Holy Thursday Chrism Mass
2 April 2015
“My hand shall ever abide with him, my arms also shall strengthen him” (Ps 89:21).
This is what the Lord means when he says: “I have found David, my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him” (v. 20). It is also what our Father thinks whenever he “encounters” a priest. And he goes on to say: “My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him… He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God and the rock of my salvation”’ (vv. 24, 26).
It is good to enter with the Psalmist into this monologue of our God. He is talking about us, his priests, his pastors. But it is not really a monologue, since he is not the only one speaking. The Father says to Jesus: “Your friends, those who love you, can say to me in a particular way: ‘You are my Father’” (cf. Jn 14:21). If the Lord is so concerned about helping us, it is because he knows that the task of anointing his faithful people is demanding; it can tire us. We experience this in so many ways: from the ordinary fatigue brought on by our daily apostolate to the weariness of sickness, death and even martyrdom.
The tiredness of priests! Do you know how often I think about this weariness which all of you experience? I think about it and I pray about it, often, especially when I am tired myself. I pray for you as you labour amid the people of God entrusted to your care, many of you in lonely and dangerous places. Our weariness, dear priests, is like incense which silently rises up to heaven (cf. Ps 141:2; Rev 8:3-4). Our weariness goes straight to the heart of the Father.
Know that the Blessed Virgin Mary is well aware of this tiredness and she brings it straight to the Lord. As our Mother, she knows when her children are weary, and this is her greatest concern. “Welcome! Rest, my child. We will speak afterwards…”. “Whenever we draw near to her, she says to us: “Am I not here with you, I who am your Mother?” (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 286). And to her Son she will say, as she did at Cana, “They have no wine” (Jn 2:3).
It can also happen that, whenever we feel weighed down by pastoral work, we can be tempted to rest however we please, as if rest were not itself a gift of God. We must not fall into this temptation. Our weariness is precious in the eyes of Jesus who embraces us and lifts us up. “Come to me, all who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). Whenever a priest feels dead tired, yet is able to bow down in adoration and say: “Enough for today Lord”, and entrust himself to the Father, he knows that he will not fall but be renewed. The one who anoints God’s faithful people with oil is also himself anointed by the Lord: “He gives you a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit” (cf. Is 61:3).
Let us never forget that a key to fruitful priestly ministry lies in how we rest and in how we look at the way the Lord deals with our weariness. How difficult it is to learn how to rest! This says much about our trust and our ability to realize that that we too are sheep. A few questions can help us in this regard.
Do I know how to rest by accepting the love, gratitude and affection which I receive from God’s faithful people? Or, once my pastoral work is done, do I seek more refined relaxations, not those of the poor but those provided by a consumerist society? Is the Holy Spirit truly “rest in times of weariness” for me, or is he just someone who keeps me busy? Do I know how to seek help from a wise priest? Do I know how to take a break from myself, from the demands I make on myself, from my self-seeking and from my self-absorption? Do I know how to spend time with Jesus, with the Father, with the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph, with my patron saints, and to find rest in their demands, which are easy and light, and in their pleasures, for they delight to be in my company, and in their concerns and standards, which have only to do with the greater glory of God? Do I know how to rest from my enemies under the Lord’s protection? Am I preoccupied with how I should speak and act, or do I entrust myself to the Holy Spirit, who will teach me what I need to say in every situation? Do I worry needlessly, or, like Paul, do I find repose by saying: “I know him in whom I have placed my trust” (2 Tim 1:12)?
Let us return for a moment to what today’s liturgy describes as the work of the priest: to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom to prisoners and healing to the blind, to offer liberation to the downtrodden and to announce the year of the Lord’s favour. Isaiah also mentions consoling the broken-hearted and comforting the afflicted.
