Today’s homily: St Anacletus

The Papacy Before Power

MASS Os justi
LESSON  James 1:12-18
GOSPEL St Luke 14:26-33
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

“The Lord made to him a covenant of peace, and made him a prince: that the dignity of priesthood should be to him for ever.”

With these words the Roman Church introduces the Mass of Saint Anacletus, Pope and Martyr. They are words of majesty: covenant, prince, priesthood, perpetuity. Yet Saint Anacletus possessed none of the outward majesty later associated with the Roman See. He had no palace, no temporal sovereignty, no diplomatic corps, no public security, and no protection from the civil power.

He governed the Church of Rome towards the end of the first century, probably from about the year 80 until about 92. He was the second successor of Saint Peter, after Saint Linus and before Saint Clement. Tradition remembers him as a martyr, buried near the Prince of the Apostles; and under the shorter form of his name, Cletus, he is invoked in the sacred Canon of the Mass.

Saint Anacletus therefore shows us the papacy before power: before Christendom, before basilicas, before concordats, before Rome exercised influence in the councils of kings and nations. In him the Petrine office appears stripped of every accidental ornament and revealed in its essential form.

The Pope is the guardian of a deposit he did not create, the successor to an office he did not invent, the shepherd of sheep purchased by another’s Blood, and the witness to a truth for which he must be prepared to die.

The greatness of Saint Anacletus lies precisely in this: he did not attempt to make the Church his own. He stood within a succession. Peter had received the commission from Christ. Linus had received the burden after Peter. Anacletus received what had been handed down and, having guarded it, transmitted it to those who followed.

This is the first law of Catholic authority: what is received must be handed on.

The Church does not survive because each generation reconstructs her successfully. She survives because faithful men receive what they did not create, guard what they have no right to alter, and hand on what they are prepared to die for.

The world prizes originality. The Church prizes fidelity. The world asks whether a teaching is attractive, useful, or acceptable. The Church asks whether it is true, apostolic, and consonant with what has always been believed.

The Creed is repeated because truth does not become obsolete. The Canon is repeated because sacrifice does not require reinvention. Tradition is repeated because revelation has already been given.

Saint Anacletus governed when the voice of Saint Peter had only recently been silenced by martyrdom. The blood of the Apostles still seemed fresh upon Roman soil. The Christians of that age did not imagine that the Faith might be improved by distancing themselves from the men who had seen the Lord. Nearness to the Apostles was not an embarrassment to be overcome, but a treasure to be preserved.

For Anacletus, therefore, authority could not mean freedom from the inheritance of Peter. It meant a deeper obligation to that inheritance. The closer a man stands to the apostolic office, the less liberty he possesses to substitute himself for the Faith.

The Pope is not the proprietor of Catholic doctrine, but its principal custodian. He is not the author of Tradition, but its foremost servant. He is not the master of the sacred liturgy, but the guardian of worship received from the Church. His dignity is immense precisely because his responsibility is immense.

He occupies the chair of Peter not to teach whatever he pleases, but to confess with Peter: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

The Collect therefore addresses God as the eternal Shepherd and asks Him to watch over His flock through blessed Anacletus, whom He established as chief shepherd of the whole Church.

This prayer establishes the true order of authority. Christ alone is the eternal Shepherd. Every earthly pastor is a shepherd beneath Him. Every pope, bishop, and priest is a vicar before he is a ruler; a steward before he is a legislator; a debtor before he is a master.

The sheep do not belong to the shepherd. They belong to Christ. Their faith does not belong to the shepherd. It is the Faith of Christ. Their worship is not at his disposal. It is offered to the Father through Christ. Their salvation cannot be subordinated to his comfort, ambition, reputation, ideology, or fear.

“Feed My lambs. Feed My sheep.” These words are not the gift of privilege without burden. They are a summons to sacrificial responsibility. Peter is given the keys, but Peter must also stretch forth his hands and be carried where he would not go.

Saint Anacletus understood the office in this apostolic sense. The Roman bishop of the first century did not imagine that authority existed to spare him from the Cross. His authority placed him more directly beneath its shadow. To become the visible head of the Roman Church was to become an obvious target of persecution. His throne was surrounded not by security, but by danger.

This is why the Epistle declares: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he hath been proved, he shall receive the crown of life.”

The crown promised to the faithful pastor is not the crown of popularity. It is the crown of life. And that crown is received only after trial.

The temptations of ecclesiastical authority are many. There is the temptation to prefer peace to truth, acceptance to fidelity, diplomacy to witness, applause to conversion. There is the temptation to measure success by worldly standards: favourable headlines, political influence, institutional stability, financial security, and cultural approval.

