Four days before his 36th birthday, Father Jaroslaw Szeraszewicz will follow in the footsteps of his hero, Pope St. John Paul II, and be ordained to the priesthood.
2016 Ordinations to the Priesthood
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio will ordain 10 men to the priesthood to serve the Church in Brooklyn and Queens. The ordination rites will take place at St. Joseph’s Co-Cathedral, Prospect Heights, Saturday, June 4, at 11 a.m.
Most men were ordained as transitional deacons last fall and will receive their parish assignments from the bishop following the ordination Mass. The men are an average age of 34 years old. The oldest is 48 and the youngest will turn 26 this year, the earliest someone can be ordained without special permission. Three of them were born in Brooklyn. Seven were born outside the United States – in Haiti, Poland, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Nigeria – reflecting the ethnic make-up of the Diocese of Immigrants.
The diocesan network New Evangelization Television (NET TV) provided live coverage of the Ordination Mass, which was also live streamed on www.netny.tv. NET TV is a cable network featuring news and information with a Catholic point of view, and is available in the New York area on Time Warner Cable, Channel 97; Cablevision, Channel 30; and Channel 48 on Verizon FiOS On Demand. NET TV’s encore presentation of the ordination is on Saturday, June 18 at 9 p.m.
Below are brief biographies of the ordinands with details of their roads to the priesthood and plans for their First Masses of thanksgiving. The pieces were written by Tablet reporters Marie Elena Giossi and Maria-Pia Negro Chin.
Father Marcial Thomas
As a seminarian, Father Marcial Thomas, 27, saw how God wanted to encounter and love His people and how priests can bring people closer to God every day.
Pope Tells Italian Bishops To Treasure Their Priests
In a talk to Italian bishops, Pope Francis suggested that they, before setting out a plan for the permanent formation of their priests, spend time in silence thinking about their priests and how they give of themselves and why they do it.
Deacons from Dunwoodie
Five of the men who will be ordained priests this weekend were ordained transitional deacons at St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, where they studied theology. The ordinations were done last November by Rockville Centre Bishop William Murphy in the chapel at Dunwoodie.
Ordained Transitional Deacons
On May 30, 2015, Gesson Agenis, Lukasz Kubiak and Jaroslaw Szeraszewicz were ordained as transitional deacons on their way to priesthood by Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Chappetto at St. James Cathedral-Basilica, Downtown Brooklyn.
