Praying for a Good Shepherd

Fourth Sunday of Easter
    On 10 April, Bishop Boyea, as required by canon law, submitted his letter of resignation to Pope Leo XIV.  As of my composing of this homily, it has not been accepted, and my guess is that it will be at least eight months until we get a new bishop, maybe even twelve or more months.  Bishop Boyea has noted that there are something like twenty-two dioceses who do not have a bishop ahead of him.

    In my own humble estimation, Bishop Boyea has been a good bishop.  He has been a good shepherd after the Most Sacred Heart of the one Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd, a title that was also referenced in the second reading by St. Peter, our first pope.  In this time where we wait for a new bishop, I would encourage us all to pray to God for another good bishop, and pray to the Holy Spirit to guide all involved in the process, all the way up to Pope Leo, to choose for us the bishop who will help us continue to grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ.
    But what makes a good bishop?  What makes a good shepherd?  We each might have our own ideas, and not only would there be differences between your ideas and mine in some cases (as I relate to our diocesan bishop a bit differently than the lay faithful), but there are probably even some differences if I asked each of you, though there would also be some similarities.
    In some ways, our own desires for a good bishop would likely follow our own wisdom, which may or may not be connected to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.  In humility, we all need to acknowledge that just because we see some charism or trait as important, does not mean that God considers it equally important.  We are sheep, and sheep are not the wisest of animals.  For example, sheep, if not moved around, will pull up the roots of the plants on which they graze, eliminating future food sources in their short-sightedness.  They also so rely on the herd, that they have been known to put themselves into danger, simply because a few other sheep are leading them that way.  So when our Lord calls us sheep, He’s not exactly giving us a compliment.  Sometimes we can take things to far like sheep pulling up roots.  Or sometimes we can go along with an idea because one or a few people that we like or we respect lead us that way.

    But Christ tells us that a good shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep.  A good shepherd, from today’s passage, also looks for other sheep that would benefit from being part of the fold, even if they are not part of the fold yet.  So as we pray for a good new bishop, we should pray for a holy man who is willing to die for us to protect us from spiritual dangers, as well as a man who seeks out lost sheep, or sheep that belong to another fold, and one who will welcome them in to the pastures of the Catholic Church.
    As I think of Bishop Boyea, and why I think he has been a good shepherd, he truly has a love for the Lord and seeks to have others follow the Lord.  Liturgically he has been very faithful to the way the Church wants to see the Mass and the sacraments celebrated: in a beautiful, transcendent way.  He tries to reach people where they’re at, including by his weekly videos that teach us about different aspects of the faith.  He has done his best to strengthen the weak, but to fight the arrogance of the proud.  And, he has challenged me to go beyond my own first opinions and ideas, to make sure that what I suggest to him makes sense.  And he has told me that I was wrong, when I needed to hear it, even if I didn’t always want to hear it.  
    We probably consider correction more when it comes to others that we see are wrong, rather than ourselves.  But a good shepherd doesn’t let his sheep wander away, but calls them back.  In the Letter to the Hebrews, we read: “all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.”  And we hear in different Gospel passages how the Lord has to correct the Apostles, including even St. Peter right after our Lord made Peter the Chief Shepherd of His Church, and Peter told the Lord that He should not have to suffer.  So, when praying for a new good bishop, we should also pray for one that will hold our feet to the fire when we do not live up to our call to follow the Lord, but are following our own designs.
    Trevor, today you will become the newest sheep in the Lord’s flock.  Through prayer and study you have come to the point where you want to enter into full communion with the one Church Jesus Christ founded.  The Lord, the Good Shepherd, has been with you all throughout your life, calling you to this moment, to enter these pastures.  And with great love He will seal your entrance into the Catholic Church with a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit through the Sacrament of Confirmation, and the gift of Jesus’ own Body and Blood through the Eucharist.  We, your fellow sheep, promise to help you continue to grow in your faith in and love of Christ, until hopefully we are all ready to enter the eternal pastures of heaven.
    I know a lot of people have expressed anxiety about who our new bishop will be.  Perhaps other recent episcopal appointments have added to that concern, though I would caution that just because we read something in a particular blog or periodical, even Catholic, does not mean that we have the whole story.  But if we make our desires for a good bishop known to the one Good Shepherd and Bishop of our souls (as St. Peter said at the end of today’s second reading, though our translation uses the word guardian), I have no doubt that God will give us the bishop that we need, who will help us to grow as disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What Makes a Good Shepherd?

Second Sunday after Easter
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Nine days ago Bishop Boyea, as required by canon law, submitted his letter of resignation to Pope Leo XIV.  As of my composing of this homily, it has not been accepted, and my guess is that it will be at least eight months until we get a new bishop, maybe even twelve or more months.  Bishop Boyea has noted that there are something like twenty-two dioceses who do not have a bishop ahead of him.

