Holy Thursday 2011
MASS OF CHRISM
MASS OF CHRISM
Homily Notes of
Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin
Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland
Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin
Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland
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Pro-Cathedral, 21st April 2011
Once again on this Holy Thursday morning we gather as a Diocesan
Community here in the Pro-Cathedral, the Mother Church of the
Archdiocese, for this unique liturgy, for this remarkable liturgical
celebration of our unity in faith.
This liturgy has a special significance for us ordained priests as
we renew our commitment to priestly service and as we celebrate the
unity of our presbyterate. The priests of the Archdiocese of Dublin
join with priests belonging to religious Institutes and from other
dioceses who work together with us in the service of God’s people.
This remarkable liturgy is truly a special expression of the
reality of the great faith community which is the Church of Jesus
Christ in the Archdiocese of Dublin. Our ministerial priesthood – let
us never forget - has been generated and is sustained by that great
faith community to which we as priests belong. We are gathered as a
faith community of 198 territorial parishes in Dublin City and County
and in parts of Wicklow, Kildare, Wexford, Laois and Carlow, as well as
the Parish of the Travelling people, the deaf community, men and women
religious and of other ecclesial groupings.
We come together as
brothers and sisters to express in prayer and in the Eucharist what is
deepest in the life of our diocese. I greet each and every one of you.
I send my prayers and good wishes to the communities you represent,
especially to the housebound, to those suffering economically and to
those who are troubled.
This blessing of the Oils reminds us of how our fundamental unity
within the Archdiocese is built upon the sacramental life of the Church
which these oils represent. The oils represent our initiation into
the life of grace and into the Church in Baptism and Confirmation. The
oils represent the special consecration of priestly ministry. They
represent the community which brings Christ’s care in a special way to
the sick and those at the end of their life. These oils remind us that
the Church is the community within which we realise how our entire life
is embraced by the loving care of God.
The oils also recall the fundamental unity of Church life. The
oils are blessed on just one occasion during the liturgical year.
They are blessed in this remarkable celebration of unity, this
celebration of the unity of priests and people around the bishop. The
oils consecrated just on this day are used then for the entire year
ahead of us, reminding us that their use at any time in the year is
fundamentally linked with the mysteries we celebrate in these days of
Holy Week.
The readings of this Mass have stressed the idea of anointing.
In the Old Testament, anointing was a sign of being taken into God’s
service. For us Christians then, anointing is never a question of
being endowed personally with earthly power and status. It is quite the
opposite. Those anointed to serve in the Church, those called to any
ministry in the Church, can no longer consider themselves to be the
central figures of their own ministry. We are taken into God’s service.
Our ministry is not something then that derives from us ourselves.
It comes from our anointing with the oil of the Holy Spirit. We become
ministers of the Spirit in the measure in which we follow the path of
Jesus whom we remember in Holy Week as the one who emptied himself.
We have heard in the Gospel of the words and action of Jesus in
the Synagogue of his own town. Jesus tells his hearers that the
prophecy of the anointed one, who was to come, is realised in himself:
he is God's Anointed One. He is not a prophet for himself or of
himself; all his actions are entirely at the service of the Father's
mission. His does not cling to equality with God; he does not seek
himself but lives for the One who sent him.
Jesus is telling his hearers that he portends a priesthood that is
radically new. This newness applies to both to God’s priestly people
and to his ministers. Priestly ministry is a sign of being taken into
God’s service. Priestly ministry is not a call to prestige or
privilege; it is not an opening for personal protagonism.
The ordained priest does not fulfil his mission through his own
protagonism, through putting himself at the centre of his mission. In
ministering the sacred mysteries, the priest does not represent
himself; he does not speak about himself, but speaks "in persona Christi".
Being anointed to speak in persona Christi requires that our way of living and thinking and acting reflect our relationship with Christ. Ministry is about putting aside self in order to witness to the one who has anointed us and sent us.
Being anointed to speak in persona Christi requires that our way of living and thinking and acting reflect our relationship with Christ. Ministry is about putting aside self in order to witness to the one who has anointed us and sent us.
Priestly ministry is not a form of personal protagonism. When we
affirm the theological distinction between ministerial priesthood and
the common priesthood of God’s holy people, we are not affirming a
position of social status or difference. That would be clericalism.
We know just how such clericalism can deviate us from our true
ministry. And clericalism has many forms. Clericalism is not about
clerical dress or what we might call traditionalism. We can be clerical
in the wrong sense whatever way we dress, in whatever role or rank or
responsibility we are called to. There is clericalism with
conservative overtones and clericalism with progressive overtones.
Clericalism, in whatever outward expression it appears, is
fundamentally a desire to use our ministry for personal protagonism and
self satisfaction. Clericalism is a perennial temptation.