These are not easy or purely mechanical jobs, like running an office, building a parish hall or laying out a soccer field for the young of the parish… The tasks of which Jesus speaks call for the ability to show compassion; our hearts are to be “moved” and fully engaged in carrying them out. We are to rejoice with couples who marry; we are to laugh with the children brought to the baptismal font; we are to accompany young fiancés and families; we are to suffer with those who receive the anointing of the sick in their hospital beds; we are to mourn with those burying a loved one… All these emotions can exhaust the heart of a pastor. For us priests, what happens in the lives of our people is not like a news bulletin: we know our people, we sense what is going on in their hearts. Our own heart, sharing in their suffering, feels “com-passion”, is exhausted, broken into a thousand pieces, moved and even “consumed” by the people. Take this, eat this… These are the words the priest of Jesus whispers repeatedly while caring for his faithful people: Take this, eat this; take this, drink this… In this way our priestly life is given over in service, in closeness to the People of God… and this always leaves us weary.
I wish to share with you some forms of weariness on which I have meditated.
There is what we can call “the weariness of people, the weariness of the crowd”. For the Lord, and for us, this can be exhausting – so the Gospel tells us – yet it is a good weariness, a fruitful and joyful exhaustion. The people who followed Jesus, the families which brought their children to him to be blessed, those who had been cured, those who came with their friends, the young people who were so excited about the Master… they did not even leave him time to eat. But the Lord never tired of being with people. On the contrary, he seemed renewed by their presence (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 11). This weariness in the midst of activity is a grace on which all priests can draw (cf. ibid., 279). And how beautiful it is! People love their priests, they want and need their shepherds! The faithful never leave us without something to do, unless we hide in our offices or go out in our cars wearing sun glasses. There is a good and healthy tiredness. It is the exhaustion of the priest who wears the smell of the sheep… but also smiles the smile of a father rejoicing in his children or grandchildren. It has nothing to do with those who wear expensive cologne and who look at others from afar and from above (cf. ibid., 97). We are the friends of the Bridegroom: this is our joy. If Jesus is shepherding the flock in our midst, we cannot be shepherds who are glum, plaintive or, even worse, bored. The smell of the sheep and the smile of a father…. Weary, yes, but with the joy of those who hear the Lord saying: “Come, O blessed of my Father” (Mt 25:34).
There is also the kind of weariness which we can call “the weariness of enemies”. The devil and his minions never sleep and, since their ears cannot bear to hear the word of God, they work tirelessly to silence that word and to distort it. Confronting them is more wearying. It involves not only doing good, with all the exertion this entails, but also defending the flock and oneself from evil (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 83). The evil one is far more astute than we are, and he is able to demolish in a moment what it took us years of patience to build up. Here we need to implore the grace to learn how to “offset”: to thwart evil without pulling up the good wheat, or presuming to protect like supermen what the Lord alone can protect. All this helps us not to let our guard down before the depths of iniquity, before the mockery of the wicked. In these situations of weariness, the Lord says to us: “Have courage! I have overcome the world!” (Jn 16:33).
And finally – lest you be wearied by this homily itself! – there is also “weariness of ourselves” (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 277). This may be the most dangerous weariness of all. That is because the other two kinds come from being exposed, from going out of ourselves to anoint and to do battle (for our job is to care for others). But this third kind of weariness is more “self-referential”: it is dissatisfaction with oneself, but not the dissatisfaction of someone who directly confronts himself and serenely acknowledges his sinfulness and his need for God’s mercy; such people ask for help and then move forward. Here we are speaking of a weariness associated with “wanting yet not wanting”, having given up everything but continuing to yearn for the fleshpots of Egypt, toying with the illusion of being something different. I like to call this kind of weariness “flirting with spiritual worldliness”. When we are alone, we realize how many areas of our life are steeped in this worldliness, so much so that we may feel that it can never be completely washed away. This can be a dangerous kind of weariness. The Book of Revelation shows us the reason for this weariness: “You have borne up for my sake and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first” (Rev 2:3-4). Only love gives true rest. What is not loved becomes tiresome, and in time, brings about a harmful weariness.
The most profound and mysterious image of how the Lord deals with our pastoral tiredness is that, “having loved his own, he loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1): the scene of his washing the feet of his disciples. I like to think of this as the cleansing of discipleship. The Lord purifies the path of discipleship itself. He “gets involved” with us (Evangelii Gaudium, 24), becomes personally responsible for removing every stain, all that grimy, worldly smog which clings to us from the journey we make in his name.
