than the average Catholic.
My cousin's sister in law died early Monday morning. This has lead to all sorts of questions because she's Catholic and it's Holy Week. I was discussing this with someone about how you are not allowed to have Mass on Friday at all and there is a specific Mass for Thursday and for Saturday. So there were questions about the funeral. A memorial service of some kind is allowed but not a funeral Mass. As I was talking about this with someone, I made the offhand remark that in this archdiocese, you can't get a priest on Holy Thursday morning anyway cause they are all at the Chrism Mass. The what Mass? Oh, the Mass where the Archbishop blesses and consecrates the oils for the Sacraments. There's the oil of the sick, the oil for initiation (the name escapes me) and Chrism. Chrism is consecrated because it is used to consecrate other things like priests, bishops and churches. She asked me what was Chrism. Uh. oil. From a tree. I think. Where does it come from? The bishop..... where does the bishop get it from? The special chrism store? She was like is there a sacred grove or something? Uhm. Well, let's think. Jesus was from Jerusalem and the early Church started there. Then the Church moved to Rome, which is in Italy. So the oil must come from somewhere around there. I don't think there is a Chrism Tree...so I don' t know...
Thanks to the magic of Google, I now have an answer. Chrism is a mix of olive and balsam oil. :)
1 comment:
In my diocese, the Pope and I took our parish's three small and labeled oil containers and before the Chrism Mass, brought them to one of the sacristies of the cathedral where the Mass was being held. Lots of other people were doing the same. During Mass the containers were filled with the appropriate oils and set out on a long table to be picked up after Mass. I picked up our containers after the Mass and brought them home with me to take to my parish the next day.
The Pope will then empty the oils into our large containers and add olive oil to each to give us the right amount for the larger containers.
This is how it works... at least at my parish. BTW, the Pope is the last name of our liturgy person.
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