On Valentine’s Day, Lawrence Zimbe offered a bouquet not to a sweetheart, but to Our Lady represented by her statue, following his ordination to the diaconate by Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Daniel Meagher. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
“I’ve been devoted to Our Lady since the day I entered the seminary and I’ve always asked her to intercede for me,” he said.
“I really pour out myself to her, she tells Jesus what I need, she tells Jesus what I am going through and what I desire.
“I dedicated my vocation to her and for her to intercede for me and that’s why I had to offer the flowers to Our Lady.”
The Mass and ordination ceremony, held in St Brendan’s, Annandale, attracted a full house of parishioners, wellwishers and family for Deacon Zimbe’s milestone along the journey to priesthood.
Also present were Bishop Anthony Percy, St Brendan’s parish priest Fr Matthew Meagher and other members of the clergy and seminarians.
Hailing from Kampala in Uganda, Deacon Zimbe joined the seminary in his local archdiocese in September 2016 at the St Mbaaga’s Major Seminary Ggaba before transferring to the Seminary of the Good Shepherd in Sydney in 2023.
Deacon Zimbe said he expects to be ordained a priest back in Kampala within the next year.
He was delighted that his mother and some members of his extended family were granted visas that allowed them to travel to attend his ordination, and was grateful to Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP and seminary rector Fr Michael de Stoop for their assistance.
However, his six siblings and other friends and family had to content themselves with following the ordination ceremony via a livestream.
Deacon Zimbe said his motto as a deacon is Psalm 27:4, “I want to be in the house of the Lord all the days of my life”
“That’s what has kept me going, I want to be in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that is the Psalm which has been guiding me.”
FULL STORY
‘I want to be in the house of the Lord,’ says Lawrence Zimbe, Sydney’s newest deacon (By Tara Kennedy, The Catholic Leader)
