The ordination of Archbishop-elect Mgr Paul Cremona on Friday, 26 January will follow a series of rites and liturgical traditions that span the centuries.

The ordination itself is usually held between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, after the proclamation of the Gospel with the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus. The archbishop-elect is then presented for ordination by the presbyters assisting him.

Fr Jesmond Manicaro, the Archbishop’s Delegate for the Liturgy explained the process.

“After the homily, the archbishop-elect makes a number of promises. He then prostrates himself and the cantors sing the litany while the faithful respond. The essence of the sacramental rite consists of the laying on of hands and the prayer of ordination,” he says in brief liturgical notes prepared for the ordination.

After Mgr Cremona is ordained, the ceremony continues with a rite to explain the offices that have been conferred through the laying on of hands and the invocation of the Holy Spirit and the presentation of the Book of Gospels.

The principal ordaining bishop will present this book to the newly-ordained archbishop who will then be invested with a ring, mitre and pastoral staff.

The new archbishop will then led to the cathedra, the archbishop’s seat of his cathedral church, and the place from which he will preside over the Eucharist.

In the context of the ordination rite, the newly-ordained archbishop receives the kiss of peace from the principal ordaining bishop and the other bishops. The rite ends with the reception of the pallium, a circular band of white woollen cloth worn around the shoulders over the chasuble.

However, Mgr Cremona will not be receiving the pallium during the rite of episcopal consecration. He will most probably receive the pallium, along with other metropolitans, from Pope Benedict XVI on 29 June, the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul.