Chrism Mass

Homily of Bishop Brendan Leahy

St. John’s Cathedral, Limerick, 16 April 2025

Our Chrism Mass this year is taking place during a Jubilee Year with its focus on hope. During the ceremony we will bless the oils that will be used in sacraments that communicate hope. Priests will renew their promises recognising they are called to be signs of hope in the Christian community. With representatives of the whole Diocese gathered together, we thank God for our calling to be pilgrims of hope. During the Diocesan Jubilee pilgrimage to Rome, those on pilgrimage entrusted our Diocese, our parishes and our loved ones to the God of Hope as we passed through the Jubilee Holy Doors of the four great Basilicas.

The Prophet Isaiah and the Jubilee Year Tradition

It is striking to note in the Gospel we’ve just heard how Jesus, in his first homily at Nazareth two thousand years ago, echoed the prophet Isaiah in making reference to the Biblical Jubilee Year tradition. He told the people gathered in the synagogue that day that God the Father had sent him to announce a year of favour, offering hope, light and freedom to a people walking in darkness.

Let us remember that the prophet Isaiah’s reference to the Jubilee tradition was made in the context of the Babylonian exile, a real trauma for the people of Israel. Having been settled for many centuries in the Promised Land, suddenly they were overtaken by the Bablyonian Empire and were relocated to Babylon. Removed from their land which had been their security, the symbol of God’s Covenant promise that he was with them, suddenly the certainty of old ways was taken from them. They found themselves displaced from their beloved city of King David, Jerusalem. No wonder they cried out: how can we continue to hope? how can we sing anymore? As one of the psalms puts it, they “sat down and wept” (Ps 137).

Some of you here will recall Boney M’s song, ‘By the Rivers of Babylon’ based on this event, and its refrain “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” It was in that context that the prophets such as Isaiah helped them keep hope alive. Isaiah referred to the Jubilee Year tradition by way of saying: do not lose heart, God can always do a new thing, God faithful to his covenant, have eyes to see the new beginnings, new possibilities; lift up your hearts in trust, move forward.

 

 

 

Jesus, the Jubilee Year, and Us

Jesus takes up this line of prophetic encouragement. Anointed by the Holy Spirit, Jesus was sent to his people that were also going through a socio-political turmoil. Once more the people of Israel were under the rule of a foreign oppressive regime, the Roman Empire. It was a time when some Romans themselves were searching for new ways. In his mission statement declared that day in the Synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus refers to the Jubilee Year tradition. He has come to announce a Year of Favour. He is the One who has been sent to bring about a new beginning, a time of God’s closeness. He is offering a re-set. And so, he makes his own of God’s words: “I am making a lasting covenant with you”. He is not only speaking about all of this. He is the Jubilee Year in Person. He is the time of new beginnings and re-set not just for one year but always. With him the Jubilee Year’s promises are always available. He is travelling with us as the God of hope who does not disappoint.

All of this speaks to us too as we celebrate a Jubilee Year as Pilgrims of Hope. Perhaps at times, sisters and brothers, in the circumstances of the world around us and even of our own situation of Church, we are tempted to “sit down and weep”. There’s too much noise about wars and tariffs, bombs, political wrangling and fractious relations between nations. Even in the land where Jesus walked. There’s no shortage of negative vibes about the Church. So many securities seem to be gone. We can hardly begin to imagine what the future shape of our Church community will be like. Illness and fragility are increasingly evident. So, yes, there’s a temptation to sit down and weep.

The Devil will always be lurking to drag us down. But the Spirit who was upon Jesus and who comes to us from the heart of the Risen Jesus puts fire into our hearts, instilling hope and perseverance in mission. It is the Spirit who convinces us again and again that all of us together, lay faithful, those in consecrated life and priests, together we continue the presence of Christ, the Jubilee Year in person, the heart of the world, bringing hope. So let us renew that conviction this evening. We have a message to communicate. We have a life to hand on. We have a vision to offer. We have the great consolation of faith, hope and charity to share.

Facing Challenges in Hope

Dear brothers and sisters, it is with renewed hope that we are called to face the many serious challenges facing us regarding our Diocesan and parish arrangements and services. There is a lot to do! But, above all, as we tackle issues, let us be anchored in the hope that comes from the heart of Jesus Christ.  Let us renew our belief that he is at work in all the changes, he is doing a new thing, he wants to come among us in a new way responding to new times and new needs.

