The Chrism Mass Homily by Bishop Paul J. Bradley, Bishop of Kalamazoo March 22, 2016 6:00 p.m. St. Augustine Cathedral I m so happy to welcome all of you here to St. Augustine Cathedral on this joyful occasion in the midst of this solemn and holy week. I welcome Bishop Murray, my brother priests, deacons, members of religious life, and members of our Lay Faithful---and particularly, those of you who are designated to receive the Holy Oils and to take them back to all our parishes. To one and all: welcome---and thank you for being celebrating with us this holy evening. I think I can speak for all of us in saying that this Chrism Mass is one of the highlights of our Liturgical Year, and a Mass that we all look forward with great excitement to celebrating together each year. As I ve said many times in the past, this Mass is like a family reunion, as people come from every one of the 59 parishes throughout the nine counties of our Diocese to come home to our Mother Church on this very special day of the Chrism Mass. And as we are gathered together for this beautiful Mass, we experience the communion of our faith: Bishops, Priests, Deacons, and Lay Faithful--- joined together in our oneness as God s holy people. As we look around us, we see the representation of the local Church---vibrant, healthy, strong---- alive and well--- here in the Diocese of Kalamazoo----truly, a Family of Faith! While we are joined together for this joyful celebration of faith, I m certain that we re all very mindful of, and offer our prayers for, all those in Brussels who, earlier today, suffered another Terrorist Attack. We pray for the 30 people who were killed, the more than 100 who were injured, and the entire country that was once more traumatized by this random, and senseless, act of violence. I love the Scripture Readings for this annual Chrism Mass. They re always the same, and that s because these Readings from God s Revealed Word are the perfect point of reference for this beautiful Mass. For more than 2,000 years, Bishops have joined with their Local Churches to do exactly what we are doing here this evening: blessing and consecrating the Holy Oils, and then distributing them to all the parishes for use in the holy Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Anointing of the Sick, and Sacred Ordination throughout this coming year. What a powerful sign
of the reality that is the very foundation of the Church: communion----or as we sometimes say using the Latin word communio ----that which makes us part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. It is our one-ness that is essential to our very identity----all of us united together throughout our parishes, with me as the one who is privileged to be the Bishop of this local Church, and symbolized in our gathering together here in our Mother Church, the place where we come to be together as Church---the sign of our one-ness. And so in God s Holy Word, we listened to today s Gospel as Jesus, at the very beginning of His public ministry, came to His hometown synagogue, was handed the scroll and given the privilege of Reading from God s Word. He purposely looked for the very passage that we heard as our First Reading this evening from the Prophet Isaiah, which spoke clearly and powerfully about the Anointed One. Isaiah spoke from a prophetic perspective, looking forward to that day 1,000 years later when the Spirit of the Lord God would fall upon the One Who, because He was Anointed by God Himself, was in turn sent ---with the mission to bring glad tidings to the poor---to heal the brokenhearted---to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners----to comfort all who mourn----to announce a Year of Favor from the Lord. Jesus looked precisely for that passage because He----the Anointed One---- Christos --- was ready to begin His mission. And that is why, after completing the Reading, His homily if you will was only nine words long: Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing. (Too bad some of us other Homilists can t be as precise and direct as Jesus, right?) The Anointed One----Jesus--- The Christ ---announces His mission. And ever since then, Jesus Mission is the Church s mission---to continue to bring the glad tidings to the poor and to ALL who need to hear God s Word. Jesus Mission remains the Church s mission of being sent forth to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. As Jesus is the Anointed One, so too are we----his followers. We are all anointed in the Holy Spirit through the common sacrament of Baptism that unites us all as members of the Body of Christ, and further anointed in the power of the Spirit through the Sacrament of Confirmation to be witnesses to our Faith in all that we say and do. And so, the Oil of Catechumens that we will bless this evening and the Sacred Chrism that will be consecrated will be used to welcome all those who will be baptized into the Body of Christ throughout our
Diocese, and all those young people and adults who will be confirmed throughout our Diocese, during this coming year. For some of us----those of us who have been called by Jesus to be His priests---we are anointed with the sacred chrism that makes us stand in the person of Christ ----in persona Christi----and who are called, and sent, to bring Jesus to all our sisters and brothers in Christ, and beyond. I m sure that all of us are very pleased to know that we will use the chrism that we will consecrate after Communion, not only to confirm all those young people and adults who will complete their initiation process and become witnesses for Christ, but also that on May 21---- just two months from yesterday----we will use this newly-consecrated Chrism to ordain four young men as Priests of Jesus Christ for service here in our Diocese: Jose Haro, Bruno Okoli, Andrew Raczkowski, and Paul Redmond----the first Ordinations for Priesthood that we have had since 2013. Would you please stand, dear Deacons, so we can see you?! Finally, as human, and therefore mortal/frail human beings, we realize that we are susceptible to illness and suffering. And so, when that time comes for any of us and we are weakened by age or the human condition, we will be anointed with the Oil of the Sick which we bless this evening, and with that anointing, we will pray for God s healing and strengthening of our spirits and even our bodies. And so, by what we are doing here this evening, we see the evidence of our oneness ---- our communion ----as what we do in each of our parishes, and in each of our individual faith lives as Catholics, is rooted together with our identity as part of the local Church in union with our Bishop, and in turn our Diocese in union with our Holy Father. As we all know, our Diocese is preparing to enter into an exciting and important time of transition as we prepare for the 29 newly-designated Collaborative structures for our 59 parishes. This is a time for us as a Diocese to truly collaborate ---- work together in new ways. It will be a time for our priests---my principal collaborators --- to assume some additional responsibilities and new ministries; and therefore, it will be a time for the laity to collaborate in new ways with their priests by assuming some additional ministry responsibilities. It will be a time for change and adjustment; it will be a time when we ll have to become a bit more creative and innovative about our shared resources and facilities; it will be a time for us to mature and grow in our understanding of what it means for us to be Church----a Church
