FR Ashwin Acharya witnessed a mysterious awakening when Rockhampton Bishop Michael McCarthy anointed his hands at his priestly ordination last Friday.
His diaconate, the last seven months of his ordained ministry, had been homilies, baptisms, a wedding, and more homilies.
Those months in Emerald parish had a strong focus on the ministry of the Word, he said.
Smelling the aroma and feeling the warmth of the Chrism oil as his palms were anointed, Fr Acharya had a sense of, “Oh gosh, here it is – now I’m an instrument of healing as well”.
He said he was conscious that the anointing opened the way to “sharing in the healing ministry of Jesus” in the Sacraments of Penance, Anointing of the Sick and the celebration of the Mass.
“That was incredible,” he said.
Fr Acharya’s ordination at St Joseph’s Cathedral in Rockhampton packed the pews and marked the first priestly ordination in the diocese since Fr Andrew Hogan in 2014.
Supporting him were his mum, his dad, his brother and his brother’s wife, and his two nieces as well as family streaming in from across Australia, India and the United States.
His mum was the foundational Catholic presence in his life, he said.
He said when his mum was out polishing the brass, he was there polishing the brass; when she was vacuuming or helping out at Sacred Heart parish, he was there following her model of service.
“That maternal witness of faith had a deep impact on me and continues to,” he said.
“My dad is a solemn character, so I see him as a St Joseph figure in my life – he’s quiet, he’s hard working and he’s just there to protect us and that’s what he does.”
Thinking about the Amoris Laetitia Family year, Fr Acharya said there was a unique bond between the families of priests.
He said his mum had used the analogy of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Elizabeth – “they’re in it together”.
“A priest’s mother and a priest’s father, they know what it is to be a priest’s mother and father,” he said.
“I remember I was in Gladstone and this lady came up to me and she said to me, ‘My son is a priest in Sydney’.
“I said, ‘That’s nice.’
“She said, ‘You’re going to be a priest.’ I said, ‘Yeah’. And she said, ‘You are my son’.”
He said in just those few words, this woman who he had never met expressed the intimate bond of the family of priests “just there by virtue of the vocation and its ramifications”.
“It’s a beautiful thing,” he said.
Fr Acharya’s Thanksgiving Mass came the day after his ordination, where he gave a special thanks to the people behind the scenes who made the “gargantuan effort” to make his ordination as smooth as possible.
At the Thanksgiving Mass were the parish priests of Yeppoon, Emerald and South Mackay parishes who all had an impact on his formation as well as Fr Andrew Hogan and Bishop McCarthy.
“I wanted to honour them in that thanksgiving Mass and they were all there,” Fr Acharya said.
His priestly ministry was set to begin with a short stint in South Mackay with Fr Don White before his placement in Gladstone parish where he will work alongside Fr Andrew Chase.
“I am looking forward to it, I have a sense that the Church there (in Gladstone) is teeming with life,” Fr Acharya said.
“Fr Andrew is a tremendously respected priest in our diocese and I think people are excited for me to be with him for my sake,” he said with a laugh.
Fr Acharya wanted his own ministry to be one of “presence”.
It was about “breaking open the Word well” wherever he could.
“To be there and to make the light of Christ present in their lives so that when suffering strikes or mundaneness is sapping their energy or frustrations come, or even where there’s joy in things to celebrate, it connects to the mystery of Christ and His life,” he said.
Fr Acharya said he was indebted to the work of his formators, especially in his years training at Holy Spirit Seminary, Banyo.
“The seminary is like a microcosm of a person’s life, where you’re born into it, you learn to walk, you learn to talk, and you find your gifts… and eventually and hopefully, you’ve found your vocation and you’re ready to take that next step when the bishop invites you to make it,” he said.
“I think Holy Spirit Seminary is an excellent, beautiful and very graced place to be and the Church in Queensland is lucky to have a place like Holy Spirit Seminary and everyone who is there makes it such a place.”
For young men considering the priesthood, Fr Acharya asked them to imagine their life as a married man and then to imagine their life as a priest.
It was a personal decision on what path would bear more fruit for God’s kingdom.
“When a person is trying to serve the Church as best he or she can, their vocation, their most fruitful avenue, will become self-evident,” he said.
He said the priesthood was not on his radar until about six months before he entered the seminary.
“All I knew was my faith was important, it was important enough to intentionally hold at the centre of what I was doing,” he said.
He said it was normal in this culture for good Catholic kids to graduate from school and become over-burdened with new ideas and activities and “before they know it, they’re not practicing their faith in an explicit way”.
“I made a deliberate decision when I saw myself coming to that fork in the road, do I want to remain intentional and active in my faith and I said yes,” he said.
“That set me on a course to become more and more involved and invested in my parish.
“And from there, it sort of just kept deepening until I felt like all my gifts were being used and all my interests were finding fruition.”
At that point, someone asked him if he had considered the priesthood, and he said he had not but that it made sense.
That single question began the long journey to his ordination.