In the coming months, also as an exercise in synodality, I hope we will engage across the Diocese in a series of parish conversations about the future directions of our parishes, asking some tough questions – is our parish viable in terms of mission? Are its resources in terms of volunteers, finance and young people sufficient to generate life going forward into the future? Looking forward 10 years, can our parish go it alone? Can we sustain the maintenance of our church and other buildings? Do we need perhaps to amalgamate with neighbouring parishes?

We cannot postpone difficult decisions. We urgently need to take serious steps in terms of lay ministry. For instance, at this point, it should normally only be lay people saying prayers in funeral parlours or leading removal ceremonies. We need to see lay people as members of Pastoral Unit Teams. We already have 24 out of 60 parishes without a resident priest. We have only one native Limerick Diocesan priest aged under 50. Many wonderful priests are going to retire in the coming few years. We have one ordination coming up in May with Deacon Tim Collins being ordained here in the Cathedral. Thank God we will have one man entering priestly formation for the Diocese. We are grateful also for the priests who have come from abroad. But the situation is clear: we will possibly have two ordinations in 15 years. I don’t need to spell it out much more.

The Importance of the Heart

All of that said, lest we find ourselves caught up just with merely external questions, however important they may be, it is important to recognise that contemporary crises are always an invitation on the part of God to go deeper in our faith, hope and charity. That is what the Jubilee Year invites us to do. In the lead up to the Jubilee Year, Pope Francis issued a letter on the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ, Dilexit Nos. In that letter he reminds us of the need to rediscover the importance of the heart. As Pope Francis puts it: “our real personal history is built with the heart. At the end of our lives, that alone will matter” (n.11). “In a word”, he says, “if love reigns in our heart, we become, in a complete and luminous way, the persons we are meant to be, for every human being is created above all else for love. In the deepest fibre of our being, we were made to love and to be loved”(n. 21).

Dear brothers in the priesthood, as we renew our promises this evening, we remember that our anointing on ordination day was a sign that in our ministry it would no longer be we who would be at work but Christ himself at work through us. Our calling is to become instruments of Christ’s ministry building up the Church. Through the Holy Spirit, the ministry to which we are called comes primarily from Christ in terms of gift. While grateful for the gift, we immediately remember also that the fruitfulness of our preaching of the Word, our celebrating of the sacraments and our building up of the community always requires our response of love and that is where the heart comes in.

As we renew our promises, let us take our lead from Pope Francis’ invitation to learn from the heart of Jesus Christ two ways that will help us grow as missionaries of hope. Firstly, we are to focus on our interior life of union with God, making a deeply personal renewed declaration of love for Jesus Christ. We offer him our “memory, understanding and will.” Along with Therese of Lisieux we are to “place heartfelt trust not in ourselves but in the infinite mercy of a God who loves us unconditionally and has already given us everything in the cross of Jesus Christ” (n. 90). St. Vincent de Paul used to say that what God desires is the heart: “God asks primarily for our heart – our heart – and that is what counts.” We console the heart of Christ by offering our heart. We are to have a complete trust in the mysterious working of God’s grace.

The second pathway to recall as we renew our promises is to ask for the grace to let ourselves become more and more worthy instruments of Jesus Christ who wants to spread waves of infinite tenderness in and through our ministry. Jesus present in the sisters and brothers we serve and meet day by day thirsts for our love, the love of our heart. Indeed, our best response to the love of Christ’s heart is to love our brothers and sisters in the way we learn from the heart of Christ: to be the first to love, to love everyone, to love even our enemies. With love from the heart, we are to go about our ministry mending wounds, repairing the fabric of the Church that has been damaged (I read a striking phrase recently – we are to be “pilgrims of repair”) and preparing the future for coming generations.

In recent years, it seems to me the Holy Spirit is clarifying increasingly how, among the many aspects of our busy lives, our ministry of love revolves around three specific highways: forging bonds of fraternity at all levels; recognising and defending the dignity of each human being (especially the weak, scorned, suffering and abandoned) and working together to care for our common home.

Conclusion

  I conclude. “Behold He is coming” we hear in the Second Reading in our liturgy this evening. In this Jubilee Year of Hope, let’s welcome Jesus Crucified and Risen, who wants to come every more deeply, in the power of the Spirit, into our soul, our parish and our diocese. Yes, he may be coming in ways we didn’t expect. The current directions of the Church are not the ways we would have suggested! But if we love one another, we are filled with a kind of fuel, as Pope Francis puts it, that feeds our friendship with Jesus. It is He, anchor of Hope that leads us forward in trust and hope. What matters is to bow spiritually before Him who has been sent to us by God the Father to bring Good News and who is now sending us in the power of the Spirit to be agents of that Good News for our time.

May Mary Mother of Hope sustain us.