The Mass of Chrism

The Mass of Chrism is one of those ceremonies which has unchanging readings. Every year the priests and people gather with everyone looking slightly older. They still come forward to collect the sacred oils from the far corners of the diocese and the priests renew their promise to serve the people. This year all of that will all be gone! We are left with the readings as we remain in lock down. The Word of God still speaks to us and we can share it through our prayer and devotions in private knowing that others around the globe are doing the same thing. We can empathize with clergy and laity who live under persecution or imprisoned or without access to the Mass for much of their year. To be united with them at this time helps us to understand what it means to part of the Universal Church. Jesus, in his programmatic sermon from the gospel of Luke, quotes from the prophet Isaiah: "...to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour", then, being seated and all ears attentive to him he says: "today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." (Lk 4: 19 and 21) Do we live in a year of the Lord's favour? 

Yes, no doubt, because the Lord is with us and will always be with us. The sacramental life of the Church will go on and the Kingdom of God will expand while other ideologies and way of life fall away. The joy of knowing Christ and being incorporated into his body through baptism outweighs all of our sufferings, not on account of our own merits but the love of the one who suffered for us and calls us to him: "But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that the extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you." (2 Cor 4: 7-12)