Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica
Homily of Pope Benedict XVI - Chrism Mass
Dear Brothers and Sisters, At
the heart of this morning's liturgy is the blessing of the holy oils - the oil for
anointing catechumens, the oil for anointing the sick, and the chrism for the great
sacraments that confer the Holy Spirit: confirmation, priestly ordination, episcopal
ordination. In the sacraments the Lord touches us through the elements of creation.
The unity between creation and redemption is made visible. The sacraments are an
expression of the physicality of our faith, which embraces the whole person, body
and soul. Bread and wine are fruits of the earth and work of human hands. The Lord
chose them to be bearers of his presence. Oil is the symbol of the Holy Spirit and
at the same time it points us towards Christ: the word "Christ" (Messiah) means "the
anointed one". The humanity of Jesus, by virtue of the Son's union with the Father,
is brought into communion with the Holy Spirit and is thus "anointed" in a unique
way, penetrated by the Holy Spirit. What happened symbolically to the kings and priests
of the Old Testament when they were instituted into their ministry by the anointing
with oil, takes place in Jesus in all its reality: his humanity is penetrated by the
power of the Holy Spirit. He opens our humanity for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The more we are united to Christ, the more we are filled with his Spirit, with the
Holy Spirit. We are called "Christians": "anointed ones" - people who belong to Christ
and hence have a share in his anointing, being touched by his Spirit. I wish not
merely to be called Christian, but also to be Christian, said Saint Ignatius of Antioch.
Let us allow these holy oils, which are consecrated at this time, to remind us of
the task that is implicit in the word "Christian", let us pray that, increasingly,
we may not only be called Christian but may actually be such. In today's liturgy,
three oils are blessed, as I mentioned earlier. They express three essential dimensions
of the Christian life on which we may now reflect. First, there is the oil of catechumens.
This oil indicates a first way of being touched by Christ and by his Spirit - an inner
touch, by which the Lord draws people close to himself. Through this first anointing,
which takes place even prior to baptism, our gaze is turned towards people who are
journeying towards Christ - people who are searching for faith, searching for God.
The oil of catechumens tells us that it is not only we who seek God: God himself is
searching for us. The fact that he himself was made man and came down into the depths
of human existence, even into the darkness of death, shows us how much God loves his
creature, man. Driven by love, God has set out towards us. "Seeking me, you sat
down weary ... let such labour not be in vain!", we pray in the Dies Irae. God is
searching for me. Do I want to recognize him? Do I want to be known by him, found
by him? God loves us. He comes to meet the unrest of our hearts, the unrest of our
questioning and seeking, with the unrest of his own heart, which leads him to accomplish
the ultimate for us. That restlessness for God, that journeying towards him, so as
to know and love him better, must not be extinguished in us. In this sense we should
always remain catechumens. "Constantly seek his face", says one of the Psalms (105:4).
Saint Augustine comments as follows: God is so great as to surpass infinitely all
our knowing and all our being. Knowledge of God is never exhausted. For all eternity,
with ever increasing joy, we can always continue to seek him, so as to know him and
love him more and more. "Our heart is restless until it rests in you", said Saint
Augustine at the beginning of his Confessions. Yes, man is restless, because whatever
is finite is too little. But are we truly restless for him? Have we perhaps become
resigned to his absence, do we not seek to be self-sufficient? Let us not allow our
humanity to be diminished in this way! Let us remain constantly on a journey towards
him, longing for him, always open to receive new knowledge and love! Then there
is the oil for anointing the sick. Arrayed before us is a host of suffering people:
those who hunger and thirst, victims of violence in every continent, the sick with
all their sufferings, their hopes and their moments without hope, the persecuted,
the downtrodden, the broken-hearted. Regarding the first mission on which Jesus sent
the disciples, Saint Luke tells us: "he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God
and to heal" (9:2). Healing is one of the fundamental tasks entrusted by Jesus to
the Church, following the example that he gave as he travelled throughout the land
healing the sick. To be sure, the Church's principal task is to proclaim the Kingdom
of God. But this very proclamation must be a process of healing: "bind up the broken-hearted",
we heard in today's first reading from the prophet Isaiah (61:1). The proclamation
of God's Kingdom, of God's unlimited goodness, must first of all bring healing to
broken hearts. By nature, man is a being in relation. But if the fundamental relationship,
the relationship with God, is disturbed, then all the rest is disturbed as well.
