Homily for the Chrism Mass
St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, Maundy Thursday, 17 April 2025
“Naked and unashamed”—that’s how the Book of Genesis describes our first parents in the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:25). Yet after the Fall and through the rest of the Bible, nakedness is shameful. Gyms and nude beaches might be all very well in Australia, as in ancient Greece and Rome, but for the Jews, public nudity was a symbol of lewdness, slavery, degradation; the word ‘naked’ meant wretched, pitiable, at a very low ebb.[1]
When in St Mark’s Passion a youth flees starkers from the scene of Jesus’ arrest (Mk 14:51-52), it is not merely comic relief in a horror story: it represents profound humiliation, exposure, disillusionment. It is the story of humanity bereft: Adam, naked and ashamed and no longer in communion with God in Eden; subject to Sin, the Flesh and the Devil; in need of salvation. Ecce homo: behold the human being, each of us when we run away from our responsibilities or ideals, sick, sinful, solitary, in fright and flight.
But there came a new Adam. From the high Middle Ages onwards, it was common in representations of the Nativity to paint the Baby Jesus naked. The reasons were straightforward enough. First, because the Renaissance, especially, delighted in the beauty of the human form, in the ability to paint human flesh credibly, and in the innocence and sentimentality of the Madonna and Child. Secondly, because the Gospels themselves relate that Mary had to swaddle the Babe as best she could (Lk 2:7). But most importantly, it was because the mystery depicted was of a very physical reality: that the eternal Word was made flesh, born of a woman, and dwelt among us, like us in all things but sin.[2] “Naked I came from my mother’s womb,” Job said, “and naked I shall return” (Job 1:21), and if this is true for all human beings (cf. Eccles 5:15), then the incarnate God must be just as vulnerable. So the nudity of the Christ-child is a pledge of His full humanity: we profess that for us men and for our salvation God fully assumed our human condition.
At the other end of His life, in the Passion narrative of Holy Week, the body of Christ is again exposed, and not just sacramentally. He’s no longer a helpless babe at His mother’s breast, but a young man in His prime, subject to torture and execution. Crucifixion was designed to be painful but also humiliating. The Gospels relate that the soldiers undressed Jesus to scourge Him mercilessly, again to mock Him with faux royal garb, and a third time to nail Him to the cross before gambling over his garments.[3] Ecce homo: behold the Man (Jn 19:5), the Author of Life brought to the abyss of oblivion, stripped of clothes, dignity, friends, even (so it seemed) His Father-God. Sacred art is rightly coy about these harrowing scenes, but bodily exposure was part of the horror of the Passion, highlighting again how human Jesus was, how vulnerable, and how bodily His sacrifice.[4]
Yet another time Jesus was naked in public. His kinsman John was preaching a baptism of repentance to foreshadow the forgiveness of sins (Lk 3:1-22). When “all the people” were being baptised by him in Jordan, the Sinless One joined them, making holy the waters of Baptism and instituting sacraments that would indeed absolve sins.
The Gospels report a fourth and last occasion on which Jesus was publicly naked. On Easter Day they found His burial garments abandoned in the tomb (Lk 24:12; Jn 20:5-7). Jesus had risen from the dead with the tattoos of His Passion, now “wrapped in light as in a robe” and “covering himself in glory” (Ps 103:1-2; Ex 15:1). Paradise Lost is now restored, and the new Adam walks freely in the Garden with His bride the Church.
The medieval poem, Salve mundi salutare (Hail, salvation of the world), celebrated Christ’s hands, feet and side, His knees, breast and face, wounded in the Passion but glorified in His Resurrection. From here Bach took his moving lines for O sacred head, sore wounded in his Matthew Passion.[5] At the Chrism Masses of recent years, I have considered the place of various parts of Christ’s body and ours in our human and divine life: hands (2016) and feet (2017), mouth (2018) and nose (2021), eyes (2023) and ears (2022) and heart (2019). Each year there’s been some speculation on what will come next! This last time I suggest we contemplate how the whole body is engaged in our lives as disciples and clergy.
Priests of Jesus Christ, by proclaiming the naked truth of the Holy Gospel and offering words of consolation and counsel, you bring faith and comfort to the ears, heads and hearts of your people. In Holy Baptism you immerse their body in the Easter waters that make an end of sin and a new beginning of grace; and you anoint with sweet-smelling oils their forehead, crown and senses that this body might be a Temple of the Holy Spirit. In Holy Confession, you lay hands of absolution on the heads of sinners making them saints.
