Mass of Chrism 2019
 
Dear brothers and sisters: The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for the Lord has anointed me!  These words of the prophet Isaiah were taken up by Our Lord Jesus when He came to Nazara, where he had been brought up.  Finding the place where it was written in the Scroll of the prophet, He applied the text to Himself and His mission in the world.  In this way, Jesus revealed Himself as the Messiah, or anointed one; for Messiah, that is Christ, means Anointed One.
 
As the Christ, Jesus was anointed by His Father when: … the Holy Spirit descended on Him … and a voice came from Heaven (saying) : “You are my Son, my Beloved, in Whom my soul delights.
 
From these Heavenly words we see that Jesus’ anointing, first of all, simply revealed His Father’s delight in Him.  In His Father’s eyes Jesus is: the fairest of the children of men, anointed with the oil of gladness above other kings.  
 
But then the text goes on to reveal that His Father also anointed Jesus for a mission to bring good news to the poor... and so proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.  It was a mission He accepted most admirably as He made His way up to Jerusalem for the Feast, where He carried out His Father’s will in an act of obedience that destroyed Death forever and opened the gates of Heaven to all believers.
 
Just as Jesus was anointed as the Christ, His Father anoints us as Christians to be members of His Body of which Christ, Our Lord, is the Head.
 
This anointing reveals how we, too, are the Father’s beloved children, whom He loves so much as to give up His Only Son so that we might have Eternal Life. And He rejoices in us with such delight that He made us little less than the gods, crowed with glory and honour. 
 
Our anointing to His delight and to our mission, we know, comes through the Sacraments of the Church, which He produces for us anew every year from the abundant goodness of His Creation.  For every year He makes plants to serve our needs, bringing forth bread from the earth, wine to cheer our hearts and oil to make our countenance radiant in His presence.
 
This evening, once again, we bring Our Heavenly Father the harvest of these plants in the grape and grain of the earth that will become for us the Bread of Life and the Chalice of our Salvation. We bring Him the oil of the olive tree for Him to bless and transform into His Sacraments that will be a remedy for our sickness and sin, a strength for our spirit and body, and an anointing for our mission to be salt, leaven and light in the world.  These elements of Creation - wheat, grape and oil - raised up into Sacraments strengthen us in faith to  proclaim another year of favour from the Lord, one that will bring to our world garlands for ashes, the oil of gladness for mourning robes, and praise of God to banish all despondency of sin.
 
As we gather this evening in one diocesan family my thoughts and prayers, and those of my brother priests, are firstly with you, our dear people.  Our prayer is that these Sacraments which we consecrate for you this night, can afford that your journey through life and death towards the Lord will be assured of the Lord’s close presence and good providence for you and your loved ones, until you meet Him face to face in that Happy Day to come.
 
Dear brothers and sisters, we know, too, that the anointing Jesus received consecrated Him to the priesthood, which He fulfilled when His Hour had come.  In the Upper Room He held the Last Supper with His Disciples on the night He was betrayed, and entered His Passion that led to Calvary, where He was exposed to worldly shame for the whole of Creation to see , even those who pierced Him.  There on the Cross, in and through the very wounds of His Pierced Priesthood, Jesus showed Himself to be the Messiah, the world’s Alpha and Omega’, and the Almighty One of all human history.
 
So, I am sure you will not mind me now turning to my dear brother priests in Christ, the Father’s beloved sons in whom His soul delights, and to whom this night somehow especially belongs.
 
My dear brothers, in the presence of your people you will soon renew your priestly promises, on this day when Our Lord conferred His priesthood on His Apostles and on you. 
 
In these times you well know how the Lord has chosen you to live out your ministry more than ever as one like His, with the open wounds of your pierced priesthood put on display before the world.  In these times the Lord asks you to serve Him loyally with open sores still wet with the shortcomings of fellow priests across the world, which were not attended to carefully enough by their bishops.  But, maybe more than that, all the while our secular world turns ever more indifferent and hostile to our faith, and not a few Catholics, once loved and now lapsed, have disappointed us along the way.  Yes, you live out your priesthood today, not on a pedestal of old but on the Altar of His Cross, while the world passes on by unmoved, sometimes even stopping to mock. 
 
Yet, for all that, we believe there is somehow the Lord’s hand in it all.  In your faithful service even today, preaching and teaching the Word of God to your people, stewarding and administering the Sacraments of the Church on their behalf and leading them with the pastoral love of the Good Shepherd Himself,  you are surely allowing Him to bring about a great purification of our Church and world.  What must seem to you as a day of vengeance for our God I, personally sense more and more is really allowing the Lord to prepare a new year of favour for the times ahead . 
 
Dear brothers, the Lord does not revoke His promises, not to you His beloved priests, and I have a feeling the world,  looking back, will see how in your patient sacrifice, you proved truly a race famous throughout the nations, whom the Lord blessed.  
 
So, this evening, as you promise to be united with the Lord Jesus and moved by love of souls alone, do not be afraid, but rather, be of good cheer for the Lord has conquered the world. 
 
With all my heart I, together with your people gathered around you, thank the Lord for you, my good brothers and faithful ministers of the Lord, and I commend you to Our Lady, Mother of Priests, whose love will never fail you as you go on in our times as bearers of the Word and Flesh of Her most precious Anointed Son.