Given at the Ordination to the Diaconate of David Cherry on the Feast of St David, 1st March 2022
My brother David,
This evening we celebrate the ordination to your diaconate on the Feast of St. David. The memory of Dewi Sant lives on in the lives and people of Wales celebrating their national patron today and in the paths of the pilgrims who travel to the little cathedral town of St David’s in Pembrokeshire to offer their prayers. In medieval times the pilgrimage route to St David’s was as important a destination as Santiago di Compostella in Spain. In 1123 Pope Calixtus II declared that two pilgrimages to St David’s were the equivalent of one to Rome and three to Jerusalem. Thousands of pilgrims from the humblest through to Kings such as William the Conqueror and Henry II made their way to the small city in remote west Wales. I hope you will find solace in that holy place.
Much has been handed to us in tradition about St David. His veneration though the centuries and his reputation for holiness stands as a witness that he is ‘salt of the earth’ and ‘light to the world’, so that seeing his good works we may give praise with all the saints to our Father in heaven (cf Mt 5:13-16). The life of St David and the other Welsh saints made the Church in Wales and beyond through their missionary activity flourish, known and be loved. We stand on the shoulders of the saints that we too may hand on what we have received with fidelity and through perseverance under the power of the Holy Spirit.
Tradition tells us that both the parents of St David were Welsh royalty. We know his mother was named St Non, the chapel marking St David’s birthplace stands on a rugged hilltop outside St David’s in Pembrokeshire. Close by is a holy well which I remember visiting as a child on holiday and which fascinated me. Rhygyvarch, the Bishop of St David’s, writing in the late eleventh century tells us that David studied under Paulinus of Wales who in turn, is said to have received teaching from St Germanus of Auxerre. St Germanus, you will recall, was sent by Pope Celestine I to combat Pelagianism amongst the clergy in England. Hilaire Belloc writes in his poem The Pelegian Drinking Song,
Then came the bishop of old Auxerre
Germanus was his name
He tore great handfuls out of his hair
And he called Pelagius shame.
And with his stout Episcopal staff
So thoroughly whacked and banged
The heretics all, both short and tall –
They rather had been hanged.
Sharp episcopal disciplines needed at that time! In another reminder of the need for God’s protection, St Germanus on his journey home prayed at the shrine of St Alban asking for his safe passage.
More seriously, from this fragment of St David’s history and the combat of St Germanus against Pelagianism, we learn that the desire to be self-sufficient and full of self-will is an ever-present temptation. Pope Francis gives a sharp warning of this danger in Gaudete et Exultate 47, they ‘ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style’. We are reminded to be humble in the service of obedience to the bishop and the Church, and that we stand in need of God’s grace and mercy. Obedience in diaconate is also a call to being available to serve generously and ‘to do the little things’ with love.
St David was a monk, a man of deep prayer, who lived a harsh, ascetical and simple life refraining from eating meat and drinking beer in the monastic tradition influenced by St Anthony of Egypt and St John Cassian. Prayer, fasting, and penance equipped him for the task of spreading the gospel in difficult conditions and harsh times, as they will equip you. As a servant of prayer, the Divine Office and your personal prayer will nourish you. They will help you lead the Universal Prayer of the Church uniting the needs of God’s holy people and presenting them to the Father.
In the first reading, St Paul writes, ‘For him, Christ, I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him’. He recognises that he is utterly dependent on the grace of God and being not yet perfect ‘still running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me… and racing for the finish’. Remember that you are called to a simple life so that you can witness to people that you place Christ at the centre of life to be with him. The commitment to celibacy is a sign of your service to Christ and his Church. The sacrifice this entails requires you to keep your mind and heart focused on Christ and the mission to which you are called. May the commitment of celibacy give you the freedom to be at the service of the poor.
St David preached the faith in Wales, to the tribes in Cornwall and parts of Devon, and in Brittany. When you proclaim the gospel and break open the Word of God in preaching and teaching, be mindful of how this was passed onto St David and through his mission he evangelised the peoples of his time. Recall that you stand as a deacon, a servant of the Word, in the faithful tradition of the holy deacons, including Ss Stephen, Lawrence, Philip the Deacon and Vincent of Zaragoza, the proto-martyr of Spain. As you send people out at the end of Mass, saying, ‘Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord’, be mindful of how God’s holy people are a leaven in the world and that your preaching is to be the food which will encourage them and help them serve their mission in the world.
As a deacon you are called to serve the good of peace and unity in the community. In the greeting at the Sign of Peace, you invite God’s holy people gathered around the altar in the words, ‘Let us offer each other the sign of peace’. In this gesture, we share the peace of Christ with one another, symbolised in tradition with the Pax, or ‘Pax Board’, dating from the Middle Ages being handed from the celebrant to the deacon and then so to others. This sign reminds us that we commit ourselves to overcome division and foster the love of Christ and neighbour in the community. We rely again on the grace of God.
Finally, as a servant of the liturgy, you serve the holiness of the liturgy, mostly in silence but always in presence. You hold the chalice for the Doxology of the Eucharistic Prayer as a sign of sacrifice to share in the Blood of Christ. Unite yourself with his sufferings and the sufferings of his Body, the Church, to deepen the service to which you are called. Today we unite with the sufferings of the people of Ukraine.
In the words of St David, ‘Be joyful, be faithful and do the little things.’ As Pope Benedict said in Westminster Cathedral when he blessed the icon of St David, ‘It is the little things that reveal our love for the one who loved us first (cf 1 Jn 4:19) and that bind people into a community of faith, love and service.’
Bishop John Sherrington
Photo: Pope Benedict blessing mosaic of St David in Westminster Cathedral during his visit to the UK in 2010 (CBCEW.org.uk)