Mass with Holy Father on Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul

Speech at Lunch following Mass with Holy Father on Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul
Ristorante Orazio, Rome, 29 June 2015

Your Eminence, George Cardinal Pell, Vatican Secretary of Economic Affairs;

Your Lordships, Bishops Jean Laffitte, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Terry Brady, Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, and Peter Elliott, Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne;

Fr Vincent Lu Ha OP representing the Master of the Order of Preachers Fr Bruno Cadoré, with several other Dominicans including Fathers Kevin Saunders OP, Prior Provincial of the Order of Preachers in Australia, Anthony Walsh OP, Prior of Sydney, Martin Grandinger OP, Prior of Vienna, and Richard Finn OP, Novice Master of England;

Very Rev. Peter Williams, Administrator of the Diocese of Parramatta;

Vicar General Gerry Gleeson of the Archdiocese of Sydney, Business Manager Mr Michael Digges, and several chancery staff;

Fellow priests and religious, beloved family members, friends and fellow pilgrims, who have travelled from Australia, the United States, Britain, Germany and Italy for this celebration:

Last December Pope Francis received a rather unusual Christmas gift. A Swiss company, Eurolactis, which sells donkey's milk here in Italy, gave the Holy Father two donkeys, Thea and Noah. The Pope received them with delight and they now live at his summer residence, Castel Gandolfo. A native of Argentina, the Pope waxed nostalgic about being fed donkey's milk as a child.
 

 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/pope-francis-likes-donkey-milk-gifts-article-1.2035366
Agricultural animals often feature in our Christian tradition. In our Christmas scene we see ox and ass (cf. Is 1:3) and at the Presentation two turtle doves (Lk 2:24). In His preaching Jesus also talked of “birds of the air”, “fish of the sea” and “the fatted calf”, of swine, camels, goats, cattle and dogs, of foxes, snakes and sparrows, of sheep and lambs.
 

On 21 January earlier this year, in a 500 year old tradition, on the feast of St Agnes, Pope Francis blessed two lambs. One was carried into the church of St Agnes Outside the Walls in a basket with white flowers, the other with red flowers. The colours represent the virginity and martyrdom of St Agnes. These lambs were then cared for until they could be shorn and the lambs wool woven into the pallia that were left overnight last night on the tomb of St Peter which we visited earlier in our pilgrimage and which the Pope blessed in today's Mass.

 
So, amongst the many things that we have learnt about the pallium this week, one is, as Pope Benedict XVI taught, that the lamb's wool is signifies the God who took on a human nature so as to be both Good Shepherd and Lamb of Sacrifice. As Good Shepherd He seeks out the lost lamb, and carries fallen humanity home on His shoulders. As the Lamb of Sacrifice He gives His all so that the lambs may live and the sheep be nourished. His last words to Peter were to lead the lambs and feed the sheep, as He had done.

And so the pallium becomes a chain of office and responsibility: indeed, in its shape it resembles a yoke placed over the shoulders of a beast of burden. “Come to me all you who labour and are heavy burdened,” said the Lord, “and I will give you rest: for my yoke is easy, my burden light.” (Mt 11:28-9) Christ's easy yoke is placed upon those who receive the pallium. It is His will that I be yoked by sweet but demanding friendship with Him, yoked with the responsibility for a flock and a province of dioceses. I am to serve the Lord by carrying His lambs on my shoulders and leading his sheep back to Him.

Archbishops share their prefix with the archangels. Angels are, of course, spiritual creatures given particular jobs to do in the service of God and humanity; bishops are spiritual-material creatures who also serve God and humanity. Archangels are given particularly big jobs to do, like fighting the devil and persuading humanity to accept the Incarnation; archbishops are likewise given big jobs to do, some large or historic patch on which to take on the Devil – evil in all its forms – and lead humanity to the glory of the Incarnation. In Fra Angelico's brilliant art, which we saw in the Nicholas V Chapel of the Vatican and on the ceiling of Orvieto Cathedral, archangels are distinguished from ordinary angels by having especially spectacular, multi-coloured wings; now I have my own little woolly costume to prove my own new responsibility.

The word pallium has a common stem with words such as funeral pall and palliative nursing – all are from the mediaeval Latin “to cloak”. This past week on our pilgrimage we've explored the history and meaning of the pallium:
• as a cloak of philosophers and so a sign of the Christian desire to unite faith and reason
• as a chain of office and a yoke marking the duty of the bearer to give himself completely for his Lord and his people
• as a sign from the pope of particular closeness to the great archdioceses and their bishops
• as a sign of unity between the local churches and the Church of Rome and between the metropolitan archdioceses and the suffragan dioceses
• as a veil like the Eucharist both concealing and revealing sacred mysteries
• as a woollen symbol of the Good Shepherd's task to carry the lost lambs on his shoulders and of the Lamb of Sacrifice to offer himself in place of those lambs, and
• as a cloak telling of the Archbishop's duty to wrap himself around his people living and dead, with prayer and teaching, and to care especially for those who are suffering.
Building on the legacy of my eight predecessors in Sydney, especially of the illustrious Cardinal Pell, I pledge on my pallium to be such a servant of God and His people. We all know that His Eminence has of late been the subject of particularly robust, even hostile, scrutiny, as well as defamations of various kinds, and I want today to repeat the grateful support of the several Metropolitan Archbishops of Australia, and especially of his successor, for all he did as a Church leader in Australia and is still doing as a leader in the Church universal. I have no doubt that biographers and historians will one day conclude that Cardinal Pell has been a hugely consequential figure in the Catholic Church in Australia and the directions it took in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He very significantly influenced its doctrinal and pastoral tone, public profile, political impact and evangelical temper, through columns, speeches and public positions always clear, often provocative, sometimes decisive. His interests have ranged from questions of conscience, climate, professional standards, magisterium, republicanism, refugees, Islam, schools, the new atheism, capitalism and communism, religious liberty, seminaries, tertiary education, youth culture and ministry. That extraordinary range is a tribute to His Eminence's acuity of intellect, breath of reading, depth of faith and boundless energy – of all of which I am in admiration and pray Elisha-like for a half share of this Elijah's spirit as I take on his Sydney pallium.

Sydney is, of course, an easy place to love, if also a big flock to shepherd. While I will leave thanking them individually till tomorrow, let me record how very blessed I am to have excellent collaborators in my chancery, family and order, amongst my fellow clergy, religious and seminarians, my dear personal friends and friends of the Archdiocese, and my colleagues here in Rome. I depend on all of you to keep supporting me, so that I may be the best Metropolitan Archbishop I can be for God and His people.

On the day I was ordained a priest, my father told me the story of how the Christian Brothers at school had encouraged vocations by telling the boys that if they entered the priesthood their parents would go to heaven. I am not sure what you gain if your son becomes a metropolitan archbishop: perhaps the whole family gets to heaven or even all your family and friends on pilgrimage with you for the pallium. That is certainly my hope and prayer. But to all of you now my deepest gratitude and affection. Please pray for me and keep supporting me as I take up this pallium.

1.http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/pope-francis-likes-donkey-milk-gifts-article-1.2035366
2.http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/homilies/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20110629_pallio.html