    In my own humble estimation, Bishop Boyea has been a good bishop.  He has been a good shepherd after the Most Sacred Heart of the one Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who today in our Gospel referred to Himself as the Good Shepherd, a title that was also referenced in the epistle by St. Peter, our first pope.  In this time where we wait for a new bishop, I would encourage us all to pray to God for another good bishop, and pray to the Holy Spirit to guide all involved in the process, all the way up to Pope Leo, to choose for us the bishop who will help us continue to grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ.
    But what makes a good bishop?  What makes a good shepherd?  We each might have our own ideas, and not only would there be differences between your ideas and mine in some cases (as I relate to our diocesan bishop a bit differently than the lay faithful), but there are probably even some differences if I asked each of you, though there would also be some similarities.
    In some ways, our own desires for a good bishop would likely follow our own wisdom, which may or may not be connected to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.  In humility, we all need to acknowledge that just because we see some charism or trait as important, does not mean that God considers it equally important.  We are sheep, and sheep are not the wisest of animals.  For example, sheep, if not moved around, will pull up the roots of the plants on which they graze, eliminating future food sources in their short-sightedness.  They also so rely on the herd, that they have been known to put themselves into danger, simply because a few other sheep are leading them that way.  So when our Lord calls us sheep, He’s not exactly giving us a compliment.  Sometimes we can take things to far like sheep pulling up roots.  Or sometimes we can go along with an idea because one or a few people that we like or we respect lead us that way.
    But Christ tells us that a good shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep.  A good shepherd, from today’s passage, also looks for other sheep that would benefit from being part of the fold, even if they are not part of the fold yet.  So as we pray for a good new bishop, we should pray for a holy man who is willing to die for us to protect us from spiritual dangers, as well as a man who seeks out lost sheep, or sheep that belong to another fold, and one who will welcome them in to the pastures of the Catholic Church.
    As I think of Bishop Boyea, and why I think he has been a good shepherd, he truly has a love for the Lord and seeks to have others follow the Lord.  Liturgically he has been very faithful to the way the Church wants to see the Mass and the sacraments celebrated: in a beautiful, transcendent way.  He tries to reach people where they’re at, including by his weekly videos that teach us about different aspects of the faith.  He has done his best to strengthen the weak, but to fight the arrogance of the proud.  And he has challenged me to go beyond my own first opinions and ideas, to make sure that what I suggest to him makes sense.  And he has told me that I was wrong when I needed to hear it, even if I didn’t always want to hear it.  
    We probably consider correction more when it comes to others that we see are wrong, rather than ourselves.  But a good shepherd doesn’t let his sheep wander away, but calls them back.  In the epistle the Hebrews, we read: “all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.”  And we hear in different Gospel passages how the Lord has to correct the Apostles, including even St. Peter right after our Lord made Peter the Chief Shepherd of His Church, and Peter told the Lord that He should not have to suffer.  So, when praying for a new good bishop, we should also pray for one that will hold our feet to the fire when we do not live up to our call to follow the Lord, but are following our own designs.
    I know a lot of people have expressed anxiety about who our new bishop will be.  Perhaps other recent episcopal appointments have added to that concern, though I would caution that just because we read something in a particular blog or periodical, even Catholic, does not mean that we have the whole story.  But if we make our desires for a good bishop known to the one Good Shepherd and Bishop of our souls (as St. Peter said at the end of today’s epistle), I have no doubt that God will give us the bishop that we need, who will help us to grow as disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.   

Obvious to Some, Not to All

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Country star Randy Travis

    Country music is the best non-liturgical music there is.  Others may think differently, and they’re entitled to their opinions, but they’re wrong.  That’s not to say that there aren’t other good songs.  I grew up on lite rock (with bands and singers like Chicago, REO Speedwagon, Rod Stewart, Cher, etc.), and also listened to the great songs of the 50s and 60s, so I enjoy other types of music, too.  But, as a whole, country music is the best.  Now, what amazes me is that not everyone shares my opinion.  Even good people sometimes don’t appreciate fully (or at all) how wonderful country music is.  While country music is just three chords and the truth (which is part of what makes it great), others will joke that when you play a country song backwards you get your dog back, your truck back, and your wife back.      Of course, I jest…somewhat.  But sometimes things can seem so obvious to one person, but others do not appreciate the same things.  And we hear that reality in our first reading, which regards the people’s appreciation for something even greater than country music: the faith.  We skip what Paul said to the synagogue, but we get the reaction of those who heard: they start arguing with Paul and telling him that he’s wrong, all because the Gentiles, non-Jews, started to believe Paul and Barnabas and began following Christ.  
    But this makes no sense!  Paul was so learned in Judaism because he had been a Pharisee and had studied his faith deeply.  He understood how Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament, and could explain that to the Jews, who would understand those prophecies.  So how could they reject Paul’s preaching?
    Following Jesus is not just a matter of understanding facts.  St. James reminds us in his letter that the demons know who God is.  But they do not follow him.  They have all the facts in the world, but they do not love Him.  Catholicism is not just a matter of the head (though we certainly have things we need to believe).  Living the Catholic life means loving Jesus and conforming our lives to His.  So if we wish to be disciples, we do not only need to form our minds, but also form our hearts so that we love what God loves, and will what God wills.
    And this is where people struggle, because their hearts are not always totally given over to God, and their wills desire things on their own, contrary to what God wants.  We call this concupiscence.  We may know what is right, but because of some other factor, we reject what is right for what is convenient or less challenging.  God wants us to be His sheep, to belong to His sheepfold, but we wander away, because we would rather listen to a voice that does not lead us towards happiness, but leads us to temporary pleasure.