primarily lived in our families (Domestic Church), experienced most regularly in our parishes with our pastors (Parish Church), and united in our communion as a Diocese with me as your Bishop (Diocesan Church). In just a few minutes, all of the priests will take part in that beautiful practice of renewing their ordination promises. How important that is for all of us to do on a regular basis----to renew the commitments we have made. The whole Season of Lent which we will conclude in just a matter of days, always reminds us of our Baptismal Promises, and at the Easter Vigil and at all the Easter Masses, we will all take the occasion to renew our baptismal promises. We do that so we can be reminded of what we have committed our lives to----and to take the occasion to renew that commitment at an even deeper level. For those of you who are married, I hope that every year on your wedding anniversary, you remember that special day X-number of years ago, and perhaps renew your wedding vows. But for those of you who are experiencing happy marriages, that really means that you have to renew your commitment to love one another every day. qin the same way for us who are priests. We will renew the promises that we made---for some among us, just a few years ago; for others of us, many years ago----but we renew them so that those promises are always new----fresh---fervent----promises to which we remain ever faithful. As we will do during that Renewal of Priestly Commitment, I will address some words to our Priests, and I will address some words to you, the faithful. I d like to take a moment to do that now as well. To my brother priests: I first of all want you to know how much I appreciate each and every one of you, and how much I truly value your priestly ministry and the unique persons that each of you is. Jesus, the great High Priest, uses the special gifts and unique personality traits that we all have to help us fulfill our promises to bring Jesus to our people. Those words of Jesus that we heard in today s Gospel---the words that Jesus took from Isaiah the Prophet---are words that are primarily spoken to us, His priests. We have been anointed ---the Spirit of the Lord is upon us in very special ways---and for a very special purpose. Jesus told us what that purpose is: We ve been sent----sent here to the Diocese of
Kalamazoo, some of us---from far away places, but sent here for the mission of bringing the Good News of Jesus to our people. In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has reminded us that we are agents of Jesus Mercy and Compassion. What we are asked to do each day is so much more than just completing a list of obligations----so much more than fulfilling certain responsibilities---so much more than adhering to particular liturgical rituals or canonical requirements. We are to do all of that, but always as an agent of Jesus mercy and compassion, as we heal the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free. Our ministry is to bring Jesus compassionate and healing forgiveness to those who have sinned, wandered away and become lost. And for us to do that, we can t wait for people to come find us; we have to go out and find them. We have to be so fervent in our love for Jesus that we don t wait to be asked for appointments for instruction, but we do everything we can to announce and proclaim the Good News---to use all the electronic and social media available to us to share the Gospel of Joy---and to live that Gospel in our own lives with joy. I realize that the coming months will require of all of us a willingness to adapt and change and do new things, and yes, perhaps even move to different ministry assignments. But we are priests of Jesus Christ whom He sends to bring glad tidings to whomever and wherever we are sent. So, we pray that the Spirit of the Lord, Who has anointed us, will also strengthen us, fill us with courage, and make our love for Jesus fervent and filled with enthusiasm. To my dear People: In a few minutes, I will ask you to support your priests and to pray for them. I know you already do that, and I know they appreciate your prayers very much. In addition to your prayers, I also ask you for your cooperation and encouragement. The transition into our new Collaboratives and adjusting to new Mass schedules and other modifications in the way things always used to be will require a lot of patience and flexibility. So, your cooperation will be very much appreciated. Over and above that, of course, is that we all need to realize that our Baptism into Christ calls all of us to share in the life of ministry in the Church. We are not passive bystanders; we are not consumers of spiritual gifts; we are not simply recipients of the priest s ministry. No, all of us are called to offer our gifts and talents in service to the rest of the Body of Christ. There are Liturgical ministries to participate in, there are various other lay ministries in which you can
share your talents, and there are multiple ways to volunteer your assistance to the parish and the Collaborative in a variety of parish projects. Your active participation and your prayerful support and cooperation will go far to continue making all our parishes the strong and vibrant faith communities that they already are, and to help our Collaboratives to be successful in every way. My dear Family of Faith: Our Second Reading this evening, from the Book of Revelation, showed us Jesus----from his glorified and ascended Seat at the Right Hand of the Father----as He reminded us: I am the Alpha and the Omega---the One Who is, Who was, and Who is to come. Our Liturgical celebrations, especially this Chrism Mass, and the Sacred Triduum which begins in just two days, remind us that where Jesus has gone, we hope to follow. But, not yet. Not until He calls us. Until then, as we also hear in this beautiful Reading, our Glorified One--- the Faithful Witness --- has made us into a Kingdom, priests for His God and Father. Through our Baptism, we were Anointed by these Holy Oils, and in doing so, we were made a chosen race, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people set apart. May the Sacred Chrism we consecrate this evening and the Holy Oils we bless and distribute, keep us ever mindful of the dignity that is ours as members of the Body of Christ---- anointed by the Spirit and entrusted with a mission. May that same Holy Spirit bless us, and the entire Local Church here in the Diocese of Kalamazoo, and keep us united in our Love for Jesus and in our Communion with one another. God bless you now and always!