By Andrea Tornielli
“For me to feed all of you with ordinary bread is something I cannot do. Yet this Word is your portion. I feed you from the same table which nourishes me. I am your servant.” These words, which echo the thought expressed by Saint Augustine in Sermon 339, were printed on the commemorative holy card marking the priestly ordination of Robert F. Prevost on Jun 19 1982. The image chosen for the card was a 15th-century Russian icon of the Last Supper.
Forty-three years ago, then-Father Prevost—now Pope Leo XIV—was ordained a priest in the Chapel of Saint Monica in Rome, just steps from the Vatican and from Piazza del Sant’Uffizio, where the Pope now resides. Ordination was conferred by Archbishop Jean Jadot of Belgium, who at the time was Pro-President of the Secretariat for Non-Christians, having previously served as apostolic delegate and pro-nuncio in Asia, Africa, and finally, the United States.
At the time of his ordination, Father Robert Francis Prevost was 27 years old. He had already studied Canon Law at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He had entered the Order of Saint Augustine five years earlier and made his solemn vows in 1981. In 1985, he would be sent as a missionary to Peru, serving in the mission of Chulucanas, in the Piura region.
The quote chosen for the ordination card also recalls other passages from Saint Augustine, particularly from his Expositions on the Psalms (Psalm 103, III, 9): “You are a good servant of Christ,” wrote the Bishop of Hippo, “if you serve those whom Christ served… He who made you free with His blood has made you my servant… Love your servants in the name of your Lord. May He grant us to perform this service well. For whether we like it or not, we are servants; but if we are so willingly, then we serve not out of necessity, but out of love.”
These words—about being servants, belonging to God, and thus being at the service of His people—resonated again in the first homily given by the new Bishop of Rome during Mass for priestly ordinations, which took place in St Peter’s Basilica on May 31, 2025, when he ordained eleven deacons of the Diocese of Rome to the priesthood.
“Dear ordinands, imitate Jesus!” the Pope said, “Being of God — servants of God, people of God — connects us to the earth: not to an ideal world, but to the real one. Like Jesus, you meet real people whom the Father places on your path. Consecrate yourselves to them, without separating, isolating or turning the gift you received into a privilege.… ‘For the love of Christ controls us’ , dear brothers and sisters! It is a ‘control’ that is liberating and enables us to not control anyone. To liberate, not to possess. We are God’s. There is no greater wealth to be appreciated and shared. It is the only wealth that, when shared, is multiplied.”
Finally, the Chapel of Saint Monica, the very place where Father Prevost was ordained in 1982, was assigned as a cardinal deaconry by Pope Francis to the newly-created Robert Cardinal Prevost on Sep 30 2023. – Vatican News
