St John’s Cathedral

Tuesday 3 April 2007

We gather in the Cathedral, bishop, priests and people from every part of the diocese because this Mass and the oils that we will bless here sum up the life of our diocese. As we get ready to celebrate the central mysteries and truths of our faith, the blessing of the oils reminds us of what is central to our lives as followers of Christ.

Once again this year we begin by recognising with great regret that the chrism we bless this evening will not be used in the ordination of a priest for the diocese this year. As the priests renew their commitment to priestly service in this ceremony, we need to pray that those who are being called to follow them will respond generously and we need to pledge they we will support them by our active encouragement in our attitudes and actions, both individually and as a community. If a young person being called to priesthood or religious life does not feel that encouragement from us, we should not be surprised if the call is not easily heard.

During the coming year the oil of the Sick will be used in giving the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick to many people. The oil will be a sign of the strength and the hope that the Holy Sprit brings them. The sacrament will assure them that their pain and anxiety are united to the suffering of Jesus which we remember especially in Holy Week. The Passion of Jesus involved cruelty and injustice and betrayal and mockery, but in him that suffering became an expression of the love which opens the way into a new life beyond pain, weakness and death. The sacrament of anointing will assure our sick brothers and sisters that they are a central part of our community, sharing in the great act of love which draws us to the Risen Lord who is the fulfilment of our highest hopes and the victory over our most terrifying fears.

As we gather here, representing the whole family of the diocese, we reflect especially on the anointings that all of us have received in our Baptism and our Confirmation. In those anointings the Spirit of the Lord was given to us and we were sent to bring good news to the poor, to bind up hearts that are broken, to comfort those who mourn, to replace despondency with praise of God. Every anointing indicates a role, a mission a witness that a person is being asked to carry out among God’s People and for God’s People. The Confirmation liturgy asks the Father to send the Holy Spirit ‘to make us witnesses before the world to the good news proclaimed by Jesus Christ [his] Son”.

If we ask ourselves in which places or situations or spheres of life we are meant to do that, the answer is both clear and demanding -- everywhere and in every situation. Jesus told us to “go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation” ( Mk 16:15 ).

The Gospel should be visible in every aspect of our lives. We are meant to love the Lord our God, not some of the time or with part of ourselves but with all our heart and soul and mind and strength ( Mark 12:30 ). We are meant to proclaim the good news not as a piece of beautiful or even inspiring information but as the truth and the promise that give meaning to our whole existence. The Good News is meant to transform our whole lives and every aspect of them. Our lives are meant to be lived for God, offered to God. Saint Paul asks us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God ( Rom 12:1 ).

That is what our celebration of the Eucharist means. We are a priestly people, “a line of kings and priests to serve God”. We are priests anointed to make the offering of ourselves to God. We offer ourselves not just as individuals but as the Body of Christ united with his offering of his Body given up for us. In that offering, we are transformed ( Cf. BENEDICT XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis [SC], 70 ). The Eucharistic Bread of Life transforms us into Itself; we receive the Body of Christ and become more fully the Body of Christ. We pray in the Eucharistic Prayer that we will be filled with the Holy Sprit, who anointed us in Baptism and Confirmation, and so ”become one body, one Spirit in Christ” ( Eucharistic Prayer III ).

More than that, in the Offertory we say “Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation, through your goodness we have this bread (this wine) to offer.” “In the bread and wine that we bring to the altar, all creation is taken up by Christ the Redeemer to be transformed and presented to the Father” ( SC, 47 ).

We bring the fruit of the earth and the fruit of the work of our hands. The work of human hands, in other words all we do, is taken up into God’s work of renewing creation. We offer ourselves to be renewed along with the whole of creation. That renewal is not our doing. The death and resurrection of Christ transforms our efforts into a new creation where all of God’s promises are fulfilled.

The Mass gathers up the great variety of ways in which the anointing of the Holy Spirit leads baptised and confirmed people in bringing good news to the poor and allowing the love of God to shine through them. That was the vision of Pope John Paul, whose second anniversary was yesterday. He described the real truth of what is going on in our world:

The eyes of faith behold a wonderful scene:… a countless number of lay people, both women and men, busy at work in their daily life and activity, [often] far from view and quite unacclaimed by the world, unknown to the world's great personages but nonetheless looked upon in love by the Father… Confident and steadfast through the power of God's grace, these are the humble yet great builders of the Kingdom of God in history ( JOHN PAUL II, Christifideles Laici, 17).

We bring all of that to the Mass, to Christ, the Head of the Body. The ‘ordinary’ things of life are not ordinary at all; they are part of the building of God’s Kingdom in history.

The ordained priest is anointed by the Holy Spirit to represent Christ who leads his people into the sacrifice of the Cross where he gives himself completely in order to renew us and to free us from everything that limits and diminishes us ( Cf. SC , 9 ).

This gathering which represents the whole diocese is an occasion for appreciating the importance of the priestly ministry in the Church. It is a day to pray earnestly for vocations to the priesthood. It is a day for renewing our prayer for the priests of the diocese, especially those who are sick or heavily burdened. It is a day for me to express my heartfelt gratitude to the priests for their dedication and their support and their spirit of hope in times that can be disheartening and exhausting.

At the ordination of a priest the bishop anoints his hands saying: “The Father anointed our Lord Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. May Jesus preserve you to sanctify the Christian people and to offer sacrifice to God.”

Priests carry out that task by acting in the name of Christ the Head, and acting at the same time in the name of the whole Church, presenting the lives and offerings of the whole congregation to God in the Eucharist in union with the sacrifice of Christ himself. In that offering of the Eucharist we become part of the act by which Jesus renews human history and the entire universe ( Cf. SC, 10 ).

That is who we are, the people who share in the good news that God is renewing us and all of creation. If we were really to live that truth in our lives “all who see (us) would admit that (we) are a race whom the Lord has blessed” and glimpse in us the power and hope of the Gospel.

This evening we commit ourselves once again to allow the gifts of the Spirit, given to us in Baptism and Confirmation and in Holy Orders, to work in our lives so that we can bring the fragility and pain and disillusionment of and the struggle of life to be offered with the sacrifice of Christ which turns despondency into praise.