Chrism Mass

Homily

Most Rev Timothy Costelloe SDB
Archbishop of Perth

Tuesday 31 March, 2026
St Mary’s Cathedral, Perth

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As I was preparing some thoughts for tonight‘s celebration, which invites us to acknowledge and thank God for the sacramental life of the Church, and in particular for the ordained priesthood, I couldn’t help remembering what I learned about the sacraments when I was a little boy at school. A sacrament, we were taught, is a visible sign, instituted by Christ, to give grace.

In their simplicity these words are helpful, and they are easy enough to apply to the seven sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Marriage, Ordination and the Anointing of the Sick. At the same time these words contain a remarkable depth and invite some important questions: when did Christ institute each of these sacraments? How exactly do they give grace? What does it mean to speak of grace?

Tonight is not an occasion for a theological lecture, but it is an opportunity to reflect a little on what it means to have sacraments at the heart of our Christian life. Why is it that God has chosen these rituals, these signs and symbols, as the privileged way for us to encounter Him: for him to give us his grace?

One way to enter into this mystery is to remember some words from John’s gospel: God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

God could have chosen to save us, to set us free from the power of sin and death, in any way He pleased. What pleased God was to come among us as one of us in the person of Jesus, so that we might see in Him the face of God, and hear as He spoke the words of God, and understand and experience as we invited him into our lives the depths of God’s love for us. Jesus became, and remains, in the most perfect and complete way the visible sign of God’s enduring, faithful and gracious presence among us and within us. The seven sacraments of our Catholic faith are the seven privileged and visible signs of this presence of God among us in Jesus: He, we might say, is the first sacrament and the foundational sacrament who, through the power of his divine grace, makes each of our seven sacraments powerful, and Spirit-filled, and utterly reliable and effective.

The sign of water in Baptism really does wash away sin and as the water runs off our head or our bodies we really do emerge into new life with Christ. The sign of oil used in the Anointing of the Sick really does confer healing, sometimes internal and sometimes external and we are strengthened for the journey ahead. The sign of bread and wine offered to us as food and drink really does, as we celebrate the Eucharist, become the body and blood of the Lord who enters into a profound communion with us.

In every case, the sacraments draw us into a deeper relationship with Christ, and It is in this relationship that we find ourselves united in a profound way with God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit

All this is already remarkable enough. But tonight, we are asked to go a little further and to remember that every sacrament unites us with Christ and invites us to understand more fully exactly what this means and what this calls us to.

Tonight’s readings, which come to their high point in the gospel, help us in this search for deeper understanding.  Tonight, Jesus expresses in a few simple phrases the mission that He has received from the Father: it is to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, and to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.

Tonight each one of us is being invited to recognise the ways in which we ourselves desperately need to hear the Good News of God’s presence to us; to acknowledge all that holds us captive and stops us from living fully in the freedom of God’s love; to admit that we are often blind to God’s presence among us and we need to be given the gift of clear sight; that we are often downtrodden and oppressed by so many things, but especially by our sinfulness,  and that, in the midst of the all our worries and fears we need to be reminded again of God’s favour resting upon us. This is who Jesus seeks to be for us, through our belonging to His community of faith, His Church.

As we listen to and reflect on these words, we might also recall some other words which Jesus spoke to His disciples on the night of the resurrection: as the Father sent me, so am I sending you. These words, spoken to the first disciples, are today spoken to the whole Church, to each one of us.

As Jesus draws us into communion with Him through the sacramental life of his Church, He also draws us into His mission: we, in his name, poor though we are, are still called to bring Good News to the poor; held bound though we are by so many worries, fears and fragilities, we are yet called to proclaim liberty to captives; lost and blind though we sometimes seem to be we are still called to proclaim new sight to the blind; downtrodden and oppressed by others though we may sometimes feel, we are still called  to set the downtrodden free; and alone and far away from the Lord though we may think we are, we are still called to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour, God’s gracious presence among us, to everyone. 

Tonight, each one of us in our own chosen way of life and in the very concrete circumstances of our personal and family situations, is invited to reflect on how we can be sharers in this mission of the Lord. It is a challenging question to ask but it is the way to a richer, and fuller, and more deeply human way of being.

In this light tonight we acknowledge in a special way the ministry of our priests and thank God for the generous gift they make of themselves on our behalf.  There are many ways to understand their place in the Church but in the context of tonight‘s celebration we might focus on one simple thought: God calls men to the ordained priesthood so that through their celebration of the sacraments with us and for us, and through the quality and integrity of their lives, they are at our service assisting and enabling us to be faithful to the Christian vocation that we all share and to which we could never be faithful without the help God gives us through His Church:  to be together a sacrament a living sign of the presence of Jesus at work in His Church and at work in His world.