At school I never really understood algebra. It made no sense to me that we used letters when we might just as easily have used numbers; that is until I met a friend of mine who worked on designing submarines. He told me that he used a lot of algebra in his work. Why, I asked him? "When we are trying to find an exact number we substitute symbols until discover what precisely the number is". At last algebra made sense to me. We use symbols in our search for truth and nowhere is this more true than in our Sacred Liturgy.

In the opening chapter of his Letter to the Ephesians, St Paul writes that"….God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, before the world was made, chose us, chose us in Christ Jesus".Why? To let us know "the mystery of his purpose, the hidden plan he has so kindly made in Christ from the beginning"[1]

All of us struggle to find words that can express the mystery of God's Being and of his purpose for us. Nevertheless, we are called to transmit the mystery and the message of God to the whole world. Paul tells the Colossians, "I became the servant of the Church when God made me responsible for delivering God's message to you, a message which was hidden for generations and centuries and has now been revealed to his saints".[2]

To fulfil our role as heralds of the mystery of God we use the symbolic language of words and actions. The first reading from the Prophet Isaiah says, "The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me for he has anointed me". The outpouring of oil on the prophet's head symbolised the outpouring of God's Spirit into his messenger's soul.Oil was used to anoint kings and prophets and priests. It was also used to relieve pain and to heal wounds.

What the Prophet had foreseen was now a reality. The mission of the prophet is laid out in detail in this passage from Isaiah.

It is to "Bring good news to the poor, to bind up hearts that are broken; to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord…..to comfort those who mourn."[3]Those who receive this message "will be named priests of the Lord….ministers of our God".[4]

It is no coincidence that it is this passage from the Old Testament that Jesus chooses to read in the synagogue of his home town of Nazareth. Jesus was the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah. The priesthood of Jesus, however, was quite different from the priesthood of the Old Testament.

The Letter to the Hebrews says that Jesus was a priest by "an oath sworn by the one who declared to him, 'The Lord has sworn an oath which he will never retract: you are a priest, and for ever'" [5]

All over the world, bishops will be celebrating this Mass of Chrism at which the oils used in the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders and the Sacrament of the Sick will be blessed.

Jesus of Nazareth has been known for centuries and across the whole world asJesus Christ – "Jesus the Anointed One". We who are believers in Jesus, who accept him as our Saviour, who believe in his message and remember his Passion and celebrate his Resurrection are called Christians because we too are anointed.

We are anointed with Chrism in the Sacrament of Baptism, in the Sacrament of Confirmation and in the Sacrament of Holy Orders. In each of these Sacraments we receive an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. With Isaiah and Jesus, each of us can truthfully say, "The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me".

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that by baptism we become incorporated in Christ. Then it goes on, "for this reason, since they have become sharers in Christ's priestly, prophetic and royal office in their own manner, they are called to exercise the mission which God has entrusted to the Church".[6] Baptism is a vocation! God calls us to be his children and consequently to share the life and ministry of his Divine Son.

The Sacrament of Confirmation adds a new dimension to this vocation. We are called to be Apostles – companions of Jesus, heralds of his message, exhibiting the same concern for the poor, the sick, the disadvantaged, the marginalised and despised members of our society.

The Sacrament of Holy Orders bestows a special gift of the Holy Spirit "which enables the ordained to exercise sacred power in the name and with the authority of Christ for the service of the People of God". [7]St Thomas Aquinas reminds us that "Christ is the true priest, the others being only his ministers".[8]