Addressing the new priests, he encouraged them to persevere in intimacy with the Lord and to devote themselves to the service of God and their brothers and sisters, always in communion with the Archdiocese.
Newsroom (10/06/2025 11:43, Gaudium Press) On Monday, September 29, the Church in Arequipa celebrated the priestly ordination of five deacons. Bishop Javier Del Río Alba conferred the ordination at 7 p.m. in the Cathedral Basilica.
The Mass was concelebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Raúl Chau and the formators of the two seminaries of the Archdiocese. More than 70 priests also participated. Religious men and women, seminarians, and family members of the ordinands were in attendance. Delegations from the parishes where the deacons had served, as well as brothers from their home parishes, also accompanied the newly ordained on this day.
Archbishop thanks families
Archbishop Javier Del Río Alba thanked the families in whose bosom the new priests received the first rudiments of the faith, the parish communities that have accompanied them during these years, and their formators.
Addressing the new priests, he encouraged them to persevere in intimacy with the Lord. From there, he asked that they devote themselves to the service of God and their brothers and sisters, always in communion with their archbishop and the presbytery of the Archdiocese.
Discovering the indescribable beauty of the priesthood
In his homily, the prelate referred to the angels’ struggle against the devil, which he referred to as “a battle that continues and will continue until the end of time against humanity and especially against the Church”. He said, “The devil cannot bear the idea that men and women have the possibility of reaching heaven”.
The end of that struggle, the archbishop continued, is the victory already won by “the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ,” to which the new priests Junior René Alanoca, Martín Adán Bernales, Emmanuel García, Gino Elías Michelli, and Luis Anthony Tellez are added.
“This is a great beauty: today you will be constituted as ministers participating in the Priestly Ministry of Christ, constituted as presbyteral servants,” he said.
The archbishop also emphasized that it is God himself who entrusts priests with “the beauty of that love that resonates so deeply within us, that it brings forth from the depths of our being the desire to serve, the desire to take the last place, the desire to wear out our lives little by little, all our energy, our years, our whole being and our work in the service of God, serving our brothers and sisters.”
“When the priestly is not lived holily and does not have intimacy with the Lord in prayer,” he said, “it becomes merely functional, leading to boredom, something for which the priest is not made”.
Boredom, the archbishop warned, can cause priests to fall into “the jaws of that dragon [the devil] that is still in this world waging war on the children of the Woman [Mary].”
After encouraging the five new priests to be holy priests, the Archbishop of Arequipa reminded them that “the Holy Church of God needs shepherds like Jesus the Good Shepherd, who will defend them from the dragon and defend them from the empire of death.”
With information from Aciprensa and the Archdiocese of Arequipa.
Compiled by Dominic Joseph
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