    Knowing the disconnect that can happen between the head and the heart is not only important in our own lives and helping us to follow Christ, but also when we seek to share the Gospel, like Sts. Paul and Barnabas did.  We might be able to give people facts about Jesus, but can we help them love Him?  Cardinal Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, recalled a time when he studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  His Jewish classmates would ask him questions about the faith and he would respond, but without much success.  He said, “I answered as the catechism answers and I realized from her face that she had not understood anything.  I was unable to make myself understood. It took some time for me to understand that the Resurrection is not explained.”  He wrote that what makes the difference is helping people understand that “there is nothing better in life than to encounter Jesus Christ.”  Again, that goes beyond just head knowledge, and goes to the heart, to loving Christ.
    If, in times past, we erred on the side of the head, that we know what God teaches us, today we err on the side of the heart, which then seems to ignore sinful activity because a person is good in other areas.  In reality, we need to affirm both head and heart.  Simply hitting others over the head with the teachings of Christ often does not work, but neither is it helpful to ignore the teachings of Christ so that we pretend what is evil is, in fact, good.  Of course our actions, living the connection of head and heart out, needs the virtue of prudence and has to be motivated by true love for the other person and their eternal salvation.
    What can seem obvious to some is not obvious to all.  We should always be looking for new ways to share the Gospel, and finding ways to make the proclamation more effective.  This is the heart of the New Evangelization: the teachings of the Church are the same, but we find new ways to proclaim them in convincing ways to new generations of people who have new struggles and new needs.  We connect head and heart in sharing the Good News about Jesus and His teachings.  May the Holy Spirit fill us with wisdom, courage, and prudence to share the joy of the Resurrection, and all that Christ has revealed to us as necessary for salvation.  

Benedict and Dominic

Fourth Sunday of Easter
    Throughout the past decade, especially as the United States started to drift away from the Judeo-Christian culture that had previously permeated the secular environment, people started to ask the question of what we should do as Catholics.  Even as many as ten years ago we came to realize that we could not rely on the federal or State governments to support people living out their faith, and, in some cases, the government grew very antagonistic towards Catholics and how they lived out their faith (think of the Obama administration’s seemingly hell-bent desire to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for contraceptives in their health plan). 

St. Benedict

    So some proposed a solution, based upon an historical precedent, which gained the moniker “The Benedict Option.”  While Pope Benedict XVI did reign during some of the past decade or so, the reference looked back much farther to Benedictine monasteries that preserved Catholic literature and formation from the barbarian advances all throughout what had formerly been the Roman Empire.  This perspective advised that Catholics form small communities and basically hunker down until the barbarians (those who attacked the Church) destroyed themselves (as those who promote the culture of death eventually do destroy themselves). 
    There’s a certain solace in the bunker mentality when you feel like you’re under attack.  While the analogy will limp given its drastic nature, living the faith right now can seem like fighting in the midst of World War I.  The trenches seem much safer, because if you try to advance, you’re going to get mowed down by gunfire or mustard gas.  So you stay low and just try to ride the war out, hoping to survive to the next generation.
    But, besides the fact that Benedictines were responsible for a lot of missionary activity, even during the Middle Ages (St. Augustine of Canterbury, St. Ansgar, and St. Boniface, just to name a few), this bunker mentality, while sometimes appropriate and certainly lived out beautifully by cloistered monks and nuns, misses what our readings reference today. 
    In the passages leading up to our first reading, St. Peter and St. John had been arrested because they healed a crippled man in the name of Jesus.  Peter didn’t cut bait and run.  He, the Prince of the Apostles speaking for the other apostles, proclaimed that Jesus had risen from the dead, and that He was the only way to salvation.  He proclaimed the Gospel because he knew that it was the truth, the truth which would set people free.  Any of the Apostles could have simply stayed in the Upper Room and quietly taught people about Jesus, trying to avoid publicity and controversy, but they didn’t.  They proclaimed Christ boldly, even in the face of persecution.  And the Church grew because of their witness.

St. Dominic

    This is what one author termed the “Dominican Option,” named after the Order of Friars Preachers.  St. Dominic only had a few cloistered nuns praying for him and his few friars, and yet he sent the friars out to the major universities of Europe, and his order grew almost exponentially.    It seemed like foolishness, even to some of the first friars, but St. Dominic said, “The seed will molder if it is hoarded up; it will fructify if it is sown.”  The Dominicans imitated the Apostles and spread the Gospel far and wide.
    Part of the animus for this is what Christ proclaimed in our Gospel today: “‘I have other sheep that do not belong to his fold.  These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.’”  Christ desires that all people would belong to His one flock, the Catholic Church.  He desires that all people are united in charity and in truth.  This won’t happen such an effective way if we rely simply on hunkering down and having more babies than the pagans who surround us (though I would say that having babies according to God’s will and your own discernment is another beautiful way to pass along the faith).  Yes, we can form communities of men and women who purposefully follow Christ, and not simply because someone told them to or because their family always did it this way.  Yes, we need to form people to understand the Gospel so that they can be able to preach it (and we’re striving to do that through our faith formation groups of all ages). 
    But at the end of the day, we cannot stay in our bunkers; we cannot remain in the trenches.  We should have the magnanimity to try to win souls for Christ, to help them see that following Him is not only the path to heaven, but a way to live life more joyfully and with more fulfillment than if we try to live life on our own terms and follow our own patterns of sin.  If Christ’s desire that we all join His flock are to come to fruition, then we have to cooperate with Him and share that good news with others.  And not just on the worldwide church level: if we wish our parish to grow, then others need to join us.  And the way that others join us is through people convincing them of the truth of the faith and having them be baptized or enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.  Yes, we also welcome and encourage our young families to engage in the very countercultural act of supporting life and having babies according to God’s plan, but we also have to bring others in.  We are growing, but if we each lived with the zeal of St. Peter and St. John, then I would need to add at least one more Mass because we had so many people joining the Catholic Church and our parish. 
    Yes, things are rough for the Catholic Church right now, and I don’t see them getting noticeably better any time soon.  Yes, some of us will support the work of spreading the faith by our prayers and attendance at Mass.  But most of us need to get involved in sharing the good news, or telling others why they should follow Christ and why they should be Catholic.  If we don’t share the seeds of the Gospel, they will become moldy.  But if we sow the seeds of the Gospel in the hearts and minds of those we encounter, they will bear fruit thirty, sixty, and one hundredfold.