In Holy Confirmation, Holy Orders and Holy Unction hands are again laid and bodies anointed, that they might be inspired by the Spirit, conformed to Christ the Priest, or readied for eternal life. In Holy Matrimony the words you witness are enfleshed and consummated by bodily acts of love-making and life-giving. And at Holy Communion you lay in the hands or on the tongues of the faithful the very Body of Christ, dressed now in the accidents of bread—His flesh and blood, humanity and divinity, given for us as spiritual nourishment, journey food and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.
In all these moments earth meets heaven, the visible realm is joined to the invisible, when at your hands the bodies of the faithful receive graces for their souls. Your priesthood makes present Christ sent to the poor, blind and captive who are all the faithful (Isa 61:1-9), unites their souls to Him, and prepares their bodies to be glorified like His risen body.
Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ, fully human, fully divine!
Word of Thanks after the Chrism Mass
My thanks to you, dear brothers, who renewed your priestly vows today and daily renew that commitment to God and His people. The oils we consecrated highlight your daily work and, on behalf of the Church of Sydney, I thank you for that service. Those oils will be available for collection after Mass at the entrance to the sacristy near the Eastern doors. My thanks to Fr Ben Saliba serving for his first time as MC for the Chrism Mass, to the deacons, seminarians and choir. I am grateful also to those faithful who joined us today physically or virtually, and who join their priests in celebrating the sacraments all year round. May God bless you, dear fathers, and your people in the Sacred Triduum ahead, throughout Eastertide and beyond. See you at lunch!
[1] e.g. Gen 3:7,10-11,21; 9:20-29; 2Sam 6:20; Isa 3:17; 20:2-4; 47:3; Hos 2:3; Amos 2:16; Ezek 16:37-39; Hab 2:15; Mic 1:11; Nah 3:5. The Israelites are encouraged to cover up and to clothe those who are naked: Isa 58:6-7; Job 22:6; 24:7,10; cf. Mt 25:36,43.
[2] Mt 1:25; 2:11; Lk 1:31-35; 2:6-7,16; Jn 1:14; Gal 4:4-5; Phil 2:6-8; Heb 4:15.
[3] Mt 27:26,28-31,35; Mk 15:15,17-20,24; Lk 23:11,53; Jn 19:1-5, 23-25; cf. Ps 22:18.
[4] Isa 53:5; Rom 3:25; Eph 1:7; 1 Pet 1:18–19; Heb 2:17; 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10.
[5] Johann Sebastian Bach, “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” from Matthäus-Passion (BWV 244).
Introduction to the Chrism Mass – St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, Maundy Thursday, 17 April 2025
Welcome to St Mary’s Basilica for this year’s Chrism Mass, as we begin our journey with Christ through His Sacred Triduum to Easter glory. Today, with the assistance of the deacons and the People of God, the bishops and priests of Sydney will demonstrate their unity with one another and with those we serve by concelebrating the Eucharist together, renewing their priestly promises, and consecrating the oils for the sacraments.
I acknowledge Bishops Richard Umbers, Danny Meagher and Terry Brady. I salute Vicar-General Sam Lynch, our episcopal vicars, deans, brother priests and deacons, and fellow religious. I also greet lay faithful from our parishes.
We pray especially for those who could not be with us today due to sickness and frailty, and greet any joining us by live-streaming. And we pray for the repose of our brother priests who have died since our last Chrism Mass: Bishop Peter Ingham, Monsignors John Usher and Vince Redden, Fathers Antony Brennan, Terence Bowman MSC, David Coffey, James Duggan SSC, Paul Jennings MSC, Christopher Murphy MSC, John O’Neill CSsR, Arthur Stidwell MSC, Kevin Tuitu’u CP and Don Willoughby.
We celebrate with gratitude those priests who have achieved major milestones in their ministry: our 70th anniversary priest, Bishop David Cremin, and our 65th Monsignor Kerry Bayada; our diamond jubilarians, Mgr Frank Coorey and Fathers Jim Boland, Bob Stephens and Hugh Thomas CSsR; our golden boys, Michael Anghel, Paul Hilder and Paul Van Chu; our ruby jubilarians John Crothers, John Hodgson CSsR, Bill Milsted and Peter Smith; and our silver souls, Deacons Louis Azzopardi and Frank Zacka, and Fathers Gabriel Ballawig, Dominic Dinh, Peter Krigovsky, Ruben Mandin MI and Michael Smith.
We acknowledge with joy the five shepherds ordained since our last Chrism Mass: Fathers Charbel Boustany FFI, Alejandro Giraldo, Adrian Suyanto, Nonie Tiburan and Likisone Tominiko. We also welcome our beloved seminarians from the Seminary of the Good Shepherd and the Redemptoris Mater Seminary, looking forward to the day when they will join us in renewing priestly vows. We give thanks to Almighty God for giving us increase in vocations in recent years and ask that He continue to grant us many fellow-workers in His vineyard.
To everyone present, a very warm welcome to you all.
