Dear brothers and sisters, we gather in a year of two-fold grace. We gather in a Holy Year of God’s mercy. As a diocese we also gather in
Our Paisley Synod year, called by the same Holy Spirit whose inspiration has moved the whole people - clergy, religious and lay faithful- to desire a renewal that will see us
All Together Sharing the Good News and reaching out, especially through our laity, to every place of darkness in our territory, to bring in new faith and life.
In today’s first reading the Prophet Isaiah sees God’s Year of Mercy and the Church’s outreach to the poor as two sides of the same coin. His great prophetic vision is that it is Jesus, the Priest anointed, who will be the beating heart both of this Jubilee Year of Mercy and of the New Evangelisation it will naturally inspire.
According to Isaiah, only once the Lord has been anointed Priest can there come about a Holy Year of God’s favour. Only once He has been anointed Priest can there be salvation for the poor and the broken-hearted and those held captive without hope. The Lord’s anointing as Priest for the poor takes the good news, first of all, out to them and to the lost and, only after this, does everything else fall into place. That is, only insofar as Jesus is anointed Priest can the Church discover Her mission to be sent out as His mercy for those dead in their sins.
Our Synod will reflect upon how God’s commission now fully includes the laity, for this is the times for them to come forward as workers in the Lord’s vineyard, to be the light of the world and to bear abundant fruit. They no longer need to wait for the permission of bishop and clergy to be evangelisers of these times for they have already been commissioned by their Baptism and empowered by their Confirmation to take all initiatives necessary for the renewal of faith in our land.
But today we reflect upon Isaiah’s prophecy how Christ the Priest will always be the one, necessary source of any fruitful Jubilee of Mercy and any effective evangelisation by His People. You, our ordained priests gathered round me today, are ministers of Christ’s priesthood now and the point I want to make is that you are, today, the same, necessary source of our Church’s mercy and missionary outreach which we are to make in these times. That is to say, if we are going to succeed as a Church of mercy and evangelisation we will depend on you, our priests, to be the wellspring of our renewal, as brothers of Christ our anointed High Priest. We will need your close pastoral presence among us more than ever, yes as ministers of the Sacraments and as teachers of God’s Word, but above all, in the outstanding example of your dedication as our priests, in order to give us the courage we need to go out and be a light to our nation. More than ever we will need to lean upon the strength of your priestly example for the task of evangelisation that awaits us.
This is what Isaiah meant when he saw why, Christ, the Anointed High Priest, Who would share His anointing with a race of ministering priests, would have to give them certain fame throughout the world. Their fame would not be that of today’s celebrities but would be a ‘blessed fame’, that is, the fame of good reputation and inspiring witness. It is the fame that gives strength to the whole Church -especially the hard-pressed laity – who hope to find in the faithful witness of their priests all the encouragement they need to live their vocations in service of the same Lord.
It was this blessed fame that Jesus, the Anointed High Priest, earned for Himself while on earth. Though He was Ruler of nations He came among us as one Who served and Who kept His most precious example of priestly service for His last hour on the Cross. There, He let His side be pierced with a lance and, with His blood, allowed the Father to pour out an anointing on the world that washed away sin and restores the world to life. In the suffering of Jesus, the Priest, the world was acquitted. Through the Sacrificial Death of Jesus the Priest the Church received new life. The Preface of today’s Mass calls the spilling of this High Priest’s blood God’s most wonderful plan. In His priestly Self-Giving to the end Jesus proved Himself the example for every priest because He showed how His Priestly love of humanity to the very end was the real source of His power among His People. The example of His priestly Sacrifice on Calvary struck His people’s hearts to the core and this witness was all they needed to make them turn back to Him and resolve to be more fruitful disciples.
This, my dear brothers, is the beginning and end, the Alpha and Omega, of our priestly glory. What moves our people more than anything is when they see us, their priests, die to ourselves in a way that proves our love for them and for the Lord. In this way we are, as priests, pioneers of the Church’s renewal and of a more excellent way for all God’s People to live. By faithfully living out our priestly vocation to serve God’s faithful in their time of need we soon become instruments of Christ’s power to raise up, out of them, a People who will join us in power in renewing the earth. By following this wonderful plan of priestly surrender for our people we become true fathers who give life to their vocations as sharers in the self-giving sacrifice of our Beloved High Priest.
As sure as night follows day the laity take up their own vocation in the world quite naturally once they have experienced how we, their priests, poured out our lives for them. They want to become some part of the mission we live as priests and become sharers in this one priesthood of Christ. They want to live offering up the daily joys and sorrows of their work and family life as a fragrant offering in service of the Christ’s mission to establish His Father’s Kingdom on earth.
Your example is often too the way in which our religious sisters and brothers first sense a call to consecrated life. God calls some of our sisters and brothers to look upon Christ His Son on the Cross, and desire to leave everything to consecrate themselves entirely to Him and His Church and this choice, still today, pleases the Lord Jesus dearly. We thank God for the religious sisters of our diocese who spend their lives in the Lord’s service, in union with their fellow religious throughout the world. But the point is that their vocation was often aroused by the example of your own priestly self-giving at the altar, or in their homes or parish school.
Today they, with all God’s people -laity and deacons- look up to you, our anointed priests of Christ. They come to honour you and pray for you, this unique line of priests who make up the brotherhood of Christ, the Anointed High Priest.
Dear brothers I want to address you especially today. No doubt you will be remembering how, long ago, you once felt that brotherly kindness of Jesus that convinced you He was calling you to share in His Sacred Ministry. You may be remembering how your vocation was forged through long years in seminary and how it came to birth on your ordination day in the bishop’s laying on of hands as he sent you out to your people with power to save them. From then on you dedicated yourselves to renewing the Sacrifice of Holy Mass, setting before God’s children the Paschal Banquet of Holy Communion. Day after day you have tried to lead God’s People with love, nourishing them with His Word and strengthening them with His Sacraments.
Now, in this Year of Mercy and our Year of synod and on the day the Lord conferred His Priesthood on the Apostles you renew the priestly promises you made on your ordination day. Just as Isaiah saw Christ the anointed Priest as the one, true source of an approaching age of mercy and mission to the lost, and just as he saw this same, necessary source renewed by the blessed fame of a race of priests in every generation so I, as the bishop of this diocese, I can see coming out of the renewal of your priestly promises today a new birth of the diocese of Paisley as a people of evangelisation for our times. I can see coming out of the renewal of your priestly promises a new flowering of the vocation of all God’s people, especially the laity. I can see coming out of the renewal of your priestly promises the birth of a new Church at the service of God’s life-giving mercy and salvation
Gladdened by your promise to be more closely conformed to Christ Our Priest, denying yourselves to carry out your sacred duties, may our whole diocese be inspired by that love for Jesus which made you joyfully pledge your lives to Him on your ordination day. Encouraged by your promise to be conscientious teachers of your people and faithful ministers of the Eucharist and the Sacraments, which you administer through bread that sustains, through wine that gladdens and through oil that make our faces shine, may our whole diocese be moved, afresh, to carry out our sacred mission with the heart of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and His unending passion for souls.
We entrust you, my dear brother priests - with all God’s Holy People of this diocese- to the Maternal care Our Lady of Paisley, Mother of Priests and Mother of the Church. On this day of the renewal of your priestly promises it is Her Son Who encourages the whole of our diocese with a hope beyond all question:
See I am making all things new!