Last Saturday we at Holy Trinity were thrilled to celebrate with Fr John Brownsell on the occasion of him serving fifty years as a priest. Bishop Norman came out of retirement to celebrate the Mass, and a long-standing friend, Fr Jarel Robinson-Brown, gave the homily.
Fr. John was Ordained priest at St. Paul's Cathedral on 30th June 1974, by Bishop Gerald Ellison, the Bishop of London.. It so happened that I was made a Deacon in the same place at the same time, by the same Bishop. Fr John and I knew nothing of each other until he retired to Winchester.
The preacher, Fr Jarel, kindly gave permission for his sermon to be shared.
Here it is:
Holy Mass of Thanksgiving for Fr John Brownsell SSC
on the Golden Jubilee of His Ordination to the Sacred Priesthood
Holy Trinity, Winchester XIII - VII – MMXXIV
Texts: Ephesians 4.1-11; Psalm 115; John 10.11-18
“I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand who is not the Shepherd, and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep.”
The image of the shepherd is an ancient one. Jacob in Genesis declares God as the shepherd of all his life.
In the Book of Revelation, God is the shepherd who guides the souls of the righteous to the springs of the water of life, and that shepherd is one who wipes away all tears from their eyes in that place where death, and pain and sighing are no more (cf. Revelation 21.4).
In the Prophecy of Ezekiel we hear that God has witnessed the shepherds He raised up for His people fail tremendously at being faithful to their task, and God so beautifully intervenes: “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured. I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged.” (cf. Ezekiel 34.15-16).
The scriptures also tell us of a people who experienced God speaking anew to them in their day. “Long ago, God spoke to our ancestors in many and varied ways, through the prophets – but in these last days, he has spoken to us in His Son…” (cf. Hebrews 1.1)
That Son, who in our Gospel today said: “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”. And here, in this image, we find, I believe, the perfect model for priesthood. That cruciform love of God, love in the shape of the cross.
A priest is someone whose life is shaped by three things:
steadfastness, surrender, and gratitude.
A priest is someone whose heart and imagination have been caught captive
by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ – and who because of that life,
then vows – rather foolishly in the eyes of the world - to give their life away.
Priesthood, is the daily learning to give one’s life away.
To model, and embody, and echo that ‘nuptial’ “yes” which God speaks to humanity at the incarnation…priests seek to embody that revolutionary intimacy between God and His people that we see in the Gospels. And all this, is the work and labour of love.
This is described for me, quite beautifully by Fr Pedro Arrupe SJ:
“Nothing is more practical than finding God. That is, than falling in love, in a quite absolute, and final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”
Love is the thing that keeps a priest close to the altar.
Love, which daily, freely, and joyfully, gives itself away.
In the language of the French Philosopher Simone Weil, we might use the words ‘detachment’ or ‘annihilation’(of self, and ego…ego death), in the language of our Eastern Orthodox sisters and brothers, we might speak of ‘kenosis’, that self- emptying love we see in God becoming human in Jesus. In the language of the Jesuit priest Fr Jean-Pierre de Caussade we might speak of ‘Abandonment to Divine Providence’ – that full, complete and total trust in the will of God which is perfect always. Or, in the words of Jesus in St John’s Gospel:
“unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain,
but if it dies, it bears much fruit…” (cf. John 12.24)
To live is Christ, to die is gain. Now the words ‘sacrifice and surrender’ are not sexy words in today’s world. So often people use the language ‘my parish’, ‘my curate’,
‘my church’, ‘my ministry’ – and far too often as clergy we can be treated as though we were branch managers of a Diocese rather than fellow partners in the Gospel…!
Yet, without sacrifice and surrender, there is no Church, no Mass, no Salvation.
Well friends, I am under strict instruction not to mention the priest that we are all gathered here to give thanks to God for – and I have known my dear friend and brother for so long, and I do not want to see that distinctive ‘Brownsell’ raised double eye brow look today! But I do want to say, that a good priest above all else – and what I have seen in the life of this priest – is that he has lived as one who lived our life amongst us, as one of us. A good priest is one who helps us bear our griefs, and who shares in our joys and sorrows. When I think of the priests who have inspired me, when I think of Father Brownsell, what stands out most is that he was just always there…and if he ever wanted to be elsewhere, or if he ever had his eye on another parish, or higher office – we never knew that, and were never made to feel that. Where he was, was where we felt he truly wanted to be.
A good priest, I think, embodies that long obedience in the same direction. And, like my own grandmother, whose faith has made me the priest I am, a good priest, I believe, schools us in discipleship and more importantly, schools us in its cost.
Steadfastness, Sacrifice….Surrender…
Every priest offers just two really crucial masses. Crucial in the true sense of that word. Their First Mass and their Last Mass. And it isn’t just all that occurs between those two masses – the first and the last – that becomes a kind of homily for the world, it is how the Last Mass is offered up which really proves the meaning of the First.
The First Mass is very public. Lots of people are there, usually, to witness it. Folk have it in their diaries, special hymns are chosen by the newly ordained priest and first blessings given. At our First Mass, God places Himself sacramentally into our hands, not for our own sustenance, but for the life of the world. And we rise, and we fall, as those who have vowed to feed the starving multitudes with the bread of life and the cup of salvation.
We go out into the world to save! Full of youthful zeal – finding that, through some enormous act of grace, we are those being saved in, and through, the faltering service we offer.
But at our Last Mass, we place ourselves – whether we are ready or not – into the hands of the Eternal High Priest. Every mass, every daily office, every sick call, every requiem, every baptism has been a reminder and a rehearsal (although we may not have known it) for this moment of full and final surrender. At this Last Mass, there are no servers, no MC – just the priest and their Lord. The chalice and paten of all we are and all we have been - laid upon the altar of our lives, one, final time. Our lives will be the bread and wine, we will be the self-presented offertory and sacrifice – and, pray God, when the air in our lungs ceases to flow, and our heartbeats are hushed in death, other people who came to know Christ in our brokenness, will sing hymns of praise to God for the life we have placed back into the Fathers hands. And there, on our deathbeds, we shall know that it was indeed true. We shall discover that great mystery – that the treasure entrusted to us, was indeed and has indeed been Christ’s own flock, brought by the shedding of his blood upon the cross.
What a gift! To put one’s hand to the plough and not look back.
To face resolutely towards Jerusalem.
To give, and not to count the cost.
To offer up to God, in pure thanksgiving, all that we received,
in a life that gave itself away.
In our Epistle, St Paul urges us to grow up – to come to the knowledge of the Son of God – to reach maturity to the measure of the full stature of Christ. At best, that is what we as priests seek to do. We seek to help the world to name and to know its deep hunger – and to seek the fulfilment of that hunger in Jesus Christ. As Bishop Norman said, priesthood is about nudging other people alongside us, into heaven.
Pray then, brothers and sisters - that my sacrifice, and your sacrifice, and Father Brownsell’s sacrifice, may be acceptable to God, the Almighty Father – for the praise and glory of His name, for our good, the good of the life of the world, and the good of all His Holy Church. That when Christ, the Chief Shepherd comes in glory – and we see him face to face, we may, with the saints, hear those precious words:
“Well done, Thou good and faithful servant.”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The Reverend Canon Jarel Robinson-Brown Obl.OSB Vicar, St German’s Church, Cardiff, Diocese of Llandaff Canon Preacher, St Deiniol’s Cathedral, Diocese of Bangor
~ only love is credible, and nothing good is lost, and all, in the end, is harvest ~
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