Photos: Jesuit ordinations at Toronto's Our Lady of Lourdes

There’s nothing older or more essential to the Church than the laying on of hands. In the Acts of the Apostles, one of the first things the newly formed Church does is commission seven men who speak different languages and represent different cultures. They were ordered (ordained) to make sure that the widows and orphans of every ethnicity, tribe and clan within the young Church are cared for.

“They had these men stand before the Apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them,” it says in Acts 6:6.

People who spoke Aramaic and Greek, gentile converts and cradle Jews, city dwellers and country, slaves and wealthy land owners had all been baptized into a life within the body of Christ, but this act of Ordination was necessary to ensure everyone was actually fully included in Christ’s body. Ordination is the guarantee that there will be no second-class Christians.

Every spring dioceses across the country and religious orders of all kinds ordain deacons and priests for exactly the same reason as the Apostles – to maintain the unity of the body of Christ. Among this year’s spring crop of ordinations are six Jesuits – five of them ordained deacons and one of them ordained a priest. It’s both a joyous and a solemn moment in the life of the Church.

These photos are from the May 20 Jesuit ordinations at Our Lady of Lourdes in Toronto.