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CHRISM MASS

Manila Cathedral Basilica
Intramuros, Manila
7:00 a.m., April 5, 2007

Today is the feastday of all of us priests. And we’re glad that you’re here – to join us in this grateful celebration. Unworthy as we are, as we said at the beginning of this Eucharist, yet we are priests. And those families that have produced priests, thank God, not for us. But thank God that the vocation of priesthood that sprouted from your families and mine. We will see how beloved you are to God in Jesus as was empowered by the Spirit for having known this God, and having loved, having encouraged a priest.

And so today we make this reflection. The Eucharist we celebrate is the life we share.

The Eucharist makes the Christian. It was said of missionaries of long before who were absent from a land that they earlier served. A century after, other missionaries came. And upon their return to the islands, the first question asked by the natives would be this: “Do you have priests? Do you have Masses?” What a question to ask first missionaries. Even today, such a connection between the priesthood and the Mass is evident in our daily Catholic Christian lives. Young people would remember a priest who visited a parish and said Mass for them. Sabi nila, “Siya yung nag-Misa sa amin. Yan yung nag-Misa sa amin nung wala si Father.”

Pari – Misa. The priest and the Mass in our Catholic faith is one. There is that undeniable connection between the Mass and the priest. And His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, in his latest Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis no. 23, said this: “The intrinsic relationship between the Eucharist and the sacrament of Holy Orders clearly emerges from the words of Jesus in the Upper Room: ‘Do this in memory of me.’ On the night before he died, Jesus instituted the Eucharist and at the same time established the priesthood of the New Covenant. He (Jesus) is priest, victim and altar: the mediator between God the Father and his people, the victim of atonement who offers himself on the altar of the Cross. No one can say ‘this is my body’ and ‘this is the cup of my blood’ except in the name and person of Christ, the one high priest of the new and eternal Covenant.”

Eucharist and priesthood – their link. So sacred is this link between the Eucharist and priesthood that when a priest is accused, rightly or wrongly, of any misdemeanor, the faithful parishioners will often say in an apologia of their faith, in the sacredness of the Eucharist, perhaps more than as a defence of the priest “…that could not be true; Father just offered Mass at the church this morning…” The faithful and you know the connection between the Eucharist and the priesthood. And short of defending him, saying – “no, that could not be – kamimisa lang ni Father kaninang umaga.” You are not defending us but you are more after the sacredness of the Eucharist. We administer. The Eucharist mandates the holiness in the priesthood, while the priest handles and distributes the Eucharist with reverence.

Anointed by the Spirit at ordination, the priest is signed with a special character and so configured to Christ that he is able to speak and act in the person of Jesus Christ the head. In Jesus, and only in the person of Jesus, the priest can say “this is my body… this is the cup of my blood… I absolve you”. We have no power. And that’s why we cannot own the priesthood. The moment we own something that was given as a gift, believe me, we are at the threshold of collapse. We would fall. The moment I own this ministry, then it commands a price. Own something and it has a price. That is so also with the priesthood.

If this is the life and the power, the potential of the priest, then a Eucharistic spirituality is slowly built in the priest who offers the Eucharist devoutly. Kung ito ang pari, kaugnay ng Eukaristiya, sapilitang magkakaroon ng spiritual love na Eucharistic ang pari. He not only loves Jesus and treasures him, but this relatedness to Christ in the Eucharist appears more in the frequency of his prayer, in the constancy of his devotions, and his private adoration. That love for God in his Eucharistic priestly life, brings him a mission to share the greatness of God’s goodness and love with others.

Fall in love with the Eucharist, my brother priests, and you will go to its full consequence. You are going to share the Eucharist with others. The Eucharist – and again Benedict XVI reminds us, and we quote – “is not something we can keep to ourselves. By its nature it demands to be shared with all” (Sacramentum Caritatis 84). No wonder that even the cleanliness of life, even the honesty in service and governance, and the charity and the compassion in the use of wealth, while reflecting on the Word of God that within the Eucharist we celebrate, we at all times truly share this wisdom with all the faithful, even with people without faith. The Eucharist is for sharing.

The clear teaching of the Church reminds us that “the Eucharist commits us to the poor. To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren.” (CCC 1397). The early example of Eucharist in the multiplication of the loaves, tells us that from the sharing of even the smallest morsel of bread, one can feed a multitude. We are reminded that the Eucharist is for sharing, because the very Eucharist is sharing. And the foreshadowing of that Eucharist, both in Exodus and in the multiplication of loaves, started with a piece of bread or a sprinkling of blood.

The greatest lesson of the small feeding, of the little feeding and helping a large crowd, is the Eucharist in the hands of a little boy. A small, weak, poor village lad from Galilee provided the first five pieces of loaves for Jesus to satisfy the hunger of five thousand men. You may not be aware of it, but what the Church is doing in “Pondo ng Pinoy” is precisely Eucharistic. And it escapes the imagination of some people who think it is a gimmick. No. It’s today’s way of living the Eucharist. It’s a challenge to us now. It must be in everyone who must be Eucharistic.

Everything would come from the Eucharist in order for the Church to be able to feed all forms of hunger in the world and its communities. We who have faith, we believe in this. It is the Eucharist that will feed the world. In the reflection of Pope Benedict XVI again, in Sacramentum Caritatis, this is his latest work. The two major works – Deus Caritas Est last year, and now, just two months ago, it’s Sacramentum Caritatis. Now allow me to quote from there: “The prayer which we repeat at every Mass: ‘Give us this day our daily bread’, obliges us to do everything possible in cooperation with international, state and private institutions, to end or at least to reduce the scandal of hunger and malnutrition afflicting so many millions of people in our world, especially in the developing countries. In a particular way, the Christian laity, formed at the school of the Eucharist, are called to assume their specific political and social responsibilities. To do so, they need to be adequately prepared through practical education in charity and justice.” (SC, 91).

To educate the people is to educate the families. To educate the families is to educate the communities. To educate communities, you educate a nation. But then, we need people who will stand at the Eucharist. It is only the Eucharist that will be able to inspire and put people into motion of sharing with the poor in order to remove the scandal of hunger amidst plenty. But the Eucharist must be presided over by someone who can stand and speak about the Body of Christ. That visible person as an “icon” of Christ, is the priest. (CCC, 1142).

We, the priests, we your priests, are the spokesmen of the Eucharist. The priest handles the mystery of the Eucharist, and in effect is sanctified by it. The priest shares the Eucharist with others, particularly with the poor. The priest gives witness to it, and through the power of witness, makes Jesus visibly present again in our midst.

If this is true to priests, we pray, as you accompany the priest, you also do the same – you share, you’re in mission, you give witness.

Today, we celebrate the great gift of the priesthood and the Church. More than 8,000 in the Philippines. Nearly half a million all over the world. Your priests. Do not separate us – not even in your imagination – from the Eucharist. The Eucharist and the priest are one. If you lose the Eucharist, you lose your priest. If the priest is lost, you have no Eucharist.

As we thank you for joining us this morning, and congratulate my brother-priests for this great gift of fidelity in the priesthood, we ask you, hold on some more. We have still many things to accomplish. Not our own, but Christ’s in the Eucharist. Celebrate it with devotion. Touch it with reverence. Brothers, together with me, pray for me, that we may be able to live it. Not just witness to it – live the priesthood. And you, parishioners, some of you are brothers and sisters of the priests – maybe parents. Thank you for accompanying us, not just in this cathedral, not just with your presence – please God, with your prayers, your concern for the priests and the tasks they do for people and for Christ. For all of us, may the Lord give his blessing, and for the priests most especially. Thank you. God bless.