“Today is the day we celebrate a great gift to us all,” said Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins at the celebration sponsored by the five Serra Clubs of the Toronto area.

The annual celebration brings together the men who are graduating from St. Augustine’s Seminary and will be ordained this spring. This year’s class includes: Kevin Belgrave, 31, of Toronto; Edward Curtis, 29, of Toronto; Joseph Gorman, 31, of Toronto; Donatello Iocco, 35, born in Italy but raised in Toronto; Francisco Fernandez, 34, of Spain, graduating from Redemptoris Mater Seminary, run by the NeoCatechumenal Way at St. Augustine’s; Alan Glass, 50, a Montreal native who will be ordained for the Toronto archdiocese; Jason Kuntz, 25, of Hanover, Ont., who will be ordained for Hamilton diocese; John Nemanic, 31, who will be ordained for the diocese of Calgary; Adam Voisin, 34, of Kitchener, Ont., who will be ordained for Hamilton diocese; Damian Young-Same-You, 33, born in Guyana, but raised in Canada, he will be ordained for Toronto; and Dale Wright, 47, of Belleville, Ont.

The dinner also recognized all those priests celebrating 50 years or more of service to the church, as well as those in female religious life.

The Serra Clubs of Toronto belong to Serra International, a movement of lay men and women devoted to encouraging and praying for vocations. The Ordinandi Dinner is Serra’s biggest Toronto event, and draws on contributions from many people, including the Catholic Women’s League, who organize a gift of a spiritual bouquet of prayers for each ordinandi, and the Knights of Columbus.

The Ordinandi Dinner was founded 18 years ago by Serran Mario Biscardi and a group of like-minded Catholics. Biscardi and his family continue to do a lot of the organizing work each year.