Chrism Mass 2026
Welcome to everyone who is in St Mary’s Cathedral and those who will view this Mass online.
The Chrism Mass or Mass of the Oils is slated for the morning of Holy Thursday but for pastoral reasons (especially the challenge of distance) it may be celebrated earlier.
And here we are, thank you to priests and people who have travelled to be here. For what we do tonight is truly missionary. The Holy Oils will travel from the Cathedral to every corner of our island state. They will be entrusted to missionary priests sent into a missionary church to serve the missionary people of God.
With these Oils of anointing, our priests will announce the Good News of Jesus Christ—the anointed one who, in himself, fulfilled the prophesy of Isaiah and announced the healing and restorative favour of God.
We celebrate this Mass on the verge of the Easter Triduum—and we do so not because of Holy Thursday or even Good Friday—we do so because of Easter. As St Paul puts it “if Christ has not been raised then our preaching is useless and your believing is useless” (1Cor 15:14).
“The Christian life begins as a community that is gathered at the place of impossibility, the tomb”.[i] The women went to the tomb on Easter morning to pay their respects to the dead, taking with them spices and fresh cloths to properly finish the rushed burial that had taken place in the dusk just before the Sabbath. But something different was found: the tomb was empty and the new life of the Easter people began. On Easter morning defeat and death no longer had the last words. Hope and life reigned because the resurrection of Jesus wrote the definitive chapter of the Good News and set in motion the Christian life of holy living in a holy community. Without the resurrection, we would not sing “O God beyond all praising.” Without the resurrection we could not pray, “We proclaim your death O Lord, and profess your resurrection, until you come again.” The resurrection changes everything. St Paul in his writings constantly returns to this theme: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you” (Rom 8:11).
Tonight, we turn to the Risen Lord, our Redeemer, and ask him to listen to our voice and prayer as with these holy oils the mission of the Risen One continues in this diocese at the ends of the earth.
With each of these Oils: the Oil of the Sick, the Oil of the Catechumens, and the Sacred Chrism we will respond to the Risen Lord’s final injunction: “Go, make disciples, baptise and teach” (cf Mt 28:19-20).
Here in the Archdiocese of Hobart, the ordained priests and priestly people invoke the Holy Spirit of the Risen Lord on these rich oils brought forth from the verdant tree to restore, heal, and safeguard the body, soul and spirit of those who are anointed with the Oil the Sick.
As the Oil of the Catechumens is blessed for the anointing of infants and adults as they journey into our community of faith, the prayer of blessing reminds us that we have a task to spread the Good News and be energetic in inviting people to join us through the RCIA and other programs so that many may rejoice to be born anew and live in the Church of the Risen Lord.
The Sacred Chrism used to anoint in baptism, confirmation, ordination, and the consecration of altars and churches sees us, the church, grow into the stature of the risen Christ.
The Holy Oils tell us what we, the people of the Resurrection, have to do: We have to believe that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, we have to anoint with oil and our love those who are sick, elderly and vulnerable, we have to go and make disciples, and we have to pray for vocations and prompt those whose hands will be anointed as priests and servants of the mysteries of God.
Each of the Holy Oils infused with the Spirit of the Risen Lord sets us on a missionary path.
When the Risen Lord appeared to His disciples, the anointed One anointed them with the breath of his Spirit and sent them out—formed into a holy community—to carry the good news of salvation into the world.
And that mission, with these Holy Oils, is now entrusted to us.
Most Rev. Anthony J Ireland
Archbishop of Hobart
31 March 2026
[i] Peterson, Eugene, Christ Plays in a Thousand Place, Kindle Edition, Location 4428.