We gather in our Cathedral this morning to celebrate the gift of the priesthood in the life of the Church and to bless the Holy Oil of the Sick, the Holy Oil of Catechumens and consecrating the Holy Chrism.I welcome you all from the many parishes of our diocese.
I greet in particular the pupils from many schools throughout the diocese, especially St Columbanus College, Bangor and from De La Salle College here in the city, who take part in today’s liturgy.
At the end of this ceremony last year we installed and blessed the ambry, in the side aisle of this cathedral. It is dedicated to two priests of our diocese Fr Noel Fitzpatrick and Fr Hugh Mullan, who risked and gave their lives as they anointed the dying.
In the course of the intervening year numerous jubilees of priestly ordination were celebrated: four of our number marked twenty five years of priestly ministry, a further four fifty years and five celebrated sixty years of pastoral service.
This year six priests among us will mark their Silver Jubilee, eight their Golden Jubilee and four will celebrate sixty years of priestly ministry. Last autumn four young men joined our seminarians – and I welcome them among us this morning. We pray that others will join them in this coming autumn.
In the course of the intervening year numerous jubilees of priestly ordination were celebrated: four of our number marked twenty five years of priestly ministry, a further four fifty years and five celebrated sixty years of pastoral service.
This year six priests among us will mark their Silver Jubilee, eight their Golden Jubilee and four will celebrate sixty years of priestly ministry. Last autumn four young men joined our seminarians – and I welcome them among us this morning. We pray that others will join them in this coming autumn.
As we have lived our priesthood in parish and special ministries in the past twelve months, supported by our parishioners, represented here today, we give thanks to God this morning for the pastoral service rendered by each priest and religious in our diocese throughout the past year. That service was celebrated on the occasion of these numerous jubilees to which I referred.
We rejoice too today in the promise of future priestly service represented by clerical students and the work of all engaged in fostering vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
The steadfast grind and the joy of daily pastoral service, even to the point of shedding one’s blood, is no less a reality of our local Church’s life than the faith-shaking crimes and sins of abuse of children and minors by clergy and religious. This faith-inspired and dedicated service of individuals and parish communities, assured by the majority of our priests and religious in the context of the trials presently besetting the Church from within and without, follows in the footsteps of our two martyred priests.
Joyful, loving service of our brothers and sisters in faith is an evident hallmark of our priestly and religious lives: I see and experience it as I visit our parishes and on behalf of our faithful people I thank you for the witness of your service to Christ in trying circumstances. Allow me to thank you, my dear brothers in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, for your friendship, openness in discussion, for your support and for your patience with a learner during the past year.
Joyful, loving service of our brothers and sisters in faith is an evident hallmark of our priestly and religious lives: I see and experience it as I visit our parishes and on behalf of our faithful people I thank you for the witness of your service to Christ in trying circumstances. Allow me to thank you, my dear brothers in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, for your friendship, openness in discussion, for your support and for your patience with a learner during the past year.
Whilst alluding to these graced moments in the life of our presbyterium, one is also painfully aware of the shame, deception, disorientation, horror and anger among clergy and religious in the aftermath of the Ryan and Murphy reports, both of which were published since last Holy Thursday. Horror at the criminal destruction and life-long suffering wreaked on those abused, anger at inept management and cover-up by some bishops and others in authority in our Church, existential, personal and vocational distress at the continuing drip of revelations, dread of being personally tainted by mere association in the public perception, bewilderment at seemingly inadequate communications systems in the Church, impatient yearning for final resolution : these and numerous other human reactions ebb and flow in our consciousness. They may disturb our sacerdotal and religious self-awareness even more poignantly on this Holy Thursday morning.
Yet it is precisely in these pulsations of our vocational self-awareness that the Word of God confronts you and me, indeed every Christian, in today’s liturgy of the Word. The first reading, from third Isaiah, cited by Jesus in the Lucan account of beginning of his ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth, speaks of reconstitution, of healing, of liberating or enlightening, of giving comfort. Proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth as a signature tune of the public ministry he was about to assume, Isaiah had honed these words of promise and hope against the backdrop, in the crucible, of an exile and punishment for religious, societal and moral failure. The words of the second reading from the opening chapter of the book of the Apocalypse (ch.1.5-8) link us to the author of that book’s reflection in faith on the experience of persecution of Christians towards the end of the first century under the emperor Domitian (91-96 AD).
In addressing that particular conflict between religious faith and empire, the author also probes permanent questions of human existence and religious faith : the mystery of evil, the suffering of the innocent and just, and the meaning of the new freedom inaugurated by Christ, as Saviour of humanity.
These texts from the Word of God, like the life and ministry of Christ, the anointed one and model of all priests, commission us at this Chrism Mass to minister as architects of Christian hope. They commission us to act as bearers of Christian hope and healing in the very midst of suffering and persecution. In our time, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our priestly and religious ministry must assume as a central responsibility, together with competent persons and professionals, the pastoral care of victims and survivors and we must continue to give primacy to the safeguarding of children, minors and all who are vulnerable.
