Archbishop of Sydney

Third Sunday of Lent

North American College, Rome
Ex 3:1-8, 13-15; 1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12; Lk 13:1-9

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
11/3/2007

Let me begin by thanking the Rector for the invitation to celebrate this community Mass and preside at the institution of acolytes, those who assist officially at sacred worship.  More basically this opportunity enables me to express gratitude for the hospitality offered to Australian students here at the College and for the quality and care given in the programme of formation.

On this Sunday we have good readings, rich in significance for this Lenten time and for those taking another step towards ordination to the ministerial priesthood.  The two New Testament readings are blunt and explicit, but no worse for that.

All of us, priests, seminarians, acolytes-in-waiting should be deeply aware that we belong to an ancient tradition, possibly the most ancient continuing tradition of worship and it is worship of the one true God.  I am not sure whether any of the Hindu writings go back beyond Moses or Abraham.  Certainly Buddha and Mahomet do not.

Last Sunday in my Cathedral in Sydney we too had the reading about Abraham, our father in faith, who probably lived (I am told) 1850 years before Christ.  We remembered him as a successor community in God’s chosen people on the other side of the world, at the ends of the earth for Jews or Europeans.

Today we hear about the encounter of Moses, the lawgiver about 600 years later, with the one true God in the miracle of the burning bush and we remember Moses here in the centre of Christianity, in the Church community founded by Peter and Paul, Rome the capital of the ancient world.  Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit palaeontologist and theologian, controversial and probably a bit wobbly if not heretical, who came into prominence when I was a seminarian, spoke of the axis of hominisation passing through Rome.  This is a helpful and illuminating image.

We are all playing small, hopefully significant parts in this millennial chain of witnesses, service and worship.  We too are the children of witnesses, beneficiaries of the work of generations of good priests, followers too of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The burning bush, blazing but not burnt-up is a beautiful image of God’s love for us. God is love, but God is also transcendent, radically other than us, as we learn when He explains to Moses “I am who I am”, a definition for the metaphysicians as well as the theologians.

We come to this invisible and silent God through the life and teaching of Jesus Christ his Son and this conviction about the importance of God, this openness to the Transcendent, this approach to Mystery, THE Mystery must be at the heart of all our sacramental celebrations, and especially at the Mass, the Eucharist.  Assisting at the sacraments and even more so as celebrants we too are on holy ground, immersed in sacred space and time, joined to the unique sacrifice of God’s Son. It is very easy for repetition to dull this awareness.

In her wisdom Holy Mother Church marks the approach to priestly ordination by a series of stages.  Being instituted as an acolyte is one of these.  Life as a seminarian, especially here in Rome can become very congenial. We get caught up in the routine of college and university life.  Seminary life has changed even in my life time.  As an old Monsignor complained to me 20 or 30 years ago.  In his days seminaries meant night prayers and lights out; now, he claimed (wrongly I’m sure) it’s light prayers and nights out.

A ceremony such as this institution should cause all seminarians, and especially the acolytes, to stop, think and renew their commitment to priesthood.  It is not merely a question of deciding to continue, but of continuing to decide what sort of priest you want to be.

Many seminarians and priests, especially the Roman trained, are often adept at estimating and evaluating priests, bishops and cardinals. Done privately and in charity this can be helpful.  With a couple of priests I encountered I resolved that the mistakes they were making would not be my mistakes as a priest.  I will give only one example.

I remember the provincial of a religious order once announcing on television that he did not know where the battlefield for the Church was at that time.  I resolved then and there that if I ever came to such a sad conclusion, I would not announce it publicly.

Paul told his Corinthian congregation that the man who thinks he is safe must be careful that he does not fall.  And your generation of priests in North America, as I have also explained to the seminarians in Australia where the situation is similar, bears a special responsibility to avoid failure.  Our Churches cannot afford another generation of public scandals such as we have suffered.  Not because of the financial consequences, which are grave, but because of the damage done to the victims because of their suffering and the damage done to their faith and the faith of the people.

Paul also pointed out that the Jewish people in the exodus were guided by a cloud, passed through the sea and were nourished by the same spiritual food and drink.  But many failed to please God and their corpses littered the desert.

The unusual conjunction of items in Luke’s gospel today, and they are only found in Luke, have a similarly cheerful message.  The sudden deaths of those slaughtered by Herod and killed by the collapse of the Siloam tower from the original Temple wall were not caused by their sins; but their unexpected deaths are a reminder of the obligation to repentance.

And the fig tree too, which was not bearing fruit, was given twelve months to do better.  If this did not eventuate, it was then to be cut down.  Neither Paul nor Jesus were politically correct.

Please God you will always remain priests who are spiritually productive.  I am not talking about careers, success in the eyes of the world, popularity with your people, but about regular workers in the Kingdom, priests who will serve the lay people and religious and encourage them to contribute too.  And another thing: no priest can really do God’s work without regular prayer.

It is much easier to pray in a seminary than in a busy parish and one good check is to see how you pray during the vacation times, or your weekends away from the College.  Without prayer there is little fruit even for hard workers.  Praying the official prayer of the Church is an obligation, not an ideal.

But the Lord is kind and merciful, always and also to his priests.  He forgives us and will heal all of us of our ills, provided we ask him to do so.

“For as the heavens are high above the earth. So strong is his love for those who fear him”.  May the good God be with you all, now and in the years ahead.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.