From our feet, we can tell how the rest of our body is doing. The way we follow the Lord reveals how our heart is faring. The wounds on our feet, our sprains and our weariness, are signs of how we have followed him, of the paths we have taken in seeking the lost sheep and in leading the flock to green pastures and still waters (cf. ibid., 270). The Lord washes us and cleanses us of all the dirt our feet have accumulated in following him. This is something holy. Do not let your feet remain dirty. Like battle wounds, the Lord kisses them and washes away the grime of our labours.
Our discipleship itself is cleansed by Jesus, so that we can rightly feel “joyful”, “fulfilled”, “free of fear and guilt”, and impelled to go out “even to the ends of the earth, to every periphery”. In this way we can bring the good news to the most abandoned, knowing that “he is with us always, even to the end of the world”. Let us learn how to be weary, but weary in the best of ways!
Pope Francis: sanctifying priestly tiredness and priestly rest
St Joseph teaches youth how to be responsible
St Joseph also experienced moments of difficulty, but he never lost faith and was able to overcome them, in the certainty that God never abandons us. And then I would like to speak especially to you young people: be committed to your daily duties, your study, your work, to relationships of friendship, to helping towards others; your future also depends on how you live these precious years of your life. Do not be afraid of commitment, of sacrifice and do not look with fear towards the future; keep your hope alive: there is always a light on the horizon.
--Pope Francis, Audience, 1 May 2013
Work gives dignity
The book of Genesis tells us that God created man and woman entrusting them with the task of filling the earth and subduing it, which does not mean exploiting it, but nurturing and protecting it, caring for it through their work (cf. Gen 1:28; 2 15). Work is part of God’s loving plan, we are called to cultivate and care for all the goods of creation and in this way participate in the work of creation! Work is fundamental to the dignity of a person. Work, to use an image, "anoints" us with dignity, fills us with dignity, makes us similar to God, who has worked and still works, who always acts (cf. Jn 5:17); it gives you the ability to maintain ourselves, our family, to contribute to the growth of our nation. And here I think of the difficulties which, in various countries, today afflicts the world of work and business; I think of how many, and not just young people, are unemployed, many times due to a purely economic conception of society, which seeks selfish profit, beyond the parameters of social justice.
--Pope Francis, Audience, 1 May 2013
Work and Prayer (St. Thomas Aquinas)
Of St. Thomas Aquinas it may truly be said that he
laboured as if all depended on his own efforts and
prayed as if all depended on God.
p.8, Introduction to the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas
NEED TO WORK
Do not let anyone have any food if he refuses to do any work. Now we hear that there are some of you who are living in idleness, doing no work themselves but interfering with everyone else’s. In the Lord Jesus Christ, we order and call on people of this kind to go on quietly working and earning the food that they eat. My brothers, never grow tired of doing what is right.
--2 Thessalonians 3:10-13
GOD BE IN MY WORK
In the 1300s, a merchant guild built a magnificent cathedral in Coventry, England. Its chapels honored different vocations.
Coventry Cathedral was bombed in World War II. When a new church was built alongside the ruins, engraved panels replaced the chapels.
One reads:
Hallowed be Thy Name in Industry:
God be in my hands and in my making.
Another reads:
Hallowed be Thy Name in Commerce:
God be at my desk and in my trading.
And another:
Hallowed be Thy Name in Government:
God be in my plans and in my deciding.
This is Howard Butt, Jr., of Laity Lodge. Always remember that you can declare God’s name holy by whatever you do well. It’s the high calling of our daily work.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done . . . (Matt. 6:9-10)
--Howard Butt, http://www.thehighcalling.org/Library/ViewMessage.asp?MessageID=425&WID=411&T=H&SID=12675
GET YOUR ATTITUDE RIGHT
Work is tough, full of disappointments—and that is true even of work that many people envy, such as my own.
I have never understood why people consider writing to be a glamorous career. To succeed as a writer, you need the constitution to stare at a computer screen for days on end, trying to craft a few pages that someone will read in five minutes on an airplane. You need a skin thick enough to not flinch when editors take your best efforts and casually clean them, cutting off the head and pulling out the guts. You need the doggedness to take blunt rejection and try again . . . and again, and again.
