Homily of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin at the Chrism Mass
St. Mary’s Pro Cathedral in Dublin
Archbishop Martin “We are at a critical juncture in the history of
the Catholic Church in this diocese and in our country. We have to
grasp the opportunity before it is too late. We have to grasp this
opportunity together despite whatever differences exist between us. We
need above all to find new ways to ensure that young people can
experience the joy and fulfilment and indeed the authentic freedom which
comes from belief in Jesus Christ and from belonging to the community
of his disciples which is the Church.”
The Chrism Mass is attended by Bishops, priests, representatives from
each parish in the Archdiocese, religious, parish pastoral workers,
seminarians and deacons. At this Mass priests of the Archdiocese renew
together their commitment to priestly service. The Archbishop said
Archdiocese of Dublin is blessed by great priests. We now have permanent
deacons in some of our parishes and full time pastoral workers. We
have few seminarians, but the ones we have are committed in their desire
to be true witnesses to what priesthood means and signifies. “
In his homily Archbishop Martin refer erred to the sent enticing of a
former priest of the Cathedral last week saying “I feel that on this
day, which is a day of celebration, I would not be honest with myself to
allow the horror of abuse that took place in this very Church to pass
unnoticed and remain simply newspaper articles, without remembering the
anguish of the victim.”
Homily
Pope Francis continues to surprise us day after day. I spoke to a
friend of mine working in the Vatican who is in close contact with the
Pope and asked him how he would describe the atmosphere in the Vatican
under Pope Francis and he summed it up saying: “surprises and more
surprises and even more surprises to come” and my friend is one of those
who is pleased with the surprises he is seeing.
We thank God for a Pope who has the interior freedom to surprise us.
We thank God for a Pope who shows us that simplicity and humility are
not signs of weakness and concession, but signs of strength and signs of
a strength that comes from faith.
Pope Francis has given us some very significant signs and gestures
about how he understands his role as Bishop of Rome and successor of
Saint Peter. But they are not just signs about himself; they are signs
about what the Church means. He does not want us just to look at these
gestures on television and feel good about them and feel good that we
have a new Pope like him. There are many who have no belief who will
like the new Pope. There is not much good, however, in Christians
feeling good about the new Pope if we do not make our own what he is
saying and teaching and doing.
The first thing that this involves is allowing Jesus to surprise us
and for us to find the courage to change. We are at a critical juncture
in the history of the Catholic Church in this diocese and in our
country. We are at critical juncture about the place of the Catholic
Church in Irish society and in the future culture of Ireland. And we
are at a critical juncture about the very place of faith and the very
understanding of faith within the Catholic community.
We are at a critical juncture and the only valid answer is an answer
of enthusiasm and optimism, of commitment and renewal in our own lives.
We have to witness to others the sense of meaning and purpose that
Jesus brings to our lives. If all we have to offer is a tired and
discouraged faith, then we have to ask questions about the quality of
our own faith.
In his talk yesterday at the General Audience in Rome Pope Francis
stressed that following Jesus Christ inevitably involves breaking out.
It involves breaking out from ourselves to follow Christ, breaking out
from a tired faith based on pure habit and breaking out from being
imprisoned in our own dissatisfactions and frustrations which only
impede the creative action of God working in and through us.
Faith in Jesus Christ opens us out beyond human horizons, through a
yearning for goodness, truth and love and beauty which changes people.
When faith leads to conformism it has betrayed the very nature of
faith. Conformism falsely feels that it has attained certainty. Faith
is always a leap into the uncharted which following Jesus requires. It
is a challenge to go beyond our own limits and beyond our own narrow
certainties and the distorted understanding that comes from them.
Without faith our true self can so easily be undermined by human
deception.
Of course there is always a large element of tiredness and habit and
routine in the faith of each of us. It is a temptation for all of us,
myself included. But we also know that there is within each of us the
possibility of breaking through that tiredness and of rediscovering
something of the idealism and the fire that faith has meant to us at the
most important moments of our lives. Faith frees. Faith liberates.
Preoccupation with ourselves alone enslaves. A Church which is not
riddled through and through with real and enthusiastic commitment to
Jesus Christ will be an empty self-serving organization to which no one
will be attracted.
At this Mass last year I spoke about my hopes for the Eucharistic
Congress. They were mixed hopes. At that moment I was genuinely
anxious. I knew that there were very differing views about the
appropriateness of even holding a Eucharistic Congress and that people
would come to the Congress with different dispositions of heart, not
knowing exactly what to expect. Some came out of a sense of duty; some
came out of a sense of curiosity; some came with their own fixed ideas;
some were openly hostile. Something happened, however, the moment each
one of us entered into the Congress which changed all of that.
Many who
came sceptical overcame, not just, their own scepticism, but regretted
that they had not done more at an earlier stage to get the message of
the Congress across to others.
At the conclusion of the final Mass of the Congress I said: “One
week ago we set out on a journey of prayer and reflection, of song and
silence, of renewal of our hearts and renewal of our Church. In these
eight days the Eucharist has awakened in our hearts something which went
way beyond our plans and expectations”
The Congress demonstrated the Archdiocese of Dublin at its best and I
wish to express my sincere thanks to everyone who contributed to the
success of that event. At the Congress, and this is something we should
not easily forget, we experienced the importance of being together, of
supporting each other, of being proud of our faith and our Church. And
we realised that this experience could only have been generated by our
communion with Christ and our sharing in his sacrificial self-giving
which we live in the Eucharist. We have to keep that experience alive.
