Two new lectors instituted at the Seminary’s Opening Mass

This year’s Opening Mass at the Seminary of St John Vianney and the Uganda Martyrs was especially unique. The annual event that punctuates the beginning of the academic year, featured visiting Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of the Archdiocese of Bamenda, Cameroon, who presided over the liturgy during which two seminarians received the ministry of lector.

On Friday, September 11 at the chapel of the Seminary, Mt St Benedict, all facets of the diverse community were represented: faculty, staff, spiritual directors, formators, all manner of students (diocesan seminarians, lay persons and Religious) and their families. This year, there are 23 seminarians being formed for priesthood for dioceses throughout the region, the largest cohort the seminary has seen in almost two decades.

Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon, who concelebrated the Mass, highlighted the concrete fruits of synodality that were manifest on this occasion. To begin, his close fraternal relationship with Archbishop Nkea Fuanya was born during the Synod on Synodality assembly in Rome in 2023. The two priests and two seminarians from Cameroon present at the Mass were visible fruits of this relationship.

Furthermore, as the rector Fr Jason Boatswain pointed out, the seminarians have been exposed to a distinctly synodal mode of formation that extends beyond the seminary walls, to the intimate spaces of parishes and homes that the seminarians enter during their pastoral assignments. The presence of the adopted family members of the foreign seminarians was evidence of this fact.

“The Gospel must be preached everywhere,” Archbishop Nkea Fuanya said in his homily as he exhorted the seminarians to preach the gospel with zeal and passion. In the Rite of Institution of Lectors, seminarians Paul Ngwa Che and Zeno Fungoh Chenwu of Cameroon symbolically received the Word of God and a blessing from their Archbishop to officially take up their role of lector.

The lector, who proclaims the Scripture readings before the Gospel at Mass, is a dignified ministry in the Church shared by many lay men and women in parishes, but for a candidate for priesthood, it is an official ministry conferred by his bishop through a Rite of Institution in his last two years of formation before ordination.

God willing, our two newest lectors will also receive the ministry of acolyte in due course before diaconate and eventually priesthood.

In the words of the Rite itself, the high calling of a lector and indeed every disciple comes to bear. “In proclaiming God’s Word to others, accept it yourselves in obedience to the Holy Spirit. Meditate on it constantly, so that each day you will have a deeper love of the Scriptures, and in all you say and do show forth to the world our Saviour, Jesus Christ.”

— Story and photos by Luke Walker, seminarian