Given at the Mass of ordination of Deacon Adams Tatsidjodoung to the Priesthood on Saturday 12th November 2022 at the Church of Our Lady Immaculate and St Andrew, Hitchin
Among the most persecuted people in the world today are the followers of Jesus Christ, Christians. This persecution happens in many places and takes many different forms: personal mockery, social exclusion, violence. But it is true. Maybe this should not surprise us, as this is the path laid out before us by our Lord and Master.
Yet today an entirely different characteristic of our discipleship comes to the fore: not the prospect of persecution but joy, sheer joy. In this ceremony of the ordination to the priesthood of Brother Adams we show so very clearly that our lives as followers of Jesus are characterised by joy. Joy pervades every word and every moment of this ordination, just as can touch us every day of our lives.
The source of this joy is vividly expressed in the Psalm we have just recited: ‘I will sing for ever of your love, O Lord!’
Yes, being embraced by the unfailing love of the Lord brings joy to every day, to every darkness. Always we may repeat: ‘You are my Father, my God, the rock who saves me.’
This joy, this response of our hearts to the unfailing love of the Lord, can give shape to our lives. It is the message we bring into this world. As the Prophet Isaiah has said: ‘He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to bind up hearts that are broken; to proclaim liberty to captives.’
By baptism this is our task, our calling. We are to be heralds of the Gospel of joy wherever we happen to be: at home, at work, in leisure or in distress. This is our privilege for we are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people set apart to sing the praises of God’, as St Peter himself tells us.
Indeed, even the words of the Gospel apply to every one of the baptised: ‘The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into his harvest’. So here we are, a church full of labourers, sent out into the world to find the harvest of goodness that is all around us and to bring it in, into the gathering hall of the church, the ‘barn of God’s harvest’, so that these joyful songs of praise to the Lord of the harvest may be raised in full voice and the riches of the harvest more widely shared.
Now you might be thinking: ‘But all these words apply mainly to the priest. Our job is to support him in his work.’ Yes, they do apply to every priest, and dramatically to Brother Adams today. But they never cease to apply to us all, to each and every one of us.
But now please turn to page 16 of our Mass booklet. There we find important words about what is specific to the ordained priesthood, which takes nothing away from the dignity and calling of every disciple.
There we read:
‘Christ not only adorns with a royal priesthood the people he has made his own (that’s each and every one of us) but with a brother’s kindness he also chooses men to share his sacred ministry through the laying on of hands’.
That is what we do today.
Then, you see, the role, the calling, of the ordained priest is laid out very clearly. He is to renew in Christ’s name ‘the sacrifice of human redemption’, the Mass. He is, thereby, to make ready for us ‘the paschal banquet’, Holy Communion. He is ‘to lead your people in charity’, both in example and initiative. He is to nourish his people with the Word of God, his preaching, and offer before God a ‘constant witness of faith and love’. And, I add, he is to do all this so that you, God’s faithful people, are able to fulfil your calling, every day, without fail.
Brother Adams, shortly to be Father Adams, this is your life, the life ahead of you. This is the life for which you long, which is your response to the joyful love of God you have known since your childhood years of catechesis in your home town of Douala, Cameroon. It is a wonderful calling and an enormous challenge.
And St Paul tells you how to go about sustaining your vocation through all the years of priesthood that, God willing, lie ahead. He puts it very simply: ‘Set yourself close to Christ’.
Set yourself close to him for he is the living stone, the cornerstone, the foundation stone of your life and of all that you will strive to achieve. Apart from him you will do nothing of lasting value. You may gain popularity, but it will not last. You may even gain high office, but it will be no more than a burden if being close to him ceases to be your daily priority. More colloquially, there must be no ‘ego’ in your life other than Jesus. He alone is your source of the service you are to give. He alone is your touchstone and your judge. Do not measure yourself by any other standard other than the one he presents to us: the standard of the Cross.
Today, dear Adams, we all surround you with prayer, with respect, with support, with love in the Lord. We call on your colleagues in your religious family to encourage, guide and sustain you in that fraternal bond which you so cherish. We call on the saints to strengthen you. And we plead with our Heavenly Father to bestow on you a full measure of his Holy Spirit who alone can effect in you today the change, the priesthood, for which we now ask and to which you now solemnly commit yourself.
Amen.
✠Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster