Homily for the Chrism Mass

April 15, 2025
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 61:1-3, 6a,8-9
Psalm 89:21-22, 25, 27
Revelation 1:5-8
Luke 4:16-21

Bishop’s homily in English begins at paragraph 3.

Cuando los católicos fieles buscan ser ungidos en el sacramento de los enfermos, también están buscando al Ungido, el Cristo. Como sacerdotes y obispo, somos ungidos por la Unción de Jesucristo por el Espíritu Santo. Nuestra presencia a los fieles es sacramental siempre y nuestras obras de misericordia son acciones de Cristo el Buen Pastor. Su presencia como el Buen Pastor es entre nuestro ser verdadero, imbuye nuestras almas, y cuando pecamos contra el Dios y nuestro prójimo, hacemos escándalo.

Con frecuencia consideramos los efectos del sacramento de las Órdenes Sagradas sobre la vida de la Iglesia: lo que Cristo hace a través de nosotros y nuestro ministerio ordenado para su pueblo y el sacerdocio de los bautizados y creyentes. Sin embargo, la Misa del Crisma también es un recordatorio de la Iglesia sobre lo que Cristo hace especialmente por nosotros como sacerdotes a través del Sacramento de las Órdenes Sagradas, mientras ministramos a los fieles en el uso de los óleos de los catecúmenos, de los enfermos y del Sagrado Crisma. La Misa del Crisma es una oportunidad para que podamos ser animados y renovados con gratitud por la generosidad de Jesús al llamarnos a seguirlo y por nuestra confiada respuesta a su llamado a nosotros. Es una alegría para nosotros considerar nuevamente, reunidos como hermanos alrededor del altar del sacrificio, el recordatorio de Cristo de que era Él quien nos eligió a nosotros y no nosotros quienes lo elegimos a Él. Las Órdenes Sagradas es una oportunidad inigualable para la unidad y la intimidad con Cristo, aprendiendo a amar como Él ama, sirviendo como Él sirve.

It is not uncommon for us as priests to have experienced the following pastoral situation. We answer a call to celebrate the sacrament of anointing of the sick for a parishioner who is gravely ill and approaching death. We pray with the parishioner and also his or her family members who have gathered to be near their loved one in this hour of need. We absolve the parishioner, impart the Apostolic pardon, anoint the parishioner with the oil of the sick, if circumstances permit distribute viaticum, and offer our priestly blessing before assuring all present of our prayers and those of our parishioners. Before departing, we might explain that the Church has offered the dying patient everything that the Church can offer them in its sacramental fullness, that they have everything. Then, several hours later in the middle of the night we are awakened by a phone call asking us to come to the same hospital room or hospice even though we have most recently administered the sacraments faithfully.

So, we leave our home, bring the oils, and return with them to our parishioners. It is understandable if we are tempted to think that the parishioner and their family did not understand our attempted instruction about the efficacy of the sacraments. We anointed them with the holy oil and celebrated the sacraments in all their fullness. What more can they desire? What more can I offer them? I know that you all go to the sick and dying in such situations, so what I offer now is in no way for purposes of correction but more honestly for purposes of reflection.

When we are asked to administer the sacrament of anointing of the sick by members of the faithful, they are not only seeking anointing they are also seeking the Anointed. They are seeking and desiring Jesus Christ, Jesus Christus, Jesus the Anointed One. They are seeking Him, who was anointed by the Holy Spirit at His Baptism by John. They seek Christ through us His priests, who at our ordinations were anointed with Chrism and sealed with Christ’s pastoral character and office despite our unworthiness and imperfection as earthen vessels.

Our presence to others conveys the grace of His Presence as the Christ because of our anointing in Him. They do not simply seek and desire the blessed oil and consecrated Chrism that we administer; they seek Christ and find Him in our very being who is present to them through our presence.

This reality is what the scholastic theologians quite aptly described as an ontological change. They do not simply seek the matter of the sacrament as something we produce; they seek Christ Himself, the Anointed One, present to them through the sacraments. Our part always requires presence and love. The late Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Deus Caritas Est, “Practical activity will always be insufficient, unless it visibly expresses a love for man, a love nourished by an encounter with Christ. My deep personal sharing in the needs and sufferings of others becomes a sharing of my very self with them: if my gift is not to prove a source of humiliation, I must give to others not only something that is my own, but my very self; I must be personally present in my gift.” Christ has shared with us His anointing in our anointing that we might anoint the faithful; Christ has instituted the ministerial priesthood to anoint, to serve, and to nourish the priesthood of all believers.

We renew our promises this evening; the same promises that we made on the day of our ordinations when we were anointed as priests and for me also when I was ordained and anointed as a bishop. On those days, we each received gifts from Christ. The gifts that He gave us and continues to give us are not toys for us to play with; they are also not trophies that we have earned; they are tools to be used in conveying His presence as instruments of His Incarnation permeating our very being, for the sake of His Church, the People of God.

The culture in which we minister, and which affects the people in our society, including members of the Church, has conjured an attitude of a refusal to listen with an accompanying demand to be heard but without a docility to be taught or a willingness to be led. We must be honest and admit that this spiritual sickness has also infected not a few priests and also some bishops who have traded their shepherd’s mantle for the allure of social influencing. Our ordination as priests confers the character of Christ the Good Shepherd for us to lead His flock, including those who want only to be heard.

To lead the entire flock entrusted to us, we must first listen as priests and as bishop to Christ that we each might listen to the flock in the way that Christ listens, then speak and live by what He desires the Church to believe as He has faithfully taught through the ministry of the Apostles and their successors since the first Pentecost.

At this Liturgy where we bless the oils and as I consecrate the Chrism, we renew our promises in solidarity with Christ while present to each other in unity and love as priests and bishop. We renew our promises together as we turn to Jesus the Anointed One and joyfully proclaim with Him, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”