Staying on Christ's Path

Second Sunday after Easter

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Generally there are two kinds of people in life: those who blaze trails and those who stay on the trails that have already been laid out.  In our own American psyche we tend to elevate those who blaze trails.  Think of Lewis and Clark, cutting a path through the wilderness as Sacajawea helped them to explore the Louisiana Purchase.  Or think of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.  Certainly there is more danger for those who “boldly go where no man has gone before" (to quote Star Trek), but there is also generally more excitement as you see and experience things that no one has experienced before.
    Contrast this glorification of those who make their own trails with what we heard St. Peter say in his first epistle about Christ, who left us, “an example that you should follow in his footsteps.”  Our first pontiff is not encouraging us to make a new trail, but to follow in the one that Christ made, He who is the shepherd and guardian of our souls (the Greek and Latin word is bishop or overseer).  We are not to make our own way on the path of salvation, but to follow Christ.
    This, of course, does not signify an aping of everything Christ did.  We don’t have to pack up and leave Michigan for the Holy Land, and wander on foot around Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Capernaum.  The way in which Christ wants us follow Him means that we seek to conform our lives to His in our own vocations and jobs.  And we do this because He has not only blazed the trail for us, but He is the trail for us, as He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life [emphasis mine].” 
    There is only one way to the Father, and that is through Christ, as He also said at the Last Supper: “No one comes to the Father except through me.”  If there were other ways to salvation, then Christ’s suffering would have been superfluous.  The trails that others blaze lead to wolves and bad pastures.  The trail that Christ lays out for us leads us to safety and green pastures.  Our way needs to be Christ’s way, or it is no way to heaven at all.  As my spiritual director has often been quoted as saying, Frank Sinatra’s hit, “I Did It My Way” is the theme song of Hell.
    But despite Christ laying out a clear path for us, and instructing us to follow Him, others throughout the centuries, and even we to this day, continue to try to forge our own path to happiness.  Whether we’re blazing a trail ourselves, or simply following other teachers or gurus, we do not always follow Christ.  And part of that is because following Christ involves sacrifice.  St. Peter demonstrates this for us as he reminds us that Christ suffered for us, and that the path of Christ that we are to follow involves setting aside vengeance when others make us suffer, and even includes the cross.  Our lives are not all suffering and pain, but to follow Christ means that we will experience suffering and pain from time to time, because that is what happened with Christ. 
    So we try to find ways that are easier, that do not involve pain or suffering.  But when we do that, when we seek to avoid pain at all costs, we find ourselves among wolves who are ready to devour us.  Recently, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith came out with a document, Dignitas infinita, which treats offenses that go against the dignity of the human person.  One of those offenses is in vitro fertilization, or IVF.  There is real pain in wanting to conceive a child and the body not responding accordingly.  Not just for women, but especially for women, the ability to bear a child correlates closely with her feeling of self-worth.  And the voices of the hirelings who tell couples that God would want them to conceive a child in any manner because it would make them happy, or that God wouldn’t want a person to undergo pain, tempts like the voice of a siren.  But IVF makes a child a commodity to be acquired at any cost, requires the sin of self-stimulation of the man, and introduces a doctor as the material agent of conception.  Often, with IVF, many embryos are implanted in the woman’s womb, in case some don’t take, but if multiple do, abortions are encouraged to make sure the body isn’t overwhelmed.  The whole process includes many acts contrary to God’s will. 
    The path that Christ has blazed may involve not getting what a couple exactly wants, but it leads to heaven.  And it opens up opportunities for adoption, or simply being an uncle or aunt that can shower that love on nieces and nephews.  And most importantly, it keeps one on the path to heaven, which is the destination of the path of Christ.
    Dignitas infinita also treats gender dysphoria and its many manifestations.  It demonstrates that attempting to change a person’s God-given biological sex through hormones or mutilating surgery does not lead to true happiness, since it seeks to contravene God’s plan.  Instead, the document encourages understanding the deep psychosexual wounds that can lead a person to think that he or she is in the wrong kind of body or is sexually attracted to a person of the same sex.  What seems easier is to allow a person to determine how he or she wants to express the self.  It can definitely feel easier to live out of wounds because they feel so familiar, even if they do not give us wholeness. 
    Instead, the path that Christ lays out is starting with the fact that God does not make mistakes, and that if He made us male or female, that is part of His plan for us.  It also includes extra love and attention to help a person uncover the sources of those wounds and work through them to find integration of the whole person.  That work of dealing with wounds is often very painful, just like it would be physically painful to clean out an infected cut.  But it leads to a greater happiness than ignoring the problem or treating the problem like normalcy could ever achieve. 

    And, in spite of our failings, of any kind, whether those mentioned in Dignitas infinita or any other sins that we may have committed, the good news is that our Lord is the Good Shepherd who seeks after us, not just calling out with His voice, but even tracking us down in the wilderness of sin, and putting us upon His shoulders so that we don’t even have to walk back on our own.  Christ does not want us to wander away, but if we make that error, He will always search after us and seek to bring us back to His path, as long as we have breath in us.
    There is a place and a time for blazing our own paths and trails.  If sailors had never crossed the Atlantic, or the first Americans had never crossed the Appalachians, or Lewis and Clark would have never explored the Louisiana Purchase, then where would we be as a country?  But when it comes to our salvation, Christ desires not that we make our own trail, because it doesn’t lead to where He created us to be, but that we follow the example He left us.  He calls to us in love, as the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God for ever and ever.  Amen.

