MEC Student Blogs

The following entries were made by guest blogger Kate Jamicky.

February 12, 2010        
Episcopal Ordinations

On December 15^th we had the grace of attending the Episcopal ordination of a good priest-friend of our college. Monsignor Robert Evans has been working at St. Philips parish for a few years and over those years a friendship has been built with our institution. His parish has hosted the consecration and solemn renewal ceremony of the Regnum Christi consecrated women here at the college for the past two years. Bishop Evans has also celebrated the inaugural mass of our academic year since my sophomore year. 

When President Fernandez first announced that we would be attending the Episcopal ordination I was really happy and excited for this opportunity. I’ve attended priestly ordinations in Rome in 2004, but never an Episcopal ordination, so I was curious to see exactly how it would proceed. It turned out to be somewhat similar to a priestly ordination.

I actually found myself sitting partly behind a pillar in the Providence Cathedral and though my view was semi-obstructed I was able to follow the ceremony pretty accurately through the voice of my taller classmates and the ceremony program that I received as I entered.

I think what most impressed me was the experience of the universal church. The rite of Episcopal ordination begins with the singing of the Veni Creator. This is a Latin hymn which invokes the Holy Spirit and which many consecrated and religious persons sing each morning as they begin their prayers. When I first saw in the program that we would be singing it, my heart leaped: I know the hymn very well so I would be able to join my voice to this prayer for our new bishop. But when we began to sing it I was not the only one lending my voice to the choir: the voices of all the priests and seminarians, who lined the central ail, rang strong. It wasn’t just a few voices but well over a hundred voices united in prayer invoking the Holy Spirit. I sing this hymn every morning, but it wasn’t until this moment in the Cathedral that I realized that it is a beautiful tradition of the whole Church. Now whenever I sing it, I am aware of how I am truly a part of the universal Church!

The second experience was that of the love of the Holy Father. While in Rome in 2004 I attended an audience of John Paul II, one of the last audiences that he held in the Paul VI Hall, and as John Paul entered we all joined in the song titled “Tu es Petrus” (You are Peter). Logically when the cathedral choir began a song with the same title, Rome 2004 sprang to my mind. The tune was different, but the text and spirit was the same. No matter where we are, in Rome or in Providence, RI, we are one family that truly loves and supports our Holy Father!

I don’t know if I’ll ever have the grace to attend another Episcopal ordination, but I am glad all my classmates, the entire college in fact, was able to attend this piece of Rome in our very own state of Rhode Island!