VATICAN - During the Chrism Mass Benedict XVI underlines that “to serve means closeness, but it means above all obedience”

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “Every year the Chrism Mass urges us to repeat that 'yes' to God's call which we said on the day of our priestly Ordination”. With these words the Holy Father began his homily during the Chrism Mass in St Peter's Basilica in the morning of Holy Thursday 20 March. The Pope posed two questions to the cardinals, bishops and priests participating in the Liturgy: “To what did we say ‘yes’? What is this ‘being a priest of Jesus Christ?”. The Pontiff replied with the words of Second Canon in the Missal, ‘adstare coram te et tibi ministrare’, that is ‘to stand before the Lord and serve Him, the “duties which define the essence of the priestly ministry”.
First of all Benedict XVI recalled that ‘stand' and “gaze at Him, be there for Him ”, means a life in close contact with the presence of God, to which the priest of the Old Covenant was also called: “As the others cultivated the land, from which the priest also lived, so he kept the world open to God, he had to live with his gaze on him.”. Today this ‘adstare’ the Holy Father says means, “being before the Lord present, that is, it indicates the Eucharist as the centre of priestly life”. “ the priest- the Pontiff continued underlining the aspect of ‘being’ -must be on the watch. He must be on his guard in the face of the imminent powers of evil. He must keep the world awake for God. He must be the one who remains standing: upright before the trends of time. Upright in truth. Upright in the commitment for good. Being before the Lord must always also include, at its depths, responsibility for humanity to the Lord, who in his turn takes on the burden of all of us to the Father. And it must be a taking on of him, of Christ, of his word, his truth, his love. The priest must be upright, fearless and prepared to sustain even offences for the Lord, as referred to in the Acts of the Apostles: they were "rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name" (5: 41) of Jesus"”.
To this is added [following on] the second part of the Second Canon, ‘serve’, which, in the newness of Christian worship, is what happens in a special way, during the celebration of the Eucharist, “to serve, to fulfil a service to God and a service to humanity. The cult that Christ rendered to the Father was the giving of himself to the end for humanity. Into this cult, this service, the priest must insert himself.”. In this sense Benedict XVI stressed the importance of the Liturgy: “We must learn to increasingly understand the sacred liturgy in all its essence, to develop a living familiarity with it, so that it becomes the soul of our daily life”. And if the Liturgy is fundamental for the priest, prayer must be a “primary reality to be learned ever anew and ever more deeply at the school of Christ and of the Saints of all the ages.”.
Since to serve means closeness it requires familiarity and the Holy Father warned priests of the risk of falling into routine: “We must ceaselessly struggle against this becoming accustomed to the extraordinary reality, against the indifference of the heart, always recognizing our insufficiency anew and the grace that there is in the fact that he consigned himself into our hands. To serve means to draw near, but above all it also means obedience. The servant is under the word: "not my will, but thine, be done".’”. Adam's sin consisted precisely in the fact that he wanted to accomplish his own will and not God's. Humanity's temptation is always to want to be totally autonomous, but, as Benedict XVI recalls in this way, “we pit ourselves against the truth. Because the truth is that we must share our freedom with others and we can be free only in communion with them. This shared freedom can be true freedom only if we enter into what constitutes the very measure of freedom, if we enter into God's will. This fundamental obedience that is part of the human being - a person cannot be merely for and by himself - becomes still more concrete in the priest: we do not preach ourselves, but him and his Word, which we could not have invented ourselves. We proclaim the Word of Christ in the correct way only in communion with his Body. Our obedience is a believing with the Church, a thinking and speaking with the Church, serving through her. What Jesus predicted to Peter also always applies: "You will be taken where you do not want to go". This letting oneself be guided where one does not want to be led is an essential dimension of our service, and it is exactly what makes us free. In this being guided, which can be contrary to our ideas and plans, we experience something new - the wealth of God's love.”.
The Pope concluded: “He has descended, and the true ascent of man is now accomplished in our descending with him and toward him. His elevation is the Cross. It is the deepest descent and, as love pushed to the end, it is at the same time the culmination of the ascent, the true "elevation" of humanity. "To stand in his presence and serve him": this now means to enter into his call to serve God. The Eucharist as the presence of the descent and ascent of Christ thus always recalls, beyond itself, the many ways of service through love of neighbour. Let us ask the Lord on this day for the gift to be able to say again in this sense our "yes" to his call: "Here am I! Send me" (Is 6: 8). Amen. ”. (Agenzia Fides 20/3/2008 - righe 55, parole 852)