Given on 27th November 2024 at the Beda College in Rome for the Mass of Candidacy.
My brothers,
This evening, I am very pleased to celebrate the Mass of Candidacy when you will be formally accepted as candidates for holy orders. You have placed your trust in the Lord and offered yourself for service in your dioceses. The bishop has accepted that offering. Since your baptism – the gateway to heaven - the Holy Spirit has been prompting you to grow in love of Christ and your neighbour. You are now responding to the call of Jesus who loves you and has fixed his gaze on you. He calls you in the depths of your heart to be with him and sent by him as a deacon and priest to serve the mission of the Church. We thank God.
You will now continue your discernment and deepen your life as a disciple who is configured to Christ so that you may soon present yourself for holy orders. Candidacy places you in a new and deeper relationship with your bishop and the local church. Christ is found incarnate in the local church in particular times and places. Grow in your capacity to see God in the details and moments of each day. In the words of the Psalm, always sing a new song to the Lord for he has worked wonders. Give glory to God and thanks for the wonder of his holy works.
May you grow each day through prayer and the sacraments to live Christ’s invitation more deeply and deepen your faith, hope and love in him. The Eucharist the ‘highway to heaven’ (to quote Blessed Carlo Acutis). The call to holy orders is a call to follow Christ in humble simplicity. Pray for the gift of freedom so that you can embrace the call to celibacy for this ministry and life. As Saint Pope Paul VI wrote,
And so the free choice of sacred celibacy has always been considered by the Church “as a symbol of, and stimulus to, charity”: [1] it signifies a love without reservations; it stimulates to a charity which is open to all. In a life so completely dedicated and motivated, who can see the sign of spiritual narrowness or self-seeking, and not see rather that celibacy is and ought to be a rare and very meaningful example of a life motivated by love, by which man expresses his own unique greatness? Who can doubt the moral and spiritual richness of such a life, consecrated not to any human ideal, no matter how noble, but to Christ and to His work to bring about a new form of humanity in all places and for all generations? (Sacerdotalis caelibatus 24)
The call to celibacy is a call to love generously and without limits in the service of others. There is no room for entitlement or status.
At the end of Church’s year, the readings focus the hope of heaven which we hold in our hearts. They resonate deeply with a life lived close to the basilica of Saint Paul's Outside the Walls. When Jesus speaks of persecution, imprisonment, and the opportunity to bear witness, we can think immediately of Saint Paul’s passion and zeal to preach the gospel of Christ in season and out of season. In the life of Saint Paul, we hear how the Risen Christ loved him, called him and led him through the power of the Holy Spirit to find ways to proclaim Christ in the Areopagus in Athens and later as a prisoner in Rome. In his death, he witnesses to the paschal mystery and the triumph of God who promises eternal life to those who are faithful: ‘Your endurance will win you your lives.’
The first reading presents the great vision in heaven of the saints who sing a new song to the Lord. They have fought against the Beast and conquered evil, suffering and death. At their baptism, their names were written on the heart of Jesus; they were called the beloved of the Lord, and now rejoice in their glory.
The witness of the martyrs venerated in the basilicas and the churches that you have visited, here and abroad, inspires and encourages you to continue to run the race to the finish, whatever the cost. St. Thomas Aquinas presents a vision of joy in heaven, ‘eternal life consists of the joyous community of all the blessed, a community of supreme delight, since everyone will share all that is good with all the blessed. Everyone will love everyone else as himself, and therefore will rejoice in another’s good as in his own. So it follows that the happiness and joy of each grows in proportion to the joy of all.’ (Office of Readings, Week 33 Saturday). Hold this hope deeply in your hearts.
A short distance from here, at Tre Fontane, where the beheading of Saint Paul is venerated, we also find the humble and simple monastery of Saint Charles de Foucauld. There you see the artefacts which reveal his life of simplicity, prayer, poverty and love of the Eucharist. His witness also inspires you to grow in surrender to the Will of God. It seems appropriate to conclude with the prayer of St Charles de Foucauld,
Father, I abandoned myself into your hands. Do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you. I am ready for all. I accept all. That only your will be done in me and in all your creatures. I wish no more than this, Oh Lord. Into your hands I commend my soul. I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands without reserve, for I love you, Lord, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father. Amen.
Bishop John Sherrington
[1] Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, no. 42: AAS 57 (1965), 48 [TPS X, 388].