Chrism Mass 2009

Bishop Brendan and some of the conclebrants at Holy Thursday's Chrism Mass

HOMILY

“This text is being fulfilled today, even as you listen”

My dear people, thank you for being here this morning with us your priests for this mass during which the Sacred Oils will be consecrated and blessed. The sacred oils of Chrism, of Catechumens and of the Sick are the instruments through which we priests carry out the service/ministry entrusted to us amongst you, the holy people of God.
It is right and fitting therefore that in a few minutes, before God and before you, we will make a solemn renewal of our commitment to priestly service.

My dear brother priests, later on today in every parish in the diocese you will celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. It is a serious moment in the Church’s year: we remember and celebrate the institution of the Eucharist and of the priesthood.
The Gospel you will proclaim, and in many cases enact, tells of how, on the night he was betrayed, Jesus not only took bread and said ‘This is my body’, took the wine and said ‘This is my blood’, he also got up from the table, took a towel and a basin of water and proceeded to wash his disciples’ feet.
Peter was shocked and protested vehemently ‘You shall never wash my feet’!.
But Jesus is very quiet and very clear: ‘If I do not wash you, you can have no share with me’.
You cannot proclaim ‘This is my Body, this is my Blood’ if first of all you do not allow your feet to be washed.
You cannot celebrate the Eucharist with God’s people at all unless you are on your knees on the ground in front of each one of them, reaching out to wash, to soothe what is weary or sore, to look with compassion on what this child of God finds dirty or putrid in him/herself.
You cannot celebrate the Eucharist unless you are available to be the slave who will take the foot into your hand and with it all that is lowliest or despised, weary, dirty or deformed, and wash and soothe, restore and heal.

Today is a day for you and I to ponder anew, as if for the first time, this very deliberate action of Jesus on the night he was betrayed, and at the same time as he celebrated the Passover now become Eucharist with his dearest friends.

‘The priest is an expert in divine intimacy’, the Holy Father said on March 16 last, the eve of St Patrick’s Day, when he announced the coming ‘Year of the Priest’ that will begin on June 19 next, the feast of the Sacred Heart. Intimacy, heart, love, Eucharist, washing feet: this is where priesthood is at. Though intimacy can be ecstatic, it has more often and more properly to do with washing feet. The washing of the disciples’ feet is therefore Jesus’ intimate, love-filled response to the betrayal of that night. This we should ponder in these times when our hearts too have been broken by the betrayal of brothers. Jesus got up from the table and became their slave, literally, so that in and through him, they might know the length and the breath, the height and the depth of God’s love for them.

I said earlier that I cannot proclaim ‘this is my body, this is my blood’ unless I myself first of all have allowed Jesus wash my feet. Without letting God’s incarnate gaze upon and take in his hand the part of me that is dirty, bruised, worn out, hidden….
We are ministers of healing, of forgiveness, of God’s cleansing and restoration, yes, but effectively so only if we are allowing Jesus heal and cleanse, restore and forgive ourselves. Am I entrusting my feet of clay into his hands regularly in real accompaniment…spiritually, professionally? It is imperative as priests that we are emptying ourselves, obedient like Jesus to the Father’s way of humility. I owe it to those for whom I break the body, drink the blood that I am allowing Jesus wash me in this way. And it is the self-emptying the Father asks of me, as he asked self-emptying of Jesus.

To quote the Holy Father on March 16 more fully: “The mission of the priest is communion rooted in divine intimacy, of which the priest is called to be an expert, so that he can bring with confidence and humility the souls entrusted to him to the same meeting with the Lord.”

Today we have come to renew in this Eucharist our commitment to priestly service, not just as individuals, but also united together as a presbyterate, in communion with each other for the sake of the holy communion of all God’s people, before whom we are gathered.
We ask Mary, to whom Jesus from the cross entrusted us, to be with us now as we humbly make this renewal, so that
the spirit of the Lord may be with us, that he anoint us again,
to bring good news to the poor,
proclaim liberty to captives
and to the blind new sight,
that we may set the downtrodden free
and that our lives may proclaim this as the Lord’s year of favour.

Oils of Cathechumens, The Sick and Chrism