Opus Dei Prelate Ordains 35 New Priests: 'Center Life Around Eucharist'

"May your life be founded on the Eucharistic Jesus," Bishop Echevarría stated. "Beginning today, the daily celebration of the Eucharist must be especially for you the central moment of each day; the center and root of our life, of every day of our earthly journey."

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P>ROME, ITALY (Zenit.org) - Bishop Javier Echevarría, the prelate of Opus Dei, invited the newest priests of the personal prelature to make the celebration of the Eucharist the focal point of each day.

The bishop said this May 14 in Rome when he ordained 35 new priests at the Basilica of St. Eugene in Rome.

The newly ordained are from Italy, Spain, Holland, Singapore, Argentina, Colombia, Nigeria, the United States, France, Austria, Brazil, Mexico, El Salvador, Poland and Uganda.

"May your life be founded on the Eucharistic Jesus," Bishop Echevarría stated. "Beginning today, the daily celebration of the Eucharist must be especially for you the central moment of each day; the center and root of our life, of every day of our earthly journey."

He also invited the 35 presbyters to live at the service of souls "one by one": "Exercise the ministry with this characteristic so proper of the good pastor, who spends himself for all, without distinctions, closely united to the Roman Pontiff and to the pastors of the dioceses in which they carry out the ministry."

In praying the Litany of the Saints the assembly also invoked the protection of Blessed John Paul II.

One of the new priests is Damien Peter Lim Guan Heng from Singapore who, before beginning his ecclesiastical studies in Rome, worked in several banking offices in his country and in Taiwan. He converted to Catholicism after his brother converted first.

José Manuel Giménez Amaya, another of the presbyters, is professor of Anatomy and Embryology at the Autonomous University of Madrid. He is a specialist in Neuroscience.

Ivan Kanyike Mukalazi, a native of Kampala, is the member of Opus Dei in Uganda to become a priest.

Alejandro Macia from Colombia worked as a software developer first in Microsoft and later in Oracle, until he decided to go to Rome to undertake ecclesiastical studies at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.

The eldest of the 35 new priests is Paolo Calzona, born in Catanzaro, Italy, in 1949. The youngest is Lucas Buch, born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1983.