Mass at Corpus Christi College, Clayton

Mass Celebrated by The Bishops of Victoria and The Archbishop of Hobart
on Thursday, 25th October, 2001, at 12 noon.
Principal Celebrant - Archbishop Denis Hart

Introduction

My dear Friends,

We your bishops rejoice in being with you - members of the Seminary staff, students and friends - as we celebrate Mass with the approach of the end of the 2001 College year.

As we look back on it there will be many reasons for thanksgiving for God's graces, for repentance and amendments for our failures, as well as hope for the future, as you advance towards priesthood.

I invite you to join me as we offer this Mass, bringing these things precisely with your own intentions to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Because the whole of our preparation and priestly life is a continual conversion to the way of Jesus Christ, so that we may be on fire with his love, let us call to mind our sins.

Homily

"I have come to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were blazing already! There is a baptism I must still receive and how great is my distress until it is over." (Luke 12:49.50)

Dear Friends,

As we rejoice in being together we are thankful for the work of the Seminary through yet another year. Pope John Paul invites us to be part of the central thrust of the whole Church for the new millennium; beginning with our study and contemplation of Christ in our Seminary years, and indeed for the rest of our life, and sustained by constant prayer, we are invited to be the apostles of the new evangelisation. A challenge, which invites us all "to launch out into the deep" (Luke 5:4), to go further than we ever imagined, by entrusting ourselves to the Lord. In today's Gospel Jesus spoke of the fire of his own life, which would be demonstrated so profoundly on the Cross. The image which Saint John of the Cross uses to describe our contact with the fire of God's love, which is adapted by Father Ken Barker in his new book, Becoming Fire, is helpful for us to use as a yardstick at this stage in our Seminary journey. He uses this comparison -

When you pick up a damp log from the wood heap and take it inside and throw it on the fire, you may notice some spiders come out because of the heat. In the same way, when we first make contact with the fire of God's love we are delivered of the evil spirits that may have had some access to us. Next you may notice that the log on fire begins to ooze as it is being dried out. This reminds us of our need for repentance as the fire of the Spirit shows us areas in our lives where we need to break with sin in all its ugliness. Then you may see that the log actually ignites. This is the time of growing commitment to the ways of God and growing personal loving relationship with the Lord. We are actually on fire with God's love. This may be compared to the early stages of our Seminary training.

Yet, there is still a further stage. Returning to the log, after a long time of being penetrated with the fire, you notice that it is no longer easy to differentiate between the log and the fire; they are one. This is when you have become fire. This is the aim of the spiritual life and it is not attained quickly nor easily because it is union with God.

Notice from the image that it is all God's work. The fire of his love is active within us, winning us to himself, purifying us of sin, inspiring us to greatness, empowering us for holiness, overwhelming us and consuming us. Unlike a piece of log though we need to be actively co-operating with his action in our lives and doing all we can to allow him to have his way with us." (Becoming Fire, Father Ken Barker, Pp. 2-3)

The fire of God's love shone in Jesus, even though he shrank from the baptism of the Cross, which would bring our salvation. He readily embraced it because it was the Father's Will and it was the salvation of people. We too, as seminarians, priests and bishops, face a similar challenge. As the fire consumes the log, we are to be victims to give life for others.

One of the greatest dangers of a long Seminary course, followed by a celibate life, is that we tend to become preoccupied with ourselves, with our comfort zone and with what we believe we can achieve. We might well ask ourselves; do we leave enough room for God to set us on fire, because being on fire with God's love means we will give ourselves totally and generously; our time, our liberty, to others that they may be caught with the wonder of God's love. This is my first point.

Saint Gregory the Great said, "Our Lord sent his disciples out to preach two by two, tacitly implying that the man who has no love for others should by no means take on himself the duty of preaching because he follows in the wake of those preaching, since preaching paves the way and then Our Lord himself comes to make his dwelling place in our hearts."

My final point is to return to the comparison of the log becoming fire. Our vocation is total and we need to trust Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. He was filled with the fire of love of his Father and yet humanly he shrank from being submerged in the baptism - the great and terrible experience of the Cross, which he willingly fulfilled nevertheless because of his love of his Father and his love of us.

Here is the challenge - to take the risk, to be generous, to go on being reckless because of the love of Christ which impels us, his fire which we are called to become.

Father M. D. Molinie, a French Dominican priest and author, makes an unusual comparison:
"If you don't mind I would like to say that Our Lord is like a dentist. Many people go to him to be cured of some secret vice that they are ashamed of and that obviously spoils their daily life. Our Lord will cure them, but he won't stop there. Perhaps that is all that you and I require of him; but once you have called on him to help he will give you the full treatment."

Let us be generous, even reckless in embracing the fire of love that Jesus offers us. We will be challenged, but we will be transformed and we will be given a happiness and an effectiveness in his service far greater than we ever dreamed. That is the Lord's invitation for us today.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.