Called to have the same feelings as Jesus Christ (Phil 2:5)!

The priestly ordination of Fr. Salvatore Giuseppe Pontillo

On Saturday 30 September last, in the late afternoon, in the town of Grassano in the Province of Matera, our confrere SALVATORE PONTILLO was ordained a priest at the hands of the Bishop of Tricarico, Msgr. Giovanni Intini.

The celebration was an authentic ‘choral celebration of the people’: Salvatore chose to live this important moment of his life of consecration in his home parish, sharing great emotions with his family and the people who have seen him grow and mature as a man and as a Christian.

The priestly ordination was preceded and well prepared for by a week of ‘parish Camillian mission’ organised by the Camillian religious of the Province of Sicily and Naples, with the cooperation of religious from the Camillian Province of Rome, women religious of the Daughters of St. Camillus, and women Ministers of the Sick of St. Camillus and lay fellow workers. The week of mission was characterised by visits to sick people and families of the community of Grassano and to elderly people in their homes in the same town, and by moments of celebration and catechesis that described St. Camillus and the Camillian charism.

The welcome given to the new priest by the parish, by the Christian community and more in general by the families of Grassano was warm, spontaneous and very generous!

On Saturday afternoon the parish church was not large enough to hold all the priests, religious and faithful who through their fraternal and prayerful presence wanted to express their friendship with Salvatore.

The consecrating bishop – for the record Salvatore is the first deacon to have been ordained a priest by the ‘young’ bishop, Msgr. Intini – during his homily focused on the profound identity that a priest – who is a pastor and man of faith – must cultivate. He referred to passages from the liturgy of the consecration and to the second reading of the twenty-sixth ordinary Sunday, in particular the letter of St. Paul to the Philippians (Phil 2: 1-11).

‘Do you want to be ever more united to Christ the high priest, who as a pure victim offered himself up to the Father for us, consecrating yourself to God together with him for the salvation of all men?’

And the bishop went on: ‘Receive the offerings of the holy people for the Eucharistic sacrifice. Be aware that in what you do you imitate what you celebrate; conform your life to the mystery of the cross of Christ’.

     The greatness of Christ who lived being the Son of God, freely and fully taking on humanity, the dimension of serving humanity unto humiliation and the cross, was also pointed out to Salvatore, as a permanent style of life and permanent conversion to live his Camillian consecration at the service of the poor, the sick, the needy…

     Salvatore, much moved, thanked his family – in particular his father Domenico, deceased but an ‘unaware’ mediator of the Camillian vocation of his son – the Christian community of Grassano, his friends, and his Camillian confreres, expressing the hope that he would be continue to an ‘intense perfume leaving its scent wherever placed’ (St. Camillus), as his holy commemorative picture says.

PHOTOGALLERY