Voices

Fourth Sunday of Easter
    Chris Young, a country singer, has a song called “Voices,” in which he talks about the voices he hears in his mind.  But it’s not a sign of being crazy.  He sings about the voice of, “My dad saying working that job, / but don’t work your life away. / And mama telling me to drop some cash / in the offering plate on Sunday.”  Those are the voices that guide him in his life to help him make good decisions.

    Jesus today refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd, and says that His sheep follow Him because they recognize His voice, and He calls us each by name.  But it begs the question: do we listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd, or do we listen to other voices?  Do we recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd in our hearts, or is another calling for us who does not know our name?
    We often refer to the voice of God in our heart as the conscience.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraph 1776 (quoting the Vatican II document Gaudium et spes) states:
 

Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey.  Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment.  […In his conscience] he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.

Our conscience is the voice of the Good Shepherd.  But too often, we now refer to our conscience as what we simply want to do, which may bear no relationship to what God tells us.  It is not a law unto itself, but the law given to humanity by God, to help a person know how to follow God in each particular circumstance.
    In order to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in our hearts, we have to know what that voice sounds like.  How do we familiarize ourselves with His voice, to make sure that it’s not merely our own?  We read the Scriptures; we learn what the Church, the Body of Christ, teaches, since Christ cannot teach one thing through the Church, and yet tell us to do something different in our hearts. 
    Part of recognizing the voice of the Good Shepherd is recognizing that He calls us by our name.  In the Gospel of John, on Easter Sunday, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb but does not see Christ, but just the empty tomb.  Later that day, after telling the other disciples her experience, she returns to the tomb and sees a man, whom she presumes is the gardener, but it is really the risen Christ.  It is not until Christ calls her name that she recognizes Him as the same Jesus she saw die on the cross.  I think about the times when I was younger and in a crowd of family and/or friends.  If I was trying to get my mom’s attention, I might try saying “mom” a few times, but if that didn’t work (because there were lots of moms there), it always worked when I called out “Sue.”  She heard my voice and she heard her name and responded.  Jesus has that personal connection to us, and calls us by name.  Another example is that in the last moments of a pope’s life, if they are examining the pope to see if he is still alive, they will use his baptismal name, knowing that the name he was called by his parents would beckon him if he is still alive.
    Another important aspect of the voice of the Good Shepherd and calling us by name is that He doesn’t call us by our failures.  The thieves and mercenaries who want to steal the sheep and lead them away to bad pastures remind us of the wrong that we’ve done in order to keep us in that pain and hurt.  Jesus will identify our sins, when we have not chosen to follow God, but He doesn’t identify us with our failures, but still calls us by name, even as He calls us to repent.
    When it comes to our conscience, the voice of the Good Shepherd, we are not deciding what is right and what is wrong.  We have no power to call good: bad; or bad: good.  What our conscience helps us to do is to take what God has shown us is good or bad, and apply it to this particular situation in which we find ourselves.  If we find our conscience telling us to do something that God has forbidden, then we have not formed our conscience well; we have not accustomed ourselves to the voice of the Good Shepherd, but decided to wander off to other fields and listen to other voices rather than God’s voice.  As I said earlier, God will never contradict Himself.  So if we think something is right which the Bible or the Church says is wrong; or if we think something is wrong that the Bible or the Church says is right, we need to go back and evaluate to whose voice we have been listening. 
    If we are living a Christ-centered life, then we will hear voices every day of our lives.  No, not crazy voices, but the voice of God, helping us to choose the good and avoid the bad in all the circumstances of our life, which we call the conscience.  If we are following the voice of thieves and robbers, then we will miss the gate to eternal life which is Christ.  But if we follow the voice of the Good Shepherd, even if we have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death with Him, we know that we will make it through the sheep gate and “dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come.”

No Backsliding

Second Sunday after Easter

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When I was a child, I usually gave up chocolates and sweets for Lent (even though I didn’t really like chocolate, and didn’t eat that many sweets because my parents didn’t really buy us any on a regular basis).  But it was the thing to do.  Then, on Easter morning, the Easter Basket would have lots of sweets in it (we also often did the chocolate bunnies), and I would go to town, seeming to make up for all the sweets I didn’t have over the past 40 days by indulging in those sweets the first few days of Easter (the sweets rarely made it beyond Easter Tuesday).
    Perhaps this is a familiar story to you.  Perhaps this is your own experience of Lent and Easter.  And to a certain extent, there’s nothing absolutely wrong.  I know some people gave up meat for Lent, and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a nice steak as a way of celebrating Easter.  Or others, through Exodus 90, gave up warm water for their showers, so maybe Easter Sunday the hot shower was a little longer than usual.
    But one of the points of Lent is that we are growing closer to Christ, facilitated by those penances we take upon ourselves.  But Easter doesn’t mean that we move farther away from Christ, now that Lent is over.  In fact, each year God desires that we grow in holiness, even if in small ways, so that we don’t start at the same point in 2024 that we did in 2023.
    So how are you doing in living your Easter life?  Are you still growing closer to God through your prayers, weekly ascetical practices, and working on the virtues?  Or has it been more of the, “Phew! Thank God Lent’s over!  Now I can get back to all those bad habits that I used to have!”? 
    God wants us to follow Him closer and closer, like a sheep who not only hears the voice of the Good Shepherd, but stays closer and closer to Him in the pasture, and allows Him to lead us around, rather than having to chase after us and bring us back to the fold.  Because the closer we are to Christ, the less likely it is that we are going to feed on bad grass (i.e., bad doctrine, vicious habits), or be injured by wolves and other creatures that wish us harm (giving in to the temptations that the demons whisper in our ear). 

