Sermon for the Mass of the Oils 2007

We often call today’s celebration the “Chrism Mass”, but it is much more aptly named the “Mass of the Oils”, because, not only do we consecrate the Oil of Chrism during it, but also we bless the Oil of Catechumens and the Oil of the Sick. But the most important word in the title is the word “ Mass. ” More than anything else, it is the Mass which, as I have often written, “establishes us as the gathered community of the disciples of Christ.” In the Eucharist, we are both called, and empowered, to share Christ’s life and his work of transforming and saving the world. The Mass is central to everything we do which is why we consecrate and bless the sacred oils during this Mass. They are to be the sacramental means by which we experience God’s healing and transforming love during the coming year.

I don’t think I ever attended this Mass as a lay person but if I had, I think that I could not have failed to have been struck, as perhaps some of you are, by the serried ranks of priests and deacons gathered around the altar. Though impressive to some, others might be tempted to think of this as a display of “them” and “us”.

Today we have a much greater sense of what links and makes us one. In the Mass, it is, of course, Christ, through lectern and altar. We are not divided, but united by Word and Sacrament. There’s no “them” and “us”; we stand together before the Word, both spoken and made flesh.  Gathered with the Lord, who nourishes us and strengthens us, we become that distinctive people of which Isaiah writes in the first reading. “Priests of the Lord…ministers of our God…famous throughout the nations…a race whom the Lord has blessed.” This is the setting which makes this Mass such a significant gathering of the community of the Lord’s disciples.

My own Eucharistic life has changed over the last two years. I used to celebrate with the Holy Souls Sisters, but now, when I have no commitments to Mass elsewhere, I say Mass here in the Cathedral. A small community gathers here at 7.30 each morning and it has become a very special experience for me.  It has helped me to appreciate more and more how much I need the Eucharist as “daily bread” and as the “esca viatorum” – the “bread of travellers.”  These relatively simple and intimate surroundings enable me increasingly to be immersed into the depths and beauty of the words and action of the liturgy. Here, as Pope Benedict writes, is found the veritatis splendor.

I am beginning to realise more deeply that there are all sorts of “consecrations” taking place in the Mass, at the same time as the consecration of the bread and wine. For example, we consecrate our lives through the Word and our response to it; we are consecrated in a wondrous way by that most intimate of encounters with the Lord in Holy Communion. But there’s something else too. We don’t just bring bread and wine to be offered, we bring ourselves – we are also the gifts. These simple words from the Third Eucharistic Prayer say it all: “Father, we bring you these gifts” – and that’s you and me – “so that they (we) may become the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Becoming the body and blood of the Lord means being anointed by the Spirit. We gather together to experience this and, as we do so, clergy and people together,  we are consecrated and empowered as the Body of Christ, both for communion with the Lord and with each other, and for the proclamation of the Good News. The Ite, missa est is not just a perfunctory dismissal but a significant word, helping us to grasp more deeply the relationship between every Mass we celebrate and our mission to the world. Mass can never be simply a narrowly personal devotion. There can be no such thing as my Mass.

Whilst we hold all these thoughts in mind, the focus of today’s celebration is particularly on our priests and deacons and their ministry. It is important and necessary that it should be so. Our priests and deacons are very precious and they hold the Eucharistic key to the life and mission of the Church. We simply cannot be the Church – we cannot celebrate that Eucharist which identifies us as the Church – without the ministry of the priests who minister to you with great generosity and commitment.

This year marks our 125^th birthday as a diocese. Many of you here will have gathered in 1982 on a cold and windy May morning to celebrate our centenary. I wasn’t with you then and I will certainly not be around when we get to the 150^th anniversary. This is why I want to make as much of this year of celebration as I can, and I invite you to join me both as individuals and in your parishes and worshipping communities.

I make no apology for concentrating on our priests and deacons. The history of the diocese is brightly and significantly illuminated by the outstanding and holy ministry of the many priests – and more recently deacons - who have served the community and who have so generously modelled themselves on the pattern of the Good Shepherd. In many, many ways, they have laid down their lives for our communities and they continue to do so.

This is why it is so important to pray for them – for us – today, as we renew our commitment to priestly and diaconal ministry. As well as today, I want this anniversary year to be particularly a year of prayer for priests and deacons. If the Eucharist makes the Church - and it does – and if priests are absolutely necessary for Eucharist – as they are - then there’s no doubt at all that we need many more who will generously listen to the Lord’s call to the ordained ministry and respond to it.

Pray for our priests and deacons today – pray for me – that we will be faithful to our call. Pray that all of us – priests, deacons and lay people - will continue to rejoice in that anointing of the Spirit, an anointing given to us so that we can both be, and bring, Good News to our world. We have listened to powerful Gospel words today and I pray that we may have the faith and vision to see these words being fulfilled in us today “even as we listen.”