with me my uncle who is a priest, Don Antonio Corvino, a relative of my mother whom I finally met this evening, concelebrated with me: how fine it is to have you here, Uncle Antonio!

Deep and unique thanks to my religious family: the Ministers of the Sick, the Camillians! First of all to you, dear Fr. Rosario, my Provincial Superior. Thank you in particular for this year lived in Monaldi: from you, and from the whole of the community of Monaldi, there is truly a great deal to learn as regards fraternity and love for our suffering brethren! I thank you for one important thing, Fr. Rosà: you know how to wait, you know how to have patience, and in this you have showed me trusting hope in God.

 A thank you to Brother Mangione, Brother Leonardo Grasso, Father Hubert Goudjinou, Father Umberto Andreetto and my brothers in formation at Acireale Mangano, and amongst those Brother Vincenzo Duca, my travelling companion of recent years: with you I have spent fundamental years, very fine years, of ups and down, of daily growth. at a real school of life at the service of our beloved AIDS patients, of the poor at the food hall, and of the mentally disabled.

I think with affection at this moment of the very many cancer patients that I met during the by now completed year at the oncology department of the hospital in Monaldi, of those who had had heart transplants, and of other patients who had been admitted: many of them are now in heaven, others have prayed for me, and it was they who accompanied me to the threshold of the other world, it is they who made me see heaven on this earth, as St. Camillus said: the faces of poor sick people and the suffering will make you see the face of God.

   Lastly, it is incumbent on me and fundamental to thank all of you who attended to the success of this liturgy: first of all the choirs, that of the Great Occasions of Melito and that of the Monaldi Hospital: together you are a little a sign of my origins and of what I am now…Thanks go in particular to my friend Nicola, to Brother Salvatore Pontillo, and to you Loredana because you followed me as regards the various ideas about the songs that I called ‘inspirations’…Thanks to Luca, who has finally become a seminarian, my master of ceremonies for this occasion, with the young ministrants, the deacons and all of you who have come from various places and not only from the Province of Naples.

 Two weeks ago, while I was engaged in spiritual exercises, I asked the Lord to speak to me, to reveal something to me through His word: thus, with faith, I opened the Bible and my eyes fell upon a verse from the Book of Sirach, verse 10 of chapter 4: ‘Be like a father to orphans, and provide widows with the help that their husbands can no longer give them. Then you will be like a child of the Most High, and he will love you more than you own mother does’.

There: ‘Be like a father to orphans’ God said to me! Pray, therefore, that I do not flee in front of the wolves but, instead, that am a vigilant shepherd; pray that I am like a father to the orphaned humanity, to the wounded and abandoned children, to the suffering people that I will meet on my journey as a Camillian priest.

Together, today and always, with the Virgin Mary and St. Camillus, let us give praise, honour and thanks to God, never for a man, never…but for God Himself, who loves to use poor men!

Praise be to Jesus Christ!’

Fr. Alfredo M. Tortorella, M.I.

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