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| Homily for the Chrism
Mass
“Lord, who at thy first Eucharist did pray, That all thy Church might be forever one, Grant us at every Eucharist to say With longing heart and soul, ‘They will be done.’ O may we all one bread, one body be, Through this blest Sacrament of Unity.” In gathering as the local Church of New Ulm for this sacred and solemn hour of the Chrism Mass, I am ever so conscious that we do so in the context of the Year of the Eucharist, inaugurated by our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II last October. Here in this Diocese, we will have two events celebrating this Eucharistic Year: first of all, on April 10th, the third Sunday of Easter, I have asked every parish, parish cluster or Area Faith Community to provide a solemn Holy Hour or Holy Hours of Adoration during that afternoon or evening; secondly, on October 9th, we will sponsor a diocesan-wide Eucharistic celebration at St. Catherine’s Church in Redwood Falls, which will be intergenerational, bilingual and family oriented. Next October, a special Synod of Bishops will be held at the Vatican for the Universal Church on the theme: “The Eucharist: Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church.” While each of these events will provide appropriate occasions to reflect on the tremendous gift that the Lord Jesus has provided us with, in establishing this marvelous sacrament, today’s Chrism Mass offers us a unique opportunity to reflect on our Eucharistic ecclesiology here in this Diocese. In his encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia , Pope John Paul II quotes without attribution a statement by Cardinal Henri de Lubac, S.J.: “The Eucharist builds the church and the church makes the Eucharist.” Each reality was founded by Jesus Christ with a view toward the other. Without a Church, there would be no one to celebrate the Eucharist and without the Eucharist, the Church would lack her supreme source of vitality. The Church finds by immersing herself in the Eucharist that she is called to be communio , the very reflection of the Triune Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to live her missio , being sent forth in witness of faith in order to draw all things back to the Triune God. The
Holy Father writes in Christi fideles Laici : “Communion gives
rise to mission and mission is accomplished in communion.” (n. 32) What
this means for us is that our call to an interior life with God in Christ
must be lived out in the local community of faith. In this way, we become
the Body of Christ so as to live as the Body of Christ in the midst
of the world. As you know, I have spoken on this two-fold dynamic at our last two Chrism Masses with an attempt to apply its significance to our Plan for Parishes . For I am fully convinced that unless that Plan is rooted in a solid theological framework, it will not, it cannot succeed. In light of tonight’s Scriptures, we are saying here that before we can be sent forth by the Spirit in Jesus’ name, “to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, or to announce a year of favor” we must first have the experience, as the author of Revelation tells us, that Jesus: “loves us and has freed us from our sins by his Blood.” And that he has “made us into a Kingdom, priests for his God and Father.” The individual baptized disciple gathers, then, in the communio of the Church to celebrate the intimate union that all the baptized have with the Risen Christ and, being renewed in that union, each disciple is subsequently sent forth, empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring the Good News of the Gospel to everyone he or she meets. The late Swiss theologian, Hans urs Van Balthazar, has said: “The Christian state of life is ultimately and essentially a communal state.” True, each of us makes his or her own personal commitment of faith as our candidates and catechumens will do at the Easter Vigil, but that experience and every experience we, as Catholics, have of Jesus must necessarily include encountering Him with , in and through the Church. Pope John Paul II devotes a whole chapter of his encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia , to the ecclesiology of communion and points out that it was “the central and fundamental idea of the documents of the Second Vatican Council.” This communion is two-fold: communion with the Triune God and communion with the faithful. In her proclamation of the Word of God and in the celebration of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, the Church gives expression to her very nature and purpose. The invisible dimension of this communion with Christ through the working of the Holy Spirit requires a visible dimension of communion with the teaching of the Apostles, with the sacraments and with the Church’s hierarchical order. These are constitutive elements of the Church’s identity, meaning that (as the Holy Father tells us):
“Only in this context can there be a legitimate celebration of the Eucharist and true participation in it.” (35)
When we accept this reality as true and perduring, we immediately recognize that the Eucharist, while always offered by a particular community, is never a celebration of that community alone. The Eucharist always has universal significance because the Eucharist is about all times and places, all gatherings and peoples. The Eucharist celebrates the salvation of all humankind:
“From age to age you gather a people to yourself so that from east to west a perfect offering may be made to the glory of your name.” Living as we do in a secular society wherein the philosophies of individualism and relativism are so prominent, it is of critical importance that we continue to remind ourselves and one another that the Eucharist is never just the celebration of this community gathered here and now. The fourth graders may well plan the Scripture readings and select the hymns for Monday’s school liturgy, but it is not the fourth grade Mass. Bob and Jane may be getting married on August 27 in the context of the Eucharist, but it is not their Mass. To privatize the Eucharist does violence to our ecclesiology of communion. Earlier this year, a family requested that their father be buried in the context of the Tridentine Mass at one of our local parishes. Now an indult from the Holy See is required by Ecclesia Dei before such a celebration is permitted and no indult has been granted to this Diocese. But even over and above the required authorization, there is a sense here of one family imposing its own private preference on what should be the communal celebration of the whole Church.