    Of course, none of this is possible by ourselves.  Christ, the Good Shepherd, laid down His life for us, His sheep.  He sacrificed Himself so that we could have live.  As St. Peter said in our epistle, “By his stripes we were healed.”  And because of that, we can die to sin and live in the virtue of justice.
    So what are the ways that you are growing your relationship with our Lord, and growing in your understanding of the faith?  You don’t have to take graduate-level courses, but are you engaged in what our parish offers for faith sharing groups and Bible studies?  We have a wonderful study on the Eucharist in the Scriptures that will start in May.  Have you checked to see if you can participate in it?  Or maybe you have a desire to study something else.  There are many online courses (some for free) that will guide you, like Fr. Mike Schmitz’s podcast “The Catechism in a Year.”  Or maybe it would be helpful for you to share your joys and struggles with others who are in similar situations, like various mom groups that we have in the parish and in the area, and see how God is helping you to be the best mom or dad, wife or husband, that you can be.  Or, if you’re younger, maybe try a new devotion in your life, like the Litany of Trust, or maybe organize a group of your friends to gather for prayer and a meal, or maybe prayer and some sporting event, or, if you’re of age, talk about your faith together at a local watering hole (with moderation in beverages, of course). 
    Lent is a time that is meant to turn us away from our sinful passions, and draw us closer to Christ.  And while it’s very appropriate to celebrate during Easter, we shouldn’t backslide, but should try to keep that strong relationship with Christ for which we worked so hard during Lent, so that when we come to Lent next year, we’re in a better place, and can work on getting rid of other sinful passions and drawing even closer to Christ.  God not only desires that we be in the same pasture with the Good Shepherd, but that we get closer and closer to Him, so that we can not only hear His shouting about remaining with Him, but even, like St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, lean upon His chest to hear His Sacred Heart and what He wants to whisper to us as His beloved.  May our Easter joy include the joy of being closer to our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.

A Domesticated Good Shepherd?

 Fourth Sunday of Easter
    When people think of cherubs, I think our minds immediately go to the pudgy, babies with little wings, like what you would see in a Raphael painting.  In the Book of Ezekiel, they are described as having two sets of wings, and four faces (lion, ox, human, and eagle).  John describes them similarly in the Book of Revelation, but with three sets of wings, instead of two.  If a cherub as described in the Bible showed up, you might understand why the first words out of angels’ mouths are generally, “Do not be afraid!”

    Today is called Good Shepherd Sunday, after the Gospels used in all three years of the Sunday cycles of the Gospels.  We don’t quite hear Jesus say today that He is the Good Shepherd, but He talks about His sheep hearing His voice and following Him.  Perhaps we have domesticated the image of Christ the Good Shepherd, in much the same way we have domesticated cherubs.
    First of all, to be called a sheep is not a compliment.  Sheep are not smart animals.  That is why they need shepherds.  Not only are they easy prey, but I read somewhere that the reason they have to be moved, is because they will eat up all the grass, roots and all, if left in a solitary pasture.  So not too flattering for us.
    We do hear how the Good Shepherd knows His sheep, and elsewhere, Jesus says that He will go after the lost sheep.  We like that image.  Probably because we, like sheep, wander off to dangerous places that we should not go.  But this presumes that, when we hear the voice of the shepherd, we want to return to the good pastures.  The picture we hear from the Acts of the Apostles today gives us a different glimpse.  
    Paul and Barnabas are preaching in the synagogue in Antioch, in modern-day Turkey.  As Paul preaches to them that Jesus is the Messiah, at first they are open.  But, as they see non-Jews starting to accept the message, they turn and become agitated with Paul and Barnabas, and start rejecting them and their message of salvation through Jesus.  They eventually get enough people to expel Paul and Barnabas from the territory.  The message of life and truth as rejected, even by the people prepared by God to accept that same message, because they had the prophets preparing them for the Messiah, the prophecies of which Jesus fulfilled.
    So, too, we can think that if we hear the truth that we will readily accept it.  If the Good Shepherd tells us something that we need to hear, we will listen, especially if it’s for our own good.  And if He invites us back to the good pastures, that we will naturally follow.
    As we celebrate Mother’s Day today, we honor our mothers for all they have done for us, especially giving us the gift of life.  But think about your own mothers: even when they were saying something that was for your own good, did you always listen?  I’ll admit I didn’t.  So if we don’t do that with our own mothers, from whom we learn what love is, do we think that we’ll do better with Jesus?
    The same goes with our Holy Mother Church.  She often tells us that we should do X, or should avoid Y, and how often do we end up saying something like, “Mind your own business!”?  The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ.  She speaks for Her Groom, Christ Jesus.  She applies what He taught us for salvation to new times and circumstances.  When it comes to faith and morals, hers is the voice of the Good Shepherd, leading us to the pastures of everlasting life.  But how often would we rather do our own will and follow our own so-called wisdom, rather than following the wisdom and will of the Good Shepherd?
    We see this in our own day with abortion.  If you’ve seen the news recently, you’ve seen an opinion paper, leaked from the Supreme Court, which advocates overturning Roe v. Wade.  Now, the Church has been clear since the first century of Christianity, that abortion is not consistent with being a follower of Christ.  Anyone who truly follows Christ cannot support abortion.  The Church, especially in recent years, has “followed the science” (to use a phrase in vogue right now) to remind us that the infant in the womb is a unique human being, with unique DNA, even while in the womb of the mother.  It is not a potential human, it is a human with potential.  We have marched and talked about the value of every human life, and promoted adoption, in case a mother has no support to raise the child she has conceived.  Even children born from sexual assault have talked about their own value as a human being, and how glad they are that their mother followed the will of God and chose life.  And yet, with all these good witnesses, people, sometimes even Catholics, sometimes even very prominent Catholics like our president, promote abortion and do not heed the voice of the Good Shepherd, pleading for the life of those little lambs in the womb.  
    Today, let’s listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd, in all areas that He speaks.  Let’s pray for all mothers today and ask God to help them to be the best mothers they can be.  That includes mothers whose children came to term and whom they raised; mothers who suffered the great sorrow and loss of miscarriage or stillborn children; and especially pray for mothers who made the decision to abort their child, that they have a conversion of heart and that the wounds that abortion causes are healed.  May we all–mothers, fathers, and children–be attentive to and listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd today and every day. 