If our relationship with God is disturbed, if the fundamental orientation of our being
is awry, we cannot truly be healed in body and soul. For this reason, the first and
fundamental healing takes place in our encounter with Christ who reconciles us to
God and mends our broken hearts. But over and above this central task, the Church's
essential mission also includes the specific healing of sickness and suffering. The
oil for anointing the sick is the visible sacramental expression of this mission.
Since apostolic times, the healing vocation has matured in the Church, and so too
has loving solicitude for those who are distressed in body and soul. This is also
the occasion to say thank you to those sisters and brothers throughout the world who
bring healing and love to the sick, irrespective of their status or religious affiliation.
From Elizabeth of Hungary, Vincent de Paul, Louise de Marillac, Camillus of Lellis
to Mother Teresa - to recall but a few names - we see, lighting up the world, a radiant
procession of helpers streaming forth from God's love for the suffering and the sick.
For this we thank the Lord at this moment. For this we thank all those who, by virtue
of their faith and love, place themselves alongside the suffering, thereby bearing
definitive witness to the goodness of God himself. The oil for anointing the sick
is a sign of this oil of the goodness of heart that these people bring - together
with their professional competence - to the suffering. Even without speaking of Christ,
they make him manifest. In third place, finally, is the most noble of the ecclesial
oils, the chrism, a mixture of olive oil and aromatic vegetable oils. It is the oil
used for anointing priests and kings, in continuity with the great Old Testament traditions
of anointing. In the Church this oil serves chiefly for the anointing of confirmation
and ordination. Today's liturgy links this oil with the promise of the prophet Isaiah:
"You shall be called the priests of the Lord, men shall speak of you as the ministers
of our God" (61:6). The prophet makes reference here to the momentous words of commission
and promise that God had addressed to Israel on Sinai: "You shall be to me a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation" (Ex 19:6). In and for the vast world, which was largely
ignorant of God, Israel had to be as it were a shrine of God for all peoples, exercising
a priestly function vis-à-vis the world. It had to bring the world to God, to open
it up to him. In his great baptismal catechesis, Saint Peter applied this privilege
and this commission of Israel to the entire community of the baptized, proclaiming:
"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that
you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his
marvellous light. Once you were no people but now you are God's people" (1 Pet 2:9f.)
Baptism and confirmation are an initiation into this people of God that spans the
world; the anointing that takes place in baptism and confirmation is an anointing
that confers this priestly ministry towards mankind. Christians are a priestly people
for the world. Christians should make the living God visible to the world, they should
bear witness to him and lead people towards him. When we speak of this task in which
we share by virtue of our baptism, it is no reason to boast. It poses a question
to us that makes us both joyful and anxious: are we truly God's shrine in and for
the world? Do we open up the pathway to God for others or do we rather conceal it?
Have not we - the people of God - become to a large extent a people of unbelief and
distance from God? Is it perhaps the case that the West, the heartlands of Christianity,
are tired of their faith, bored by their history and culture, and no longer wish to
know faith in Jesus Christ? We have reason to cry out at this time to God: "Do not
allow us to become a 'non-people'! Make us recognize you again! Truly, you have
anointed us with your love, you have poured out your Holy Spirit upon us. Grant that
the power of your Spirit may become newly effective in us, so that we may bear joyful
witness to your message! For all the shame we feel over our failings, we must not
forget that today too there are radiant examples of faith, people who give hope to
the world through their faith and love. When Pope John Paul II is beatified on 1
May, we shall think of him, with hearts full of thankfulness, as a great witness to
God and to Jesus Christ in our day, as a man filled with the Holy Spirit. Alongside
him, we think of the many people he beatified and canonized, who give us the certainty
that even today God's promise and commission do not fall on deaf ears. I turn
finally to you, dear brothers in the priestly ministry. Holy Thursday is in a special
way our day. At the hour of the last Supper, the Lord instituted the new Testament
priesthood. "Sanctify them in the truth" (Jn 17:17), he prayed to the Father, for
the Apostles and for priests of all times. With great gratitude for the vocation
and with humility for all our shortcomings, we renew at this hour our "yes" to the
Lord's call: yes, I want to be intimately united to the Lord Jesus, in self-denial,
driven on by the love of Christ. Amen.