Jesuits to welcome two new priests

Tim Byron SJ and Roger Dawson SJ will be ordained priests this Saturday, 7 July, by the Most Reverend Kevin McDonald, Archbishop of Southwark.  The Ordination Mass will take place at 12 noon at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Edge Hill, Wimbledon, London SW19.

33-year-old Tim Byron was born and grew up in Merseyside, a twin with two older sisters and two younger brothers.  He was educated by the Christian Brothers at St Mary's Crosby and became involved in the fledgling Youth 2000 movement.  He spent a year working at the youth residential retreat centre run by the De La Salle Brothers, and during studies in Philosophy and Theology at Edinburgh University, he became involved in campaigning on international justice issues.  This led to work in South America, and a powerful experience of the witness of the Church in the slums of Peru and Ecuador.  On returning to the UK, he spent a year working in a hospice for the dying in Liverpool then entered the Jesuit novitiate in Birmingham.  He has worked with gypsies and in prisons, with refugees and in schools, with young adults, in pilgrimages, Mountain Spirituality, and Christian Life Communities.  After his ordination, Tim will start work as Chaplain at St Ignatius College, Enfield.

Roger Dawson (47) was born into a Royal Air Force family and, after school at Berkhamsted, won a scholarship to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.  He was commissioned into the Royal Green Jackets, an infantry regiment, and served in Europe, the US and Kenya, as well as the Falklands and Northern Ireland.  On leaving the Army, he studied Psychology at Durham and Newcastle Universities, and trained as a clinical psychologist.  He worked in the NHS for six years in Adult Mental Health and completed his training as a psychotherapist.  While at Durham University, Roger discovered Ignatian Spirituality; he was received into the Catholic Church in 1988, and entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1996.  Since then he has worked at the Craighead Institute in Glasgow and taught at Wimbledon College, SW London.  After theological studies in Paris, he returned to London where, in addition to further studies at Heythrop College, he has also been working as a deacon in Brixton and part-time as a psychologist in the surgery for homeless people at the Cardinal Hume Centre in Victoria.  In September he will go to Oxford University to be Assistant Chaplain.

FIRST MASSES
Tim Byron SJ's First Mass will be at 10.00am on Sunday 8 July 2007 at St Ignatius Church, High Road, Stamford Hill, London N15 6ND.
Roger Dawson SJ's First Mass will be at 10.30am on Sunday 8 July 2007 at Corpus Christi Church, Trent Road, Brixton Hill, London SW2.

Please pray for them both as they prepare for ordination.