On November 25, Archbishop Augustine DiNoia, O.P., celebrated Mass at the Pontifical Beda College in Rome, during which he admitted a number of seminarians to Candidacy for Holy Orders.  Below you will find the homily Archbishop DiNoia preached just before the admission rite.

The Pontifical Beda College is operated by the Bishops of England and Wales to form older vocations to the priesthood.

My brothers in Christ. As you are admitted to candidacy this evening, we can assure you that, generally speaking, you are not likely to be called upon to read the handwriting on the wall, as Daniel was. In other important ways, however, Daniel provides a model of what will be required of you and how you must prepare yourselves for the now imminent call to priestly orders.

Over the centuries the figure of Daniel has fascinated painters, poets and musicians who have found irresistible the stories of his wise judgment in saving Susannah from her false accusers, of his uncanny ability to interpret for Nebuchadnezzar his two dreams and, in today's reading, the handwriting on the wall for his less fortunate son Belshazzar, and lastly of his escape from the lions' den. Daniel has been no less a central figure in the rabbinic and Christian theological traditions. Josephus, for example, devoted more attention to Daniel than to any other prophet, and, on the Christian side, many patristic and medieval authors wrote commentaries on the book of Daniel-among them, St. Jerome and St. Albert the Great.

St. Augustine saw Daniel as representative of the celibate life, while St. Jerome saw him as the preeminent prophet of the Incarnation. These are indications that prompt me to regard as providential rather than simply coincidental the fact that this year the rite of admission to candidacy at the Beda falls during a week when Daniel figures prominently in the daily celebration of the Eucharist.

Your own situation, my brothers, is not unlike that of Daniel. He found himself among a group of Judean boys chosen by the king's chief eunuch, Ashpenaz-"boys of royal or noble descent," the king demanded, "without any physical defect, of good appearance, versed in every branch of wisdom, well-informed, discerning, suitable for service at the royal court" (Daniel 1,3-4). Something very much like this has happened to you in the past few years.

Like Daniel and his fellows, you have been chosen for service. Pointing to the need for workers in the harvest, Christ commanded his listeners-not to throw themselves immediately into the task-but first to ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers into his harvest. The Church has understood this to mean that no one enters into Christ's priestly service who has not been called, chosen and sent. The ordained ministry is not like a career which one self-selects, but a divine vocation and grace to which one strives to be faithful.

Like Daniel and his fellows, you have been chosen because you seem to possess the qualities necessary to serve the King of the universe. It is for the Church and her pastors to determine one's aptitude for this ministry. After a period of discernment and initial formation, you and your superiors have good reasons to believe that you have been chosen by God to share in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. As Belshazzar said to Daniel, "I am told that the spirit of God Most Holy lives in you, and that you are known for your perception, intelligence, and marvelous wisdom" (Daniel 5,14). We in effect say the same to you today. This holy rite of admission to candidacy marks in a formal way the ecclesial judgment that one's vocation is indeed authentic and that one possesses the qualities necessary for the ordained ministry.

With this formal recognition of your candidacy, you enter into a new and deeper phase of formation and testing to prepare you, God willing, for the singular seal of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Holy Orders. You must strive to be like Daniel whose renunciation of fine foods (Daniel 1,8-16) has been taken by both the literary and the theological tradition to represent the renunciation of earthly pleasures and the embrace of a holy and pure life. You will live now for Christ alone. Like Daniel, you know that you cannot succeed in this way of life apart from the grace of God, and, like Daniel, your confidence in this grace should never waver.

About today's text, St. Jerome wrote that, for Daniel, "there was a need not only for reading the inscription but also for interpreting what had been read, in order that it might be understood what these words were announcing" (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, ACCS OT 13, 208). Like Daniel, you must be steeped in the wisdom of God, that comes to you both as God's gift and as the fruit of your own labors of study and reflection. Thus, your theological formation is an essential element in your preparation for the reception of Holy Orders. Perhaps more than ever, the Church today needs priests who can make sense of the whole ensemble of the divine mysteries as they have been revealed to us in Christ, preserved in Scriptures and Tradition, and taught by the Magisterium-priests who can grasp the inherent intelligibility of these mysteries and communicate them effectively and persuasively. These mysteries, at their core, concern the otherwise unimaginable and inconceivable truth that the triune God, who has no need of company, desires to share the communion of Trinitarian love with us. This "handwriting" needs good readers and interpreters.

According to the deep patterns of figuration and typology which divine providence has woven into the fabric of the Sacred Scripture, Daniel can be recognized as prefiguring Christ. In many cases where I have drawn a parallel between Daniel and yourselves, I could well have spoken about the parallel between yourselves and Christ. Your service of the Church-in persona Christi-requires of you a more profound form of the imitation of Christ that is required of every one of his disciples. Holy Orders will constitute you ontologically as men who can speak and act in persona Christi capitis. This future ontological "enhancement," so to speak, at the core of your being must be matched by a transformation at every level of your character and personality. To be sure, perfect conformation to Christ the High Priest is the work of a lifetime for every priest. But you must begin now to cultivate a disciplined and recollected life, in which the Liturgy of the Hours, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, meditation, the Rosary, and spiritual reading are indispensable elements of your everyday schedule. In this way, on the day of your ordination to the priesthood, there will be a "fit," so to speak, between the sacramental transformation of your inner being and the ever-growing conformation of your entire selves to Christ the High Priest.

"We should follow the example of a man like Daniel, who despised the honor and gifts of a king and who without any reward even in that early day followed the Gospel injunction: ‘Freely have you received, freely give' (Mt 10,8)" (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, ACCS OT 13, 206). Trusting in the Lord, all of us promise to assist you with our love and prayer.

Therefore, when you are called by name, come forward and declare your intention before the Church assembled here.