"There's a Difference in Living and Living Well"

Fourth Sunday of Easter
    People sometimes ask me how I prepare for my homilies and how long it takes.  I think it was Archbishop Fulton Sheen who said that if he was supposed to preach for five days he needed five minutes of prep.  If he was supposed to preach for five minutes he needed five days of prep.  For whatever reason, though, this was a hard homily to write this week.  I followed my usual pattern of reading the readings a week ahead of time.  My first draft was talking about how we can sometimes be like sheep, not the smartest creature on God’s green earth, and follow the wrong shepherd.  My second draft was basically an apology for all the ways that I don’t live up to the model that the Good Shepherd sets for us priests.  But neither of them “felt” right in my gut; not what God wanted me to say.
    The readings are not overly complicated.  Jesus calls Himself the gate and the shepherd in the Gospel, the second reading talks about how we had gone astray like sheep, and we heard the familiar psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd,” which is why this weekend of Easter is referred to as Good Shepherd Sunday.  But nothing was sticking as I prepared it.  So hopefully this does the job.  If not, chalk it up to an off-week.
    “‘I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly.’”  We get caught up in a lot of things in our day-to-day life.  We have responsibilities, concerns, points-of-view, and things that occupy first place in our mind.  Add to this all of the things that come to our mind with COVID-19.  And then there’s politics.  Oh how we love to engross ourselves in what’s happening politically, and whether or not it jives with our political views. 
    Now, all of those things are important.  If you don’t keep in mind that you need to feed your family, problems quickly ensue.  If you’re not noticing the green light changing to red, you could hurt yourself or another.  We need to be our brother’s keeper and practice good hygiene and social distancing to help lessen the spread of COVID-19.  And politics is certainly worth engaging in, as a way to make sure that the City of Man reflects, to the greatest extent possible, the City of God.  But is that living?  Or as the great George Strait, the King of Country, sang, “There’s a difference in living and living well.”      Jesus, the King of Kings, and King of George Strait, said, “‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?’”  Paying attention to food, money, traffic, viruses, and politics are all important.  But do we really think that’s what Jesus meant when He said that He came to give us abundant life?  Is abundant life the daily grind to make a living and provide for the family?  Is abundant life just watching cars on the road and traffic signals?  Do you feel you’re living an abundant life trying to navigate the ever-changing rules on how not to spread COVID-19?  Is sharing and retweeting political posts and arguing and trolling people really what we think is of the utmost importance in life?
    Jesus did not come to bring us a life slightly better than the one we have now.  The life that Jesus came to bring, the life He came to shepherd us to, is more different than we could ever imagine.  It’s not an improvement where we’re still giving the most thought and concern on our the day-to-day, but a life filled with the grace and power and love of God.  Jesus did not come to shepherd us from one good pasture to another.  He came to shepherd us from death to life, from darkness to light, from sorrow to joy. 
    The saints sometimes get foretastes of this abundant life, and we hear about saints who go into ecstasy–the overwhelming experience of pure happiness, not the drug–as they have communion with God.  They give us an example, as a way to encourage us on with them to what Christ desires for us all. 
    That’s what made the Apostles preach as they did, as we heard in the first reading.  This reading is part of St. Peter’s speech at Pentecost, where the Apostles and disciples were so ecstatic (literally from the Greek meaning out of the everyday status) that people thought they were drunk.  But Peter, having experienced the joy of the Risen Christ, and given the power of the Holy Spirit to preach it, had to tell the people what they knew.  Or, as St. Paul would later say, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel.”  And it’s not merely telling the people about Jesus and the abundant life He offers.  It’s also about repenting, being baptized, and receiving the Holy Spirit to receive that promise of abundant life. 
    So do you want that abundant life, or do you want to settle for the humdrum in which we so often find ourselves?  Abundant life is your inheritance, your birthright through baptism; you need only claim it.  Yes, we will still have to operate in this world and be mindful of all of our daily needs and activities.  But our hearts and minds can already be joined to God, and we can, even now, enjoy the verdant pastures where Christ, the Good Shepherd, desires to guide us to enjoy abundant life. 

Revelation: Consolation & Worship

Fourth Sunday of Easter

When a lot of people think about the Book of Revelation, they think about scary stuff about the end of time.  They think about 666, the number of the beast, and the trials and tribulations of the end of the world.  And those things are in there, to be sure.  But the overarching theme of Revelation is not what we probably think.

If you’re looking for a good book on how to read the Book of Revelation, you can pick up Scott Hahn’s book, The Lamb’s Supper.  As a Church, we have been listening to the Book of Revelation for the past few Sundays of Easter.  But we haven’t heard too much about beasts and tribulations, dragons with seven horns, or the like.  And that’s because the overarching theme of Revelation is that God is going to take this fallen world, put an end to the fallenness, and then fully bring about a new heaven and a new earth, which He began through the Resurrection of His Son, Jesus.  Yes, evil will be punished, and justice will be established in fullness.  And then we will begin to enjoy the eternal reign of Jesus Christ that will last forever (no, it’s not just 1,000 years; that’s a symbolic number to signify eternity).  

Revelation is meant to be a book of hope for those who were suffering for the faith.  Those who were suffering during “the time of great distress,” those who gave their lives for Jesus, either by martyrdom of blood or the martyrdom of the witness of their lives, will be rewarded.  And it will not be limited to one group of people.  There will be those “from every nation, race, people, and tongue” in heaven.  And what will they do?

Revelation does not describe heaven as a sunny day of golf (golf wasn’t invented yet).  Revelation doesn’t describe heaven as a Caribbean paradise (as nice as that sounds).  Revelation describes heaven as filled with those who have remained faithful to Christ standing “before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.”  The white robes should remind us of the white garments that those who are baptized wear.  It is also the basis for the alb that I and some of our servers wear, or the white surplice that our servers in cassocks where.  The white robes are the clothing of those who are worshipping God.  The palm branches should also remind us of Palm Sunday, when the people, and we in imitation of them, praised Jesus as the Messiah as He entered Jerusalem.  

Our second reading continues that those in heaven, “stand before God’s throne and worship him day and night in his temple.”  Heaven is eternal worship of God.  Heaven is a Mass that lasts forever, but without the symbols and signs that we have in the Mass, because God is all in all, and there is no need for things to remind us of God because He is fully present.

Coming to Mass each Sunday and Holyday is practice for heaven.  In heaven we join with the angels in adoring God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in an eternal act of praise and adoration.  When God spoke to Moses in the Book of Exodus, God gave Moses a pattern by which Moses was to make the ark of the covenant, the meeting tent (where the ark was, and where God dwelt).  The Temple of Solomon was built to represent the universe as it should be, with waves of the sea, oxen, and fruit, all symbolizing paradise and the Garden of Eden, with the ark of the covenant in the middle, and incense offerings and bread offerings before the presence of God.  Our churches, though some do this better than others, are meant to be patterns of heaven, drawing our hearts to the things that are above, as St. Paul says, not the things of earth.  Earth is fallen; heaven is perfection.  But all of these are patterns for heaven, with Christ at the high point in the sanctuary, especially represented by the altar, as well as His real presence in the tabernacle.  And our angels and saints are meant to remind us that we do not worship alone.  

Revelation teaches us that heaven is a place of reward for those who have followed Christ, where there is no more sorrow or tears, no extremes of weather, no need for any earthly food or drink.  We worship God and He satisfies all our needs.  Coming to Mass each Sunday and Holyday is not about being forced, or making us feel good about ourselves, or getting anything (though God does provide for us to hear His Word and receive the Body and Blood of His Son).  Coming to Mass is about preparing ourselves for eternity.

There may be lots of other things that sound more enticing, that sound more enjoyable than heaven.  There are many shepherds that want to lead us to their goals of happiness.  But, as the sheep of the Good Shepherd, the only truly Good Shepherd, Jesus, we are called to follow Him to eternal life.  If we are honest, we have all listened to other shepherds, who sounded like what they were offering us was what we wanted.  But only the Good Shepherd leads us to heaven.  We cannot get there by any other guide.  Only Jesus welcomes us into the verdant pastures of eternal life.  Only Jesus leads us to heaven, which the Book of Revelation describes as perfect happiness and justice, where sin has been fully defeated, and death and sorrow are no more, where we join with the angels in worshipping God forever in an eternal act of adoration, in the place where God provides perfectly for all our needs.  May we listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd so that we can follow where He leads His sheep.  

Unexpected Pastures

Fourth Sunday of Easter

This Sunday of Easter is called Good Shepherd Sunday, and it’s not hard to understand why: our Gospel today comes from the Gospel according to John where Jesus refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd.  I think that we all see the necessity of Jesus leading us, like a shepherd, and, in fact, probably the most popular Psalm in the Bible is Psalm 23, which usually is remembered for it’s first line, “The Lord is my shepherd.”  

A shepherd is someone who leads us, and sometimes we don’t want to be led.  Often we want to lead ourselves, to determine our own direction and our own destinies.  But we proclaim this weekend that God is the one who is supposed to lead us.  Without God we would be lost and in danger, like sheep without a shepherd.  There are many other hirelings who tell us that they will lead us to good places, but Jesus reminds us today that they run away when danger comes, and they often do not lead us where we truly want to go.

I know in my own life Jesus, the Good Shepherd, has led me places I never imagined I would go.  If I simply think about my assignments as a priest, when I was meeting with Bishop Boyea to be approved for ordination to be a priest, I was wondering where he would send me.  The parishes I thought would be open for a newly-ordained priest would be Queen of the Miraculous Medal in Jackson (where I had interned as a seminarian), St. Gerard in Lansing (where I had lived for a summer in college), St. Thomas Aquinas/St. John Church & Student Center in East Lansing (where I went to middle school and where I had spent a couple of summers in college), and St. John the Evangelist in Fenton, where I was then serving as a deacon.  In my heart, I wanted to stay at St. John the Evangelist in Fenton, as I had grown to love that community, and knew how things operated with Fr. Harvey.  But