When I say that we, as bishops or as priests, do not fulfil our
mission through our own protagonism, this is not an attack on
priests. It is in an encouragement to priests! It reminds us that,
with all our weaknesses and inadequacies, each of us can achieve more
through trusting in God’s working through us than in putting ourselves
in the forefront.
This is a great celebration for unity. As Bishop whose ministry in
the Church is a ministry of unity, I am acutely aware of my own lacks
and inadequacies. I apologise to anyone whom I may have offended
personally in this year and to those who have expected more from me. I
know, however, that my inadequacies as a pastoral leader are made up
for a hundredfold for by the goodness and love of the community of
faith which I am called to lead, but from whom I also receive
nourishment, inspiration and support. For that support – which may
also come in the form of criticism – I am sensitive and also grateful.
Our challenges as the Catholic Christian community in Dublin are
not just our own. I am aware that the challenges that we as Catholic
Christians face are the same challenges that other Christian
communities face also. All Christians must learn to work together. I
would like at this special moment in the life of the Catholic
community to anticipate – I believe in all your names – a word of
welcome to the new Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Michael
Jackson, as he is about to initiate his mission. His predecessor,
Archbishop John Neill showed himself to be a real Christian support to
me personally and I look forward to working with and learning from
Archbishop Jackson.
Archbishop Jackson has already accepted my
invitation to lead a Liturgy of the Word during the 50th International
Eucharistic Congress which we will celebrate in Dublin in 2012. If
we work together, this Eucharistic Congress will not be simply an
outward week-long spectacle or the triumphalistic celebration of an
inward-looking Church. If we work together, it can become a moment of
real renewal in the life of the Church in Dublin and a true celebration
of what the Church authentically is and should be.
We often hear it said that: “We are the Church” and I understand –
and would not wish to downplay - what people mean when they say that.
But we are not the Church, just as the Church is not ours. The Church
is the Church of Jesus Christ. It is built around the celebration of
the Eucharist. This is what we experience in a privileged way this
morning at this great liturgy of unity. The Church is not our
construction; its strength is linked with the way in which each of us as
individuals and as believing communities enter into personal communion
with Christ. We need a real renewal of our catechesis which focuses
on helping young people develop that sense of personal communion with
Christ.
The theme of the Eucharistic Congress wishes to stress the unity
between our communion with Christ and our communion with each other.
There is no way we can separate one from the other. Holy Communion is
never just something for ourselves. In the Eucharist we “become one
body and one spirit in Christ”. Our communion with one another is
however not just another expression of mere human or political
solidarity. The Christian life is by its nature a life of communion
and must reflect that unity of life which was characteristic of the
Church of the Apostles.
Renewal in the Church means in the first place renewal in personal
communion with Christ. Renewal can never be simply a renewal of
structures, however necessary that renewal may be. True renewal of the
Church necessarily requires renewal in that communion with Christ
which only comes from prayer. Prayer is placing ourselves in the
presence of God and recognising the otherness of God. Prayer is never
just meditation or introspection. There is a real temptation in our
world where the dimension of transcendence can remain suppressed, that
our prayer might become what Pope Benedict called “a form of
self-contemplation”.
Being anointed always means going beyond
ourselves; it involves overcoming self preoccupation; overcoming
self preoccupation is a precondition for attaining the freedom and the
peace which only God can give.
These have been difficult years for the life of the Archdiocese of
Dublin and for its priests and its people, and for its Archbishop.
Perhaps today, at this blessing of these oils which will accompany us in
our Christian journey in the coming year, we should remember that the
Psalms speak of oil as the “oil of gladness”.
At the recent liturgy of Lament and Repentance here in the
Pro-Cathedral I affirmed that the wounds of our recent scandals mean
that Archdiocese of Dublin can never be the same again. The diocese
will live with its wounds as long as those abused continue to suffer.
We celebrate this morning the “oil of gladness” not in any sense of
denial or wishing to bury the past.
Christian gladness and optimism
is authentic in the measure that it is never the gladness of narcissism,
but a gladness which comes from our authentic search for what is good
and truthful and loving.
It is not a platitude to say that the coming years will be among
the most crucial years in recent history regarding the life of the
Church in Dublin and regarding transmission of the faith to future
generations. We live in what, I believe, will be probably the most
challenging years that the Church will have encountered for many
generations. The future will bring new difficulties. But these are
exciting years. The Lord has called all of us here today to live our
Christian life and to build up the Church of Christ at this moment and
not in imaginary better days.
May the oil of gladness accompany
us as we set out to renew our Church; may the oil of authentic gladness
heal the hurt of those who have been wounded with our Church; may the
oil of gladness bring light and joy and peace into our hearts; may we
bring that gladness to those who are weary and alienated or in grief;
may that gladness flourish in our families; may the coming generations
learn of the gladness of knowing Jesus; may our priests minister and
serve God and their people in gladness, through the witness of their
priestly commitment which they now publicly renew.