Few seats remained at St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica this morning, as family, friends and faithful joined together to celebrate the Ordination Mass of the Archdiocese of Toronto’s four newest priests. 

Ordinandi Matteo Bertozzi, Moonjun Alphonse Choi, Matthew Steven Tuanquin Tulio and Victor Manuel Valdés, entered the mother church alongside celebrant Cardinal Frank Leo and numerous clergy and religious faithful from across the archdiocese. There, each man’s unique vocation story and call to priestly service met not its final test, but rather its distinct beginning. 

“We gather this morning in our Cathedral to celebrate something truly extraordinary. Each, in your own way, years ago, at different times, and in different circumstances and different places, heard the words of Christ saying, ‘Come, follow me,’” Cardinal Leo told the ordinandi during the homily. 

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“ These beautiful, compelling, and lively words constitute the divine calling, which Christ first told to his twelve apostles, and then down through the ages to numerous men. Indeed, these words were and still are a radical and joyful invitation to leave everything behind and begin a new life as a believer, follower, missionary, disciple, and witness to Christ,” he added. 

The ordinandi sat before their own shepherd and listened with care to how they, as consecrated priests, will also be invited to be an icon of the same Lord and Savior, a shepherd in the light of the Good Shepherd, the crucified Lord Jesus, and a minister of the new and eternal covenant.

With decades of prayer, study and ongoing formation shared between them, and with the Rite of Ordination soon to commence, the four men’s collective mission of becoming good, holy priests began to set in — a gift, in its own right. 

“The gift that you make of yourself to the Lord and the Holy Mother Church stretches you and fills you with the graces and gifts you need to be able to give of yourself entirely, daily, and lovingly to the people of God,” Cardinal Leo said. 

“St. Augustine puts it this way, ‘Esto donum Deo ut sis donum Dei.’ Be a gift for God, so as to be a gift of God. Today, you're giving your life to God, and in this gift, you will become a gift of God to the people that you will serve. You are the gift, and we welcome that gift here together.” 

Incense smoke rose to the spire, and St. Michael’s Choir School sang as the Rite of Ordination began through the Promise of the Elect and Litany of Supplication prayers. Each of the four ordinandi was met with the laying on of hands, anointing of hands, the prayer of ordination, and a fraternal embrace, as their priestly life began in obedience.

Officially welcomed as the newest priests of the Archdiocese, Bertozzi, Choi, Tulio and Valdés exercised their ministry for the first time as concelebrants of the Liturgy of the Eucharist. 

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Now set apart as men to serve, not to be served, each priest was reminded of their six new promises: Faithful service as co-worker with the bishop, carry out the mission of the word, celebrate the Sacraments reverently, resolve to pray, union with Christ the High Priest and respect and obedience to the bishop and his successors. 

While new and formidable, Cardinal Leo reminds each man that it is the love of Christ they carry with them, and in the holiness they seek, that will allow for their new role as shepherds to truly flourish. 

“ My dear fathers-to-be, I exhort you to desire and to strive for holiness as you begin your new life. May your entire being be transformed by grace, and may you walk with humility and courage throughout your ministry. 

He ended his message to Toronto’s new priests with the inspiring words of St. John Paul II from his  fiftieth anniversary as a priest.

“ Christ needs holy priests, and today's world demands holy priests. Only a holy priest can become, in an increasingly secularized world, a resounding witness to Christ and his Gospel. Only thus can a priest become a guide for men of goodwill and a teacher of holiness. People, especially the young, are looking for such guides. A priest can be that guide and a teacher only to the extent that he has become an authentic witness of holiness,” he reminded them. 

Upon celebrating the Eucharist and blessing their families and the archbishop, the priests stood before a resounding round of applause from all those in attendance. 

As the final notes of the recessional rang out through the cathedral, four newly ordained priests stepped out of the church and into a reality they had long prepared for — mindful more than ever that priestly formation does not conclude at ordination, but humbly enters a new, lifelong chapter of ongoing shepherding through the love of Christ. 

The new priests will begin their priestly lives as associate pastors throughout the Archdiocese: Bertozzi at St. Wilfred’s in Scarborough, Choi at Merciful Redeemer in Mississauga, Tulio at St. Patrick’s in Mississauga, and Valdés at Blessed Trinity in Toronto. 

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