Last Saturday, December 21st, His Excellency Dominique Rey, bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, France, ordained a member of the Monastère Saint Benoît to the minor orders of Exorcist and Acolyte. The day was the Saturday Ember Day of Advent, one of the very ancient traditional days for the conferal of holy orders, which this year was kept in the EF as a commemoration on the feast of St Thomas the Apostle. Congratulation to the new acolyte, Dom Ildephonse (who received this name in religion in honor of the Bl. Ildephonse Schuster), and to his community - feliciter!
The traditional ordination rites contain an admonition to the ordinands, the text of which is fixed and included in the Pontifical, in which the bishop explains the duties of each order to the ordinands, who kneel before him holding a lit candle.
The ordinand comes forward at the call to receive orders.
There follows a “porrectio instrumentorum – the handing over of the instruments”, in which the bishops gives the ordinand (or has him touch) an object associated with the exercize of the order he is receiving. For the exorcists, this is a book containing the text of various rites of exorcism (e.g. that of the salt used in making holy water), but a Missal or Pontifical, both of which contain several such exorcisms, may be used instead.
The bishop then says a prayer over the ordinands.
For the order of acolyte, the “porrectio instrumentorum” involves an unlit candle...
and a cruet.
The rite concludes with the bishop turning to the altar and saying a prayer, which is introduced by a very ancient and classically Roman formula used before the most solemn prayers, “Oremus. Flectamus genua. Levate. – Let us pray,. Let us kneel. Arise.”
The ordinations are done before the Epistle of the Mass, which then continues as normal.