The Congress showed us that despite the difficulties of the Church in
Ireland there are also so many signs of hope and signs of seeking and
searching in people’s hearts about what the fundamental values and
attitude towards life must be and how we can find an answer to them in
the person and message of Jesus Christ.
This annual Chrism Mass is marked by a remarkable sense of
participation of everyone in the liturgy. The Eucharist we celebrate
together this morning is the fruit of the faith of us all. This
Eucharist celebrated in this the Mother Church of the diocese with
bishops, priests, deacons, religious, pastoral workers and the parish
sisters. seminarians, men and women who are often the backbone of our
parish communities, is one of the great moments of the life of the
Church in the diocese. We come together to bless the oils which
symbolise the sacramental life of the Church which is the life blood of
our life of faith.
The Church in this Archdiocese of Dublin is blessed by great priests.
We now have permanent deacons in some of our parishes and full time
pastoral workers. We have few seminarians, but the ones we have are
committed in their desire to be true witnesses to what priesthood means
and signifies. We are blessed by dedicated Christian parents and
teachers and religious men and women and also of great young people with
whom we have the obligation to share the good news of Jesus Christ.
All of us here this morning are committed to generate and to rekindle
a spirit of pride in our faith in Jesus Christ and of the joy that our
faith brings to our lives and to the society around us. What faith and
what believers have to offer our world today is not the witness of a
powerful institution, even a renewed institution, or simply the witness
of organised doing good, but the witness of meaning, of helping people
discover in Jesus Christ what their life is really about and giving a
hope that sustains. We can only do that through witness, through what
our own lives say to others.
Allow me to add one sombre note on this joyful moment and I know some
will ask why bring this up precisely today on this joyful occasion? It
would not be honest of me not to recall that only one week ago a former
priest of this diocese was sentenced for the abuse of children in this
parish, in the vaults and in the precincts of this Mother Church of the
Diocese. I feel that on this day, which is a day of celebration, I
would not be honest with myself to allow the horror of abuse that took
place in this very Church to pass unnoticed and remain simply newspaper
articles, without remembering the anguish of the victim.
Thank God, the Church in Ireland has made great progress in the area
of child safeguarding. We have the immense contribution of the National
Board for Safeguarding Children; we have the work of our own Child
Safeguarding Office and of the Child Safeguarding representatives and
their trainers in every parish. I thank every single person who is
committed to this task. Their work has prepared a future ground for us
to move forward, not forgetting the past, but with greater credibility
in the task of evangelisation and education in the faith.
We are at a critical juncture in the history of the Catholic Church
in this diocese and in our country. We have to grasp the opportunity
before it is too late. We have to grasp this opportunity together
despite whatever differences exist between us. We need above all to
find new ways to ensure that young people can experience the joy and
fulfilment and indeed the authentic freedom which comes from belief in
Jesus Christ and from belonging to the community of his disciples which
is the Church.
I was very struck by the simple way in which Pope Francis talked
about bringing the wisdom of faith to young people. He was speaking to
the Cardinals who had just elected him. He reminded them, half
jokingly: “Half of us are advanced in age” and he continued: “Old age
is – as I like to say – the seat of life’s wisdom. The old have acquired
the wisdom that comes from having journeyed through life, like the old
man Simeon, the old prophetess Anna in the Temple. And that wisdom
enabled them to recognize Jesus”. And then he said: “Let us pass on
this wisdom to the young: like good wine that improves with age, let us
give life’s wisdom to the young”.
Sometime we feel frustrated at the fact that we are not making that
bridge of the generations that we know is necessary for the life of
faith in this Diocese, or indeed for the renewal of the priesthood, or
the renewal of our religious congregations. I know that many parents
feel saddened that they do not seem able to pass the faith on to their
own children as they would wish. What we tend to forget is that the
good wine only matures with age. The good wine goes into the oaken
barrels and the maturity takes place without us even seeing it and
without efforts from outside. It is Jesus himself who leads our young
people to maturity in faith. Our effort must be in creating the good
wine, the good wine of our own example, of our own enthusiasm and of our
witness to what faith means to us and then to trust in the Lord that he
will bring our efforts to maturity.
The Year of Faith reminds us that the door of faith is always wide
open and welcoming. The invitation to follow Jesus is an open
invitation and if we open our hearts, the Lord will bring our intentions
to maturity. Giving in to negativity and to pessimism only closes
doors. Let us keep the doors of our hearts open to respond to the
invitation of the Lord. Let us keep the doors of our Churches open and
welcoming.
The Eucharistic Congress showed the entire nation the great resources
of faith that this diocese possesses in its priests and in its lay
women and men. The Lord continues to reach out to us. He knows your
weakness and mine. At this critical juncture, we should turn together
to the Lord who unites us and commit ourselves every day to a new
beginning so that we can truly witness to others the sense of what Jesus
means in our lives.