Chrism Mass

Bishop Scott Bullock
Homily from the Chrism Mass
Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Rapid City
April 14, 2025

My first opportunity to preside at a Chrism Mass! To be honest, it’s a bit daunting. It’s almost like I’m being taken back to the seminary days when, as a new deacon, we preached to our brothers in the seminary community — a proverbial “tough audience.” Except, this time, it’s the presbyterate in the diocese and you good people. To be honest, I have found you to be a most congenial bunch, including the priests. But, when faced with this task, I need not fear, of course, because the Holy Spirit always gives what we need, especially promised in ordination as a bishop; but even more, because I am given very specific directions about what I am to say at this moment. 

Our ritual tells me and all bishops this, “The bishop speaks to the people and to his priests about priestly anointing, urging the priests to be faithful to their office and calling on them to renew publicly their priestly promises” which they will today renew. So that’s the program.

First, I am to speak about the priestly anointing of all the People of God and then, secondly, the particular anointing and office they have received in response to their priestly promises, which they today renew.  That’s the program.

First, about the priestly anointing of all the people of God. Today’s second reading from the Book of Revelation says this, “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever and ever.” Here is the scriptural basis for the priesthood of all the faithful. 

So to what does this priesthood refer? The Catechism of the Catholic Church relates, “On entering the People of God through faith and Baptism, one receives a share in this people’s unique, priestly vocation: ‘Christ the Lord, high priest taken from among men, has made this new people’s a kingdom of priests to God, his Father.’’ The baptized, by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated to be a spiritual house and a holy priesthood” (CCC 784).

While this text clearly designates “the priesthood of the faithful,” it doesn’t really specify what this priesthood is. The biblical word, hiereus¸ suggests someone who deals with holy things or the holiness of God. So, priesthood then is one who mediates between God, the Holy One, and the people to become holy. To this end, I often think about my mother in her priestly role, perpetually praying the rosary for her family and, as the primary teacher of me and my siblings who would weekly load us rather unenthusiastic children in the car and take us to weekly Mass at St. Joseph Church in Howell, Michigan, where, incidentally, we’ll gather this next week to celebrate my father’s funeral. Her priestly life of taking us to God, I believe, bore fruit! The Chrism Mass, where the Chrism is consecrated for the sake of consecrating Christians in baptism, confirmation, and Holy Orders, is the occasion for all of us to recommit our priestly lives to mediate between God and humanity, between God the Holy One, to take others to God.

Next, the particular anointing and office that our ministerial priests have received in response to their priestly promises, which they today renew. To illustrate this priestly office to which our priests have been anointed, I think of a great mentor of my priesthood, Msgr. Russell Bleich, who died just three months ago at the age of 89 in a care facility in Dubuque, Iowa. Msgr. Bleich was affectionately given the nickname “the Affirminator,” a play on the “Terminator” films, in that he was constantly on the move seeking to encourage people at every moment and to affirm them. 

A story that sheds light on this fine example of priestly anointing, Msgr. Bleich follows: One Saturday morning during Advent, the two of us —  he was pastor, I was associate — were working on our Christmas homilies in our respective offices when the doorbell rang at the rectory. The “Affirminator” was always the quickest one to the door, so I continued my work, though in the background I heard Monsignor’s usual eruption of enthusiasm and joy. Soon, whoever had come to the rectory was gone and we returned to the silence of our preparations. At some point, I headed to the kitchen, maybe for another cup of coffee, and there was Msgr. Bleich, sitting at the kitchen table with his face in his hands, staring down with sadness at an enormous tray of Christmas cookies. He turned to his Associate Pastor and said with sorrow, “Jesus got the cross; we got the cookies.” 

With great sincerity, Fr. Bleich was expressing his deep desire to conform his life to the Crucified One and found a legitimate act of love — the sending of cookies — to be an obstacle to conform his life to the Lord.