But this is equally true of Catholics and non-Catholics who insist on the practice of intercommunion; refusing to acknowledge the differences in sacramental understanding and the validity of Orders. Again, such “intercommunion” shifts the focus from an ecclesiology of communion to an individual’s personal demand. As a result, such actions privatize what is, of its essence, communal. Cardinal Avery Dulles speaks to this point with clarity and precision:
“If anyone were to receive this sacrament of unity while intending to remain apart from the body and its visible head, in a situation of heresy or schism, the meaning of the action would be contradicted by the contrary disposition. It would be wrong for anyone to say, “I do not want to belong to your community, but I want to receive Communion with you.” Nor could they properly say, “I do not accept your pastors and doctrines, but I want to partake of your sacraments.”
In a few moments, I will ask all the priests present to renew their ordination vows before the assembled congregation. Her it will be acknowledged that a priest is ordained to assist the bishop and to act in persona Christi capitas to the extent that he shares an ecclesial bond with his bishop. The power of the priesthood does not exist as some kind of magical formula dispensed to a candidate at his ordination. Rather, he exercises his priestly power on behalf of and in the name of the Church, specifically united with the local bishop. Should he break that ecclesial bond by an act of deliberate disobedience or disregard for the Church’s ritual or intent, he renders his action invalid and the power of the Holy Spirit, given to the Church on Pentecost, is no longer efficacious in him. This is why the bond between bishop and priest is so essential to the unity of the Church and likewise why dissent is so perilous. It is not sufficient for us to be one in Baptism. We must also be one in the communion which is brought about by our Profession of Faith, affirmed in both word and deed. Every Eucharist, then, intends to express ecclesial communion with the local Bishop, with the Roman Pontiff and, indeed, the whole Church. Indeed, that is why both the Pope and the local bishop are mentioned by name in every Eucharistic Prayer. The safeguarding and promotion of this ecclesial communion is the task of each member of the faithful and the particular responsibility of the Church’s pastors. Spanish The
Eucharist is the sacrament of unity par excellance . Jesus calls
us to be his body, the body of Chris t. And we express that reality
in all its dignity and significance when we gather as Church, as the
assembly of the believing faithful. This is not a private devotion between
“me and Jesus,” but a call to come together and eat of his Body so that
we might all go forth together to live as his Body in our daily routines.
St. Paul tells the Corinthians that the Church is one body because its
members partake of the one bread, which is Chris t the Lord (1Cor 10:17
). And in the third Eucharistic Prayer, we ask that “we who are nourished
by Christ’s body and blood may become one body, one spirit” in him.
La Eucaristía es el sacramento de unión por excelencia. Jesus nos llama para ser su Cuerpo, el Cuerpo de Cristo. Y nosotros expresamos esa realidad en toda su dignidad e importancia cuando nos congregamos como Iglesia, como asamblea del ferviente creyente. Esta no es una dedicación privada entre “Jesús y yo” pero un llamado para congregarnos y comer de su Cuerpo e ir juntos para vivir como su Cuerpo en nuestra vida cotidiana. San Pablo le dice a los Corintios que todos comemos de un mismo pan, y por eso somos un solo cuerpo, que es el Cristo el Señor (1 Cor 10:17). Y en el tercer rezo de la Eucaristía, le pedimos que “nosotros que somos alimentados por el cuerpo y sangre de Cristo se transformen en un cuerpo y espíritu” en él. As we gather here in this sacred and solemn hour of the Chrism Mass, wherein we celebrate in a special way the bonds of communion that join us to the Triune God and to each other, allow me to express my gratitude to all of you who make up the Body of Christ in this local Church. First of all, my heartfelt thanks to all our priests who so lovingly share their lives with God’s people each day. Secondly, to our Pastoral Administrators whose dedicated assistance so enriches the mission of our Church. To our religious and lay ecclesial ministers for the generous gift of their faith, their witness and their energy. To our Catholic spouses and parents, their sons and daughters who strive day in and day out to make their homes a dwelling place for God. To those who labor on farms or in factories, in offices or in professional laboratories, where they give meaning to the dignity of work. To those who suffer in body or in spirit because through their identification with the Cross and their obedient acceptance of the saving mystery of pain, they keep our focus on our ultimate destiny in the Kingdom. Yes, I am truly blessed to stand in communion with all of you tonight, making up one body in the Lord and striving to realize our potential as His holy, royal and priestly people. May God who has called us into this communion, strengthen and foster our unity as the Body of Christ for the honor and glory of His name. Amen.
“For all thy Church, O Lord, we intercede; Make thou our sad divisions soon to cease; Draw us the nearer each to each we plead, By drawing all to thee, O Prince of Peace; Thus may we all one bread, one body be, Through this blest Sacrament of Unity.”
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