CHRISM MASS
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
Saint Peter's Basilica
Holy Thursday, 9 April 2009
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In the Upper Room, on the eve of his Passion, the Lord
prayed for his disciples gathered about him. At the same time he looked ahead
to the community of disciples of all centuries, “those who believe in me
through their word” (Jn 17:20). In his prayer for the disciples of all
time, he saw us too, and he prayed for us. Let us listen to what he asks for
the Twelve and for us gathered here: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is
truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And
for their sake I consecrate myself, so that they also may be consecrated in
truth” (17:17ff.). The Lord asks for our sanctification, our consecration in
truth. And he sends us forth to carry on his own mission. But in this prayer
there is one word which draws our attention, and appears difficult to
understand. Jesus says: “For their sake I consecrate myself”. What does this
mean? Is Jesus not himself “the Holy One of God”, as Peter acknowledged at that
decisive moment in Capharnaum (cf. Jn 6:69)? How can he now consecrate –
sanctify – himself?
To understand this, we need first to clarify what the
Bible means by the words “holy” and “sanctify – consecrate”. “Holy” – this word
describes above all God’s own nature, his completely unique, divine, way of
being, one which is his alone. He alone is the true and authentic Holy One, in
the original sense of the word. All other holiness derives from him, is a
participation in his way of being. He is purest Light, Truth and untainted
Good. To consecrate something or someone means, therefore, to give that thing
or person to God as his property, to take it out of the context of what is ours
and to insert it in his milieu, so that it no longer belongs to our affairs,
but is totally of God. Consecration is thus a taking away from the world and a
giving over to the living God. The thing or person no longer belongs to us, or
even to itself, but is immersed in God. Such a giving up of something in order
to give it over to God, we also call a sacrifice: this thing will no longer be
my property, but his property. In the Old Testament, the giving over of a
person to God, his “sanctification”, is identified with priestly ordination,
and this also defines the essence of the priesthood: it is a transfer of
ownership, a being taken out of the world and given to God. We can now see the
two directions which belong to the process of sanctification-consecration. It
is a departure from the milieux of worldly life – a “being set apart” for God.
But for this very reason it is not a segregation. Rather, being given over to
God means being charged to represent others. The priest is removed from worldly
bonds and given over to God, and precisely in this way, starting with God, he
must be available for others, for everyone. When Jesus says: “I consecrate
myself”, he makes himself both priest and victim. Bultmann was right to
translate the phrase: “I consecrate myself” by “I sacrifice myself”. Do we now
see what happens when Jesus says: “I consecrate myself for them”? This is the
priestly act by which Jesus – the Man Jesus, who is one with the Son of God –
gives himself over to the Father for us. It is the expression of the fact that
he is both priest and victim. I consecrate myself – I sacrifice myself: this
unfathomable word, which gives us a glimpse deep into the heart of Jesus
Christ, should be the object of constantly renewed reflection. It contains the
whole mystery of our redemption. It also contains the origins of the priesthood
in the Church, of our priesthood.
Only now can we fully understand the prayer which the
Lord offered the Father for his disciples – for us. “Sanctify them in the
truth”: this is the inclusion of the Apostles in the priesthood of Jesus
Christ, the institution of his new priesthood for the community of the faithful
of all times. “Sanctify them in truth”: this is the true prayer of consecration
for the Apostles. The Lord prays that God himself draw them towards him, into
his holiness. He prays that God take them away from themselves to make them his
own property, so that, starting from him, they can carry out the priestly
ministry for the world. This prayer of Jesus appears twice in slightly different
forms. Both times we need to listen very carefully, in order to understand,
even dimly the sublime reality that is about to be accomplished. “Sanctify them
in the truth”. Jesus adds: “Your word is truth”. The disciples are thus drawn
deep within God by being immersed in the word of God. The word of God is, so to
speak, the bath which purifies them, the creative power which transforms them
into God’s own being. So then, how do things stand in our own lives? Are we truly pervaded by
the word of God? Is that word truly the nourishment we live by, even more than
bread and the things of this world? Do we really know that word? Do we love it?
Are we deeply engaged with this word to the point that it really leaves a mark
on our lives and shapes our thinking? Or is it rather the case that our
thinking is constantly being shaped by all the things that others say and do?
Aren’t prevailing opinions the criterion by which we all too often measure
ourselves? Do we not perhaps remain, when all is said and done, mired in the
superficiality in which people today are generally caught up? Do we allow
ourselves truly to be deeply purified by the word of God? Nietzsche scoffed at
humility and obedience as the virtues of slaves, a source of repression. He
replaced them with pride and man’s absolute freedom. Of course there exist
caricatures of a misguided humility and a mistaken submissiveness, which we do
not want to imitate. But there also exists a destructive pride and a
presumption which tear every community apart and result in violence. Can we
learn from Christ the correct humility which corresponds to the truth of our
being, and the obedience which submits to truth, to the will of God? “Sanctify
them in the truth; your word is truth”: this word of inclusion in the priesthood
lights up our lives and calls us to become ever anew disciples of that truth
which is revealed in the word of God.