Later, Fr. Bleich’s painful battle with bone cancer over the last year became the answer to his heart’s desire — to conform his life to Christ, the Crucified One. It’s a desire I believe was given to him by the Holy Spirit that was poured out in a powerful way on his ordination day back on December 18, 1960, in Rome. But there in that nursing home, that care facility, he remained a powerful priest conformed to Jesus Christ the High Priest, interceding for the world and showing the compassion of Christ to those who were caring for him. In a telephone call to Mgsr. Bleich at Christmas just before his death, he assured me that he was offering his suffering for the fruitfulness of my new episcopal ministry here in South Dakota. He wasn’t messing around. He was living powerfully, purposely, his priesthood, loving God to the end and loving neighbors, including me, by offering himself to the Lord for the sake of others. In a long life of beautiful priestly service, he was never more a priest as he was in his last days.

Now I speak directly to my brother priests, who will soon renew the priestly promises of their ordinations, be it 41 years ago like Fr. Kerry Prendiville, or 25 years ago like Fr. Andrzej Wyrostek, or one year like Fr. Robert Kinyon. Don’t worry Fr. Robert, you will soon not be the newest priest of our diocese. You are all about many important things, day in and day out seeking to be “priests,” anointed to be mediators — connectors — between God and humanity. What Msgr. Bleich taught me, and I hope you as well, now that you know some about him, that our first task is to conform our lives to Jesus, so that we can, in Him, bear our people to the Lord who made them and loves them. So, even in retirement, infirmity, or simply not having what we think we need for ministry, if we continue to join our lives prayerfully to Jesus, he will continue to empower us to be priests. 

First, we strive to become more like Jesus so that we can, in Him, bear the needs of the people of God, most supremely when we do that in that ordained way of Communion, the Holy Eucharist.

So I invite you to pay close attention to the words of the preface of the Eucharistic prayer, which we will pray in just a few minutes, which speaks of you, my brother priests, and your sacred purpose. We are to pray, “They are to renew in his name the sacrifice of human redemption, to set before your children the paschal banquet, to lead your holy people in charity, to nourish them with the word and strengthen them with the Sacraments. As they give up their lives for you and for the salvation of their brothers and sisters, they strive to be conformed to the image of Christ himself and offer you constant witness of faith and love.”

So that prayer makes it clear, doesn’t it? For the fruitfulness of our ministry, we must first go and give up our lives for Jesus and then witness to faith and love and serve Him, most supremely at the altar in works of charity, and a proclamation of Jesus’ gospel, both in your lives and in your works. It’s for this reason that, in the renewal of your priestly promises, you will first resolve to conform yourselves to Christ by denying yourselves and confirming your ordination promises and then resolve to assume the duties of your sacred offices. First, conformed to Jesus — a daily effort—and then dutifully fulfilling your offices of pastoral care — also a daily effort. Your renewal of priestly promises will then be followed by the exercise of the priestly anointing at baptism of all the people, when I will ask you all to bear our priests to the Lord in prayer.  

Finally, the renewal of the priestly promises is completed with this prayer that I will offer, reminding us that Christ himself will help us conform ourselves to him. It is not just a project of personal and spiritual improvement. We pray, “May the Lord keep us all in his charity and lead us all, shepherds and flock, to eternal life.” 

In the end, and daily, let us, brother priests, and the wider body of the priestly people of Christ, rely on the words of the prophet Isaiah, quoted by Jesus in the Gospel, which is also his promise to us, who have taken up his priestly office according to his Divine Will. There Jesus quotes Isaiah saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.”  

You have been anointed for a sacred purpose — to bear the people of God to the Holy One, that they might know the fullness of life of the children of God, the clear will of the one alone who can save us. So, I invite you to rely on that promise. The One who has called you to this life in Christ will give you what you need to fulfill faithfully what is asked of you. And let us never succumb to the lie that we can’t do what the Lord has called us to do. Above all, let us be conformed to him and join in his sacred mission to bear others to the mercy of God. 

May the prayers of the one who perfectly conformed her will to the Father’s, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, go before us, to conform us more closely to her Son Jesus, that our lives might reveal the sacred mission we have all been given share: to bear all we meet to the holy one, Jesus, that great high priest who alone fulfills the longings of every human heart.