Wisdom 3:1-9; Romans 14:7-12; Matthew 25:31-46
Many years ago we were baptised: none of us is a neophyte. I presume you have no recollection of your Baptism; neither do I. But I know what happened right at the start. The priest came towards us, thumb at the ready, and pronounced these words: “I claim you for Christ our Saviour by the sign of his Cross. I now trace the Cross on your forehead and invite your parents and godparents to do the same”. And that’s what happened: the priest and your parents and godparents marked you with the sign of the Cross on your forehead.
That Cross was like branding a sheep. I brand my sheep to say that it’s mine; and once the brand is there, nothing and no-one can remove it. Similarly, the brand of Jesus upon us at Baptism says that we belong to him, not just for the time being but into eternity, “whether alive or dead”, as St Paul says.
Our belonging to Jesus, “Lord of the dead and of the living”, was sealed in Confirmation when once again the sign of the Cross was traced on our forehead as the celebrant said, “Be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit”. The breath of God was breathed into us anew, so that our belonging to the Lord became an astonishing union of life.
To live within the Order of Malta is a way of living our baptismal call, our belonging to the Lord proclaimed by the white Cross we wear. Yet life in the Order will be little more than theatre and the white Cross little more than decoration unless we show forth the sign that we do in fact belong to the Lord. That sign is the obsequium pauperum which has been the vocation of the Order for a very long time – service of those who are, as Jesus says in the Gospel, hungry, thirsty, foreign, naked, sick, imprisoned. We belong to them because we belong to the Lord; we recognise him in them. In serving them, we serve him. If that is true, then the Order is very much more than theatre and the white Cross very much more than decoration. They go to the heart of the Church’s mission in the world.
By this criterion the Order and each individual member will be judged when, as St Paul says, “we shall have to stand before the judgement seat of God”. The judge will ask: How truly have you given yourselves to the obsequium pauperum? Have you lived as those who belong to the Lord or as those who have disowned him who never disowns us, living or dead? Have you failed to recognise the Lord who always recognises us, living or dead?
These questions become a commission to those who are invested as members of the Order of Malta in this fiftieth year of the Order’s presence in this land. They join a host of others who, like them, have said yes in Australia and around the world, committing themselves to tuitio fidei et obsequium pauperum, which require each other and are in the end two parts of the one thing.
Today these new members look back to their Baptism when Christ crucified and risen claimed them for himself; they say yes to that claim and the sacrifice it entails. With the souls of all the faithful departed, they look forward beyond the sacrifice to the new Jerusalem where they will at last be at peace because “God will wipe away every tear…and death shall be no more” (Rev 21:4). May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in the peace of Easter. Amen.