Can I begin with a quotation?
“Let us not expect things to change if we keep on doing the same things. A crisis is the best blessing that can happen to people or countries, because crisis brings progress. Creativity is born from anguish just as the day is born from the dark night. Without crisis there are no challenges, without challenges life becomes a routine, a slow agony. Without crisis there is no achievement. It is crisis that brings out the best in people. Talking up a crisis only promotes it …Instead of talking let us work hard. Let us do away once and for all with the only crisis that really threatens, i.e. the tragedy of not wanting to struggle to overcome it.” That could be the observation of an optimistic commentator on the state of the country in the wake of the financial crisis of the last six months. In fact they are the words of Albert Einstein commenting on stock-market crash in 1929. But they could apply to our present financial crisis. And they could apply equally to the Church and to us priests as we struggle to cope with the difficulties we experience in our lives and ministries today.
The wisdom of Einstein is that rather than spend our time talking about the crisis we do something about it. And we do something very important today as we come together for this annual Chrism Mass. In this year when we have celebrated the different vocations in the Church we look again at our own vocation and consciously choose to rededicate ourselves to it with the generosity and idealism that inspired us when we first answered that call.
The call of the twelve apostles by Jesus in St. Mark’s gospel sums up very succinctly what our call is about. First of all the gospel tells us, he called those whom he wanted. Just think of that for a second. Jesus wanted me. He wanted me to be to be a priest. That is why I am here – because of the personal choice of Jesus. You have not chosen me. I have chosen you. It’s difficult to take it in. But it’s something to reflect on and to mull over and marvel at in quiet prayer.
And then, the gospel story continues, they came to him and he appointed them as his apostles to be with him and to be sent out to preach with power to cast out devils. The purpose of our call is twofold: to be with him and to be sent out to preach. The sending out is important. That’s the mission. But it comes second. The first thing is to be with him. ‘To be his companions’ is how some bibles translate it. It is to be in a close personal relationship with him. It is an invitation to close personal friendship with Jesus. I no longer call you servants, he will tell them later, I have called you friends. That is the privilege of every follower of Christ, but in a special way of priests. It is only when we have learned to be with Jesus in friendship, in prayer, in sharing his life that we are ready to be sent out as apostles. To preach the Good News we must first experience the Good News.
Our mission is bringing the Good News of Jesus to people. Good News of healing, forgiveness, reconciliation. Good news of hope in the face of tragedies of every kind. And every priest here who has preached or taught; every priest who has celebrated the Eucharist, the sacraments of penance or of anointing; every priest who has done weddings and baptisms and funerals; all of you have been busy bringing that Good News to the people where you are. And I think we sometimes don’t realise how much people value and appreciate the work we do and the comfort and consolation and joy and hope we bring into their lives.
But sadly many people have still not heard that message. And they are not all pagans or atheists. Many have grown up in the Church who don’t know who God is and who they are. In the book by Sr. Helen Prejan which later became the film “Dead Man Walking”, there is a passage where she is talking to Robert Lee Willie who was convicted of the brutal murder of a young girl in the U.S. As he faces execution in the near future she tries to get him to face up to what he has done so that he can die with dignity and peace. She says:
I tell him that despite his crime, despite the terrible pain he has caused, he is a human being and he has a dignity that no one can take from him, that he is a son of God. “Ain’t nobody ever called me no son of God before”, he says and smiles. “I’ve been called a son-of-a-you-know-what lots of times but never no son of God.
Our task, our mission is to awaken in people an awareness of what they already are – children of God. It is to make them aware of their dignity, their tremendous privilege of being brothers and sisters of Christ. Tolstoy wrote: “I cannot imagine what else a teacher or preacher should do except to remind people of their capacity for the infinite”. We have a wonderful mission and a beautiful message.
In a few moments, as we celebrate the rite of renewal, the two questions I will ask refer to these two parts of our call: to be with Christ and to be sent out. I will ask first: “Are you resolved to unite yourselves more closely to Christ and try to become more like him by joyfully sacrificing your own pleasure and ambition to bring his peace and love to your brothers and sisters”. And the second question refers to our mission: “Are you resolved to be faithful ministers of the mysteries of God and to celebrate the Eucharist and the other liturgical services with sincere devotion?”
Let us not be daunted by the current difficulties we experience, but see in them the darkness before a new dawn, the challenges that will bring out the best in us. Let us not talk up the crisis of our times, but do something about it by rededicating ourselves to our vocation as apostles of Jesus Christ.