We can advance another step in the interpretation of these words. Did not
Christ say of himself: “I am the truth” (cf. Jn 14:6)? Is he not himself
the living Word of God, to which every other word refers? Sanctify them in the
truth – this means, then, in the deepest sense: make them one with me, Christ.
Bind them to me. Draw them into me. Indeed, when all is said and done, there is
only one priest of the New Covenant, Jesus Christ himself. Consequently,
the priesthood of the disciples can only be a participation in the priesthood
of Jesus. Our being priests is simply a new and radical way of being united to
Christ. In its substance, it has been bestowed on us for ever in the sacrament.
But this new seal imprinted upon our being can become for us a condemnation, if
our lives do not develop by entering into the truth of the Sacrament. The
promises we renew today state in this regard that our will must be directed
along this path: “Domino Iesu arctius coniungi et conformari, vobismetipsis
abrenuntiantes”. Being united to Christ calls for renunciation. It means
not wanting to impose our own way and our own will, not desiring to become
someone else, but abandoning ourselves to him, however and wherever he wants to
use us. As Saint Paul said: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives
in me” (Gal 2:20). In the words “I do”, spoken at our priestly
ordination, we made this fundamental renunciation of our desire to be
independent, “self-made”. But day by day this great “yes” has to be lived out
in the many little “yeses” and small sacrifices. This “yes” made up of tiny
steps which together make up the great “yes”, can be lived out without bitterness
and self-pity only if Christ is truly the center of our lives. If we enter into
true closeness to him. Then indeed we experience, amid sacrifices which can at
first be painful, the growing joy of friendship with him, and all the small and
sometimes great signs of his love, which he is constantly showing us. “The one
who loses himself, finds himself”. When we dare to lose ourselves for the Lord,
we come to experience the truth of these words.
To be immersed in the Truth, in Christ – part of this process is prayer, in
which we exercise our friendship with him and also come to know him: his way of
being, of thinking, of acting. Praying is a journey in personal communion with
Christ, setting before him our daily life, our successes and failures, our
struggles and our joys – in a word, it is to stand in front of him. But if this
is not to become a form of self-contemplation, it is important that we
constantly learn to pray by praying with the Church. Celebrating the Eucharist
means praying. We celebrate the Eucharist rightly if with our thoughts and our
being we enter into the words which the Church sets before us. There we find
the prayer of all generations, which accompany us along the way towards the
Lord. As priests, in the Eucharistic celebration we are those who by their
prayer blaze a trail for the prayer of today’s Christians. If we are inwardly
united to the words of prayer, if we let ourselves be guided and transformed by
them, then the faithful will also enter into those words. And then all of us
will become truly “one body, one spirit” in Christ.
To be immersed in God’s truth and thus in his holiness – for us this also
means to acknowledge that the truth makes demands, to stand up, in matters
great and small, to the lie which in so many different ways is present in the
world; accepting the struggles associated with the truth, because its inmost
joy is present within us. Nor, when we talk about being sanctified in the
truth, should we forget that in Jesus Christ truth and love are one. Being
immersed in him means being immersed in his goodness, in true love. True love
does not come cheap, it can also prove quite costly. It resists evil in order
to bring men true good. If we become one with Christ, we learn to recognize him
precisely in the suffering, in the poor, in the little ones of this world; then
we become people who serve, who recognize our brothers and sisters in him, and
in them, we encounter him.
“Sanctify them in truth” – this is the first part of
what Jesus says. But then he adds: “I consecrate myself, so that they also may
be consecrated in truth” – that is, truly consecrated (Jn 17:19). I
think that this second part has a special meaning of its own. In the world’s
religions there are many different ritual means of “sanctification”, of the
consecration of a human person. Yet all these rites can remain something merely
formal. Christ asks for his disciples the true sanctification which transforms
their being, their very selves; he asks that it not remain a ritual formality,
but that it make them truly the “property” of God himself. We could even say
that Christ prayed on behalf of us for that sacrament which touches us in the
depths of our being. But he also prayed that this interior transformation might
be translated day by day in our lives; that in our everyday routine and our
concrete daily lives we might be truly pervaded by the light of God.
On the eve of my priestly ordination, fifty-eight
years ago, I opened the Sacred Scripture, because I wanted to receive once more
a word from the Lord for that day and for my future journey as a priest. My
gaze fell on this passage: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth”.
Then I realized: the Lord is speaking about me, and he is speaking to me. This
very same thing will be accomplished tomorrow in me. When all is said and done,
we are not consecrated by rites, even though rites are necessary. The bath in
which the Lord immerses us is himself – the Truth in person. Priestly
ordination means: being immersed in him, immersed in the Truth. I belong in a new
way to him and thus to others, “that his Kingdom may come”. Dear friends, in
this hour of the renewal of promises, we want to pray to the Lord to make us
men of truth, men of love, men of God. Let us implore him to draw us ever anew
into himself, so that we may become truly priests of the New Covenant.
Amen.
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