Bro. Ky Nguyen was installed (“instituted,” in technical lingo) as an acolyte on Saturday morning, August 1. Fr. Tim Zak, our provincial, presided over the rite during the community Mass of the provincial house community. Most of the local Salesian community took part. Bro. Sal Sammarco represented the formation community of Orange, N.J., to which Bro. Ky belongs while he studies theology at Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University. Bro. Ky is assigned to the provincial house for the summer in order to take some theology courses online.
Liturgically, it was the memorial of St. Alphonsus Liguori,
and Fr. Tim chose the optional readings proper to St. Alphonsus, linking the
great 18th-century saint to Don Bosco and to us as apostles. Thru his teaching and preaching, especially
on the Eucharist and the Blessed Mother, St. Alphonsus was a light to the
people of southern Italy, and subsequently thru his influence on others. He modeled the mercy of God in his moral
theology and in the confessional. As an
acolyte, Bro. Ky will attend carefully to Eucharistic matters, and as a
Salesian he, like all of us, is called to be a light to the world and a minister of divine mercy.
The ministries of lector and acolyte are canonical steps toward diaconal and priestly ordination, with a formal rite of installation.
Acolytes can “officially”
serve at the sacred liturgy, prepare and clean the sacred vessels, and distribute the
Eucharist in the absence of a priest or deacon (they aren't “extraordinary
ministers”).
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