In addressing that particular conflict between religious faith and empire, the author also probes permanent questions of human existence and religious faith : the mystery of evil, the suffering of the innocent and just, and the meaning of the new freedom inaugurated by Christ, as Saviour of humanity.
These texts from the Word of God, like the life and ministry of Christ, the anointed one and model of all priests, commission us at this Chrism Mass to minister as architects of Christian hope. They commission us to act as bearers of Christian hope and healing in the very midst of suffering and persecution. In our time, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our priestly and religious ministry must assume as a central responsibility, together with competent persons and professionals, the pastoral care of victims and survivors and we must continue to give primacy to the safeguarding of children, minors and all who are vulnerable.
For furthering the safeguarding of children and minors we are supported by the Diocesan Child Protection Office, staffed by professionals. Throughout our parishes we continue to work with the more than 3,000 trained men and women who, inspired by their faith, give freely of their skills, experience and time to promote the safety of children in the Church and its organisations.
In your name I thank them one and all and I invite others in our parishes to join in this service. In this work we are also supported by the Standards and Guidance Document (2008) produced by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church and the policies and procedures being elaborated to implement the standards for good practice.
Most recently we have received Pope Benedict XVI’s Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland which is being read by groups in parishes and in Catholic organisations throughout the diocese. Reading and discussing the Letter in groups will help to shape an informed and differentiated discourse on what has been swept under the carpet in Church and society. Discussing the contents of that text will energise religious faith, enhance our individual and shared sense of responsibility for the safety of children and minors and develop our common responsibility for accountability and transparency in the life of our Church. In May our diocese will publish a booklet, "Working Together To Safeguard Children within our Parishes" for dissemination in parishes and to the wider public outlining the work, services and initiatives promoted by our diocese and local Church in this arena.
In your name I thank them one and all and I invite others in our parishes to join in this service. In this work we are also supported by the Standards and Guidance Document (2008) produced by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church and the policies and procedures being elaborated to implement the standards for good practice.
Most recently we have received Pope Benedict XVI’s Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland which is being read by groups in parishes and in Catholic organisations throughout the diocese. Reading and discussing the Letter in groups will help to shape an informed and differentiated discourse on what has been swept under the carpet in Church and society. Discussing the contents of that text will energise religious faith, enhance our individual and shared sense of responsibility for the safety of children and minors and develop our common responsibility for accountability and transparency in the life of our Church. In May our diocese will publish a booklet, "Working Together To Safeguard Children within our Parishes" for dissemination in parishes and to the wider public outlining the work, services and initiatives promoted by our diocese and local Church in this arena.
As we move towards renewing our priestly promises, my dear brothers in priestly life, we should draw courage from scriptural passages such as those we have heard today and also from the efforts and initiatives of our Church to address this evil which has also been perpetrated by some within the ministry we share. Let us take courage from the initiatives announced in no. 14 of Pope Benedict’s Pastoral Letter and implement those penitential proposals addressed to us. Let us recognise that it is now part of our vocation and ministry to assume the suffering attendant on the long and complex process of the deconstruction of the taboo of sexual abuse.
Let us continue to take up with determination the demanding efforts to construct a compass for Church and society to deal with the historic and future dimensions of this moment of painful and tragic truth in the life of the Church and in human affairs. And working closely with our parishioners as equals in accountable transparency, let us put our shoulder in faith and unswerving trust to the long and pluri-generational road of renewing the Church of Christ.
Let us continue to take up with determination the demanding efforts to construct a compass for Church and society to deal with the historic and future dimensions of this moment of painful and tragic truth in the life of the Church and in human affairs. And working closely with our parishioners as equals in accountable transparency, let us put our shoulder in faith and unswerving trust to the long and pluri-generational road of renewing the Church of Christ.
As we now renew our priestly promises, allow me to recall words from the early second century Letter of St Ignatius of Antioch to the Church at Magnesia, near Ephesus:
“I want you to be unshakably convinced of the Birth, the Passion and the Resurrection which were the true and indisputable experiences of Jesus Christ, our Hope, in the days of Pontius Pilate’s governorship. God grant that none of you may ever be turned aside from that Hope”
You know he wrote seven letters to local Churches while on his way under arrest from Antioch to Rome, there to be martyred. At the beginning of each letter he refers to himself, in chains and under arrest, as “Theophoros”, the God-bearer.
As we take the newly blessed oils to our parishes, may they remind us daily that we are ”God-bearers” in all we say and do in the context of all the joys and sorrows of our times.
May we sustain each other through our prayers and example in being “God-bearers” in these times of trial.
And may Christ, our Hope, whom we celebrate in the Easter Triduum, enliven our hearts and minds with the courage, humility, love and faith of the first disciples. Amen