ORDINATION TO THE PRIESTHOOD DAY 2011, IN THE DIOCESE OF SACRAMENTO...........

As we complete the sixth week of the Easter Season, and one week after the Diocese of Sacramento marled the 125th anniversary of its erection; the Most Reverend Jaime Soto, the 9th Bishop of Sacramento, will confer the Sacrament of Holy Orders, by ordaining three candidates to the Priesthood of Jesus Christ, in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, at 11th and K Streets, in downtown Sacramento, at 10:30 am.  Transitional Deacons, Reverend Misters, Jose de Jesus Beltran, Jeffrey F. Henry, and Brian J. Soliven, are the ordinands becoming priests of the Sacramento Diocese today.  They are answeing God's Call to serve the Church, as members of our diocesan presbyterate in union with the Bishop, for the good of the People of God, in these twenty counties of Northern/Superior California, which is the Diocese of Sacramento.  Reverend Fathers Beltran, Henry, and Soliven, are being ordained at a time when we face ever increasing demands to minister to a burgeoning Catholic population within our Diocese, and fewer priests to serve them, due not only to a decline in priestly vocations, but the need to recruit a much greater number of native, local born, vocations in the homes and parishes of these twenty counties.  We also face an aging, retiring, and ultimately dying, number of priests, that offset the relatively small increase in new priests, we are achieving.  Every parent and family, every pastor/priest and parish community, must accept their rightful responsibility of promoting Church Vocations for more priests, religious, and deacons, and especially pray for, and affirm, the possibility that your son or daughter, parishioner and fellow believer, has a priestly, religious, or diaconal, vocation to be nurtured and called forth.  Vocations to the Priesthood of Jesus Christ are particularly vital presently and into the future, as we find ourselves facing the consolidation and merging of parishes and other parochial ministries requiring priests in the Sacramento Diocese.  Ordinations to the Priesthood this morning make this a day of hope, that many others will choose to hear, discern, answer, and form, the call to priestly ordination, God is calling them to embrace.  Ad Multos Annos, to the three new priests ordained today, and may the power of God's Holy Spirit continue to prompt others in our homes, parishes, communities, and colleges, to respond as well to God's Call and the Church's Need...........Fr.  Troy