Detroit — Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron delivered a powerful rallying cry for the New Evangelization during the annual Chrism Mass on April 2, saying Catholics have a duty to wake an apathetic world to the joys of Christ’s “compelling love.”

More than 160 priests, 60 deacons, seven bishops — including Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron and Cardinal Adam J. Maida — and numerous faithful packed the pews for the liturgy inside the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, which included the renewal of vows for clergy of the Archdiocese of Detroit, as well as the blessing of the oil of the sick and oil of catechumens and the consecration of the holy chrism.

The oil of the sick is used for the anointing of the sick, the oil of catechumens is used for preparing individuals who are to be baptized and the holy chrism is used for the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and holy orders.

During his homily, the archbishop described the holy oils as the “permeating touch of the Holy Spirit” and “a vehicle for communicating the presence of the Holy Spirit.”

With the Year of Prayer for a New Pentecost winding to a close and the archdiocese preparing to launch into evangelization initiatives in the coming year — including an expected archdiocesan-wide synod in the fall of 2016 — Archbishop Vigneron cited the Pentecost sequence, in which the priest and faithful call on the Holy Spirit to fill their hearts with His love and power, even using the concrete terms “ignite the dry” and “warm the chill.”

Archbishop Vigneron told the overflow congregation that the Holy Spirit’s touch is needed more than ever in the 21st century, when people have become “indifferent to the Gospel.”

“Has there ever been a time like ours when a people who once heard the Gospel, living in a culture that had over time been shaped according to the principals of the Gospel, has so willingly become asleep about the Gospel, and shed the Gospel, and become indifferent to the Gospel?” he asked. “Are we not frozen, chill, and dry? Are we not bored with Christ? Is that not the condition that the Holy Spirit needs to heal in our time?

“Have we not come to a time when, sad as it is, hearts no longer seem to be restless, but rather more drugged, befuddled? Are we not at a time when there’s a loss of confidence that there is out there, somewhere, some good worth striving for? So that the typical attitude of our time in so many is simply, ‘Whatever’ …?” the archbishop said.

He referenced then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who once said “the deepest poverty is the inability to have joy” in both the rich and poor alike.

“The inability of joy presupposes and produces the inability to love, produces jealousy, avarice — all the defects that devastate the life of individuals and of the world,” the archbishop said.

This apathy, Archbishop Vigneron said, has traditionally been called “acedia” or “the noonday devil,” which author Dorothy Sayers described as an attitude of one “who only remains alive because there is nothing left to die for.”

“Who could remain indifferent in the face of this acedia, this noonday devil, this being bored with Jesus?” the archbishop asked.

Archbishop Vigneron called this indifference to Jesus “the great wound” of the culture, which can be combated through the New Evangelization.

The New Evangelization, he said, “is about dedicating ourselves totally to assist the Holy Spirit in making present Jesus Christ in his compelling love.”

“It is the work of the Holy Spirit to present Jesus as his most attractive. Jesus healing our wounds. Jesus forgiving our sins. Jesus standing with us in our trial,” the archbishop said. “It is the work of the Holy Spirit to make Christ present in the power of his Love.”

“Somebody has to teach the 21st century in the United States that each of us is made for some purpose beyond oneself,” he continued. “Someone has to teach our age about Jesus.”

— Michigan Catholic managing editor Mike Stechschulte contributed to this report.