There is also the temptation to believe that the Church will be strengthened by speaking less clearly, demanding less courage, or concealing the parts of the Gospel which the age finds offensive.

But a shepherd who makes peace with wolves has not established peace for the flock.

Pagan Rome demanded incense before its gods. The modern world is often more subtle. It does not always demand an explicit denial of Christ. It asks instead that Christ be reduced, softened, privatised, and interpreted within the limits of contemporary opinion.

It will permit Him to remain as a symbol of inclusion, a teacher of benevolence, or a companion on humanity’s common journey. But it will not tolerate the Christ Who commands repentance, condemns sin, founds one Church, institutes one sacrifice, and declares Himself to be the only way to the Father.

The form of the temptation changes. Its substance does not.

The Epistle therefore warns: “Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with Whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration.”

There is the antidote to every temptation to remake the Faith: with God there is no change, nor shadow of alteration.

Development may unfold what revelation contains. Authority may clarify what has been handed down. Discipline may govern prudently according to circumstances. But contradiction cannot become development, rupture cannot become continuity merely by being called pastoral, and novelty cannot acquire apostolic authority by repetition.

The Father of lights does not contradict Himself. The Holy Ghost does not inspire the Church to confess one doctrine for centuries and its opposite in a later age.

The glory of the papacy therefore lies not in its capacity to surprise the Church, but in its divine vocation to confirm her. The Pope is strongest when he stands within the great succession of witnesses and speaks with their accumulated authority. He is not diminished by the Tradition which precedes him. He is magnified by serving it.

Then Our Lord speaks in the Gospel: “Which of you, having a mind to build a tower, doth not first sit down and reckon the charges that are necessary, whether he have wherewithal to finish it?”

These words apply to every disciple. But on the feast of a Pope and Martyr, they bear a particular force for those who accept sacred office.

The man who becomes a priest must reckon the cost. The man who accepts the episcopate must reckon the cost. The man who is raised to the Apostolic See must reckon the cost.

He must understand that he is surrendering the right to belong to himself. He may no longer preach private opinions as though they were the Gospel. He may no longer pursue novelty for the sake of distinction. He may no longer measure doctrine by popularity or govern the liturgy as though it were an instrument of personal policy.

He has begun to build a tower whose foundation was laid by Christ and the Apostles. He is not free to alter its foundation, reverse its design, or demolish the work of his fathers. He must build according to the pattern he has received.

“This man began to build, and was not able to finish.”

There are few more terrible epitaphs for a pastor. He began with zeal but ended in compromise. He received a sound inheritance but transmitted confusion. He mounted the watchtower but ceased to warn of danger. He possessed authority to strengthen his brethren but used it to unsettle them. He was entrusted with the sacred things of God but became anxious above all to please men.

The final test of a pontificate, an episcopate, or a priesthood is not whether it appeared successful within its own moment. The test is whether it handed on the Faith intact.

Saint Anacletus passes that test.

We possess no grand programme from his reign. No collection of personal reflections bears his name. No age of the Church is labelled after him. He did something far greater: he disappeared into the office he had received.

And because he did not seek to make himself unforgettable, the Church has never forgotten him.

His name is pronounced in the Roman Canon: “Linus, Cletus, Clement, Xystus, Cornelius, Cyprian.” Cletus stands within the solemn procession of the Roman martyrs, absorbed into the sacrificial memory of the Church.

This is the proper immortality of a pastor: not that the Church should continually speak of his personality, but that she should continue to possess the Faith he guarded.

At this altar, the same Sacrifice known to Anacletus will become present. The Canon in which his name is enshrined will be spoken. The Church of the present age will be joined to the persecuted Church of first-century Rome, not merely by historical memory, but by identity of Faith, priesthood, and Victim.

The emperors who appeared invincible have vanished. The gods before whom Rome burned incense have fallen into dust. The empire which threatened the Church has become a chapter in history.

Yet the Mass remains.

It remains because men such as Anacletus understood that they were custodians, not creators; witnesses, not innovators; servants, not proprietors.

May Saint Anacletus obtain for the Roman Pontiff strength to confirm his brethren; for bishops, courage to guard the deposit; for priests, fidelity to the altar; and for every pastor of the Church, the grace to prefer martyrdom to compromise.

And may those who hold sacred authority remember always that the most glorious successor of Peter is not the one who compels the Church to remember his age, but the one who causes his age to remember the Faith of Peter.

Saint Anacletus, Pope and Martyr, pray for us.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

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