Celebration of Joy: Eden Langlands ordained to the priesthood

“Eden, you’ll not only have to be a great shepherd, but with the help of God, you’ll have to be a good fisherman.”

The words were those of Archbishop Christopher Prowse during the ordination to the priesthood of Archdiocesan seminarian Eden Langlands before a large congregation at St Christopher’s Cathedral last Friday evening.

Bishop Pat Power (retd) and more than 50 priests concelebrated, with Eden’s classmates from Good Shepherd Seminary in Sydney also taking part.

Archbishop Prowse reflected on the qualities Eden would need in his priestly ministry: a sense of “joy of the Lord” to sustain him in the good times and the bad, commitment to evangelisation, and to sanctification and leading people to holiness and salvation. 

He said Eden would also need to be a “minister of unity” as a “gatherer” of people, not a “scatterer”, and to celebrate the sacraments where he would have a profound involvement.

In urging Eden to be a “good fisherman” as well as shepherd, he said he would need to minister not only to regular church goers but also to those “89 per cent of his parish he never sees at church or very rarely” and many others beyond.

“Your particular pastoral gaze should be gathering…the lost one, the stray, the wounded, the weak.

“We pray that the grace of the Holy Spirit will fall upon you…and make you the priest that Jesus truly wants you to be in this complex time of the great change of [the millennium] era.” 

The ordination was the culmination of seven years of study and earlier years of personal discernment for Fr Langlands.

Now 27, he was born and raised in Cowra and had first considered the priesthood in his teens.

But it was only when he was studying accounting in the town of Young that the “intense desire” to become a priest returned – and stayed.

He began studies for the priesthood at Good Shepherd Seminary in 2016. 

From a young age, the Catholic faith had been a place of “security and refuge” where he had found “unconditional love and forgiveness”, he said.

He thanked God for this “incredible gift” of the priesthood that had been bestowed on him.

He also thanked the many who had supported him, including his parents, John and Mary, and their large family, who were present.

Many family members and friends travelled from Sydney and from across the Archdiocese, including from the Batemans Bay parish where Fr Langlands had ministered during final placement as a seminarian.

“It [the ordination] was a momentous occasion for him and great to be part of it,” his brother Callan said.

His father, John, noted he had seen the sign of the Church’s influence on Eden from the early age of four or five. 

“I was always confident Eden was somebody [who] when he made up his mind, would follow through,”he said.

“He’s doing what he really wants to do.”

• View more photos of Fr Eden’s Ordination on the Archdiocesan Facebook page 

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Fr Langlands celebrated his first Mass at St Christopher’s on 25 June. 

His first appointment is as assistant priest at St Bernard’s Parish, Batemans Bay.