Other kinds of work are tough too, I know. Farmers play poker with the weather and the bugs. Salesmen treat customers like friends and in return get treated like slime. And should I mention the restaurant business?
Earlier this year, I went through a time of great frustration in my job. It was partly due to fatigue, I think. We’d had some deaths in my family, which left me worn down. And then I went through a patch where nothing I did seemed right. I proposed projects which got shot down, and when I wrote on assignment, editors scraped away at my prose until only scraps were left. That’s normal, part of the process, but I felt frustrated and unappreciated.
I had to go back and relearn the right attitudes.
I need the right attitude to work hour to hour and long term.
Hour to hour, it’s simple: do the work. I had to stick my rear in my chair and not get up until I had finished a major chunk of work. That meant resisting distractions from phone calls and emails and news reports.
If you don’t stick to it hour to hour, your discouragement will build. But if you work hard in the short term, you’ll accomplish something. You’ll find the work itself meaningful—and there’s a good possibility your failures will turn around. That happened to me.
Long term, I had to remember why I was working in the first place. I had to believe in my vocation all over again. In the deepest sense, I needed to know that I do the work because God wants me to do it.
Why are you in your job? Maybe you’re there to fulfill a special gift. Maybe you’re there to make a living for your family. Maybe you’re there because the work needs to be done for the good of society. To overcome discouragement, you need an attitude that takes the focus off your sense of frustration. You need to remember why your work is valid. You need to remember that God is behind it.
Both these attitudes, long term and short term, reflect what Paul wrote to the Philippians: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” He goes on to describe how Jesus became a humble servant, obedient even to the point of death (Phil. 2:5-8).
Hour by hour, a servant’s focus is very limited. Servants listen for directions, and they do exactly what their boss expects. In the longer term, servants know why they are working: because they have a master who has called them to service. We are meant to be servants of God.
Listen to your Boss, he’ll tell you what to do.
Believe in your vocation because you know who called you to it. And do your work because God is behind it.
(Tim Stafford, http://www.thehighcalling.org/Library/ViewLibrary.asp?LibraryID=3417)
The English writer, Dorothy Sayers, said this about Jesus’s carpentry:
"No crooked table leg or ill-fitting drawer ever, I dare swear, came out of the carpenter shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they had, could anyone believe that they were made by the same hands that made heaven and earth."
Think of it: Jesus’ daily work revealed the divine character. His daily work showed God’s integrity.
This is Howard Butt, Jr., of Laity Lodge. When you doubt your job is sacred or meaningful to God—look at God incarnate, sweating over a workbench with measure, hammer, and chisel. Trust the Carpenter who glorified His Father in all his tasks. It's the high calling of our daily work.
Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6:29)
(Howard Butt, The High Calling of Our Daily Work, http://www.thehighcalling.org/Library/ViewMessage.asp?MessageID=357&WID=343&T=H&SID=12675)
In the book of Leviticus, God instructs the Israelites on the offerings they are to make. And he repeats eighteen times* that the offering shall be "without blemish", that it should have "no blemish" (Lev 22:21).
In Leviticus 22:20, God says: "You shall not offer anything that has a blemish, for it will not be acceptable for you."
*these passages are:
1:3,10; 3:1,6; 4:3,23,28,32; 5:15,18; 6:6; 9:1,3; 14:10 (twice); 22:19; 23:12,18
10 Nam et cum essemus apud vos, hoc praecipiebamus vobis: Si quis non vult operari, nec manducet.
11 Audimus enim inter vos quosdam ambulare inordinate, nihil operantes sed curiose agentes;
12 his autem, qui eiusmodi sunt, praecipimus et obsecramus in Domino Iesu Christo, ut cum quiete operantes suum panem manducent.
13 Vos autem, fratres, nolite deficere benefacientes.
Do not let anyone have any food if he refuses to do any work.
Now we hear that there are some of you who are living in idleness, doing no work themselves but interfering with everyone else’s.
In the Lord Jesus Christ, we order and call on people of this kind to go on quietly working and earning the food that they eat.
My brothers, never grow tired of doing what is right.
(II Thessalonians 3:10 - 13)