On Aug. 10 in the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception at the Diocesan Administration Center in Rockford, seminarian Nathan Pacer of Holy Cross Parish in Batavia was accepted into the stage of candidacy in what Bishop David Malloy noted is a “startlingly brief” ceremony (right).

 

Attending were his parents, Michael and Lori, and his brother, John, along with a handful of seminarians including the four newest.

 

Although the candidacy ceremony is “brief and simple in its externals,” the bishop explained to Pacer, “today is the first step toward the goal, the final turn. ... It is a time that, with calm, you are to start the walk. ...  From today then, when you study, when you pray, when you fast, when you laugh, whatever else happens, remember that you have been accepted as a candidate.

 

You bear that now: a candidate for the diaconate and the priesthood. Your task now is gently, but fully and deeply to live that acceptance well.” At the end of the ceremony Nathan’s brother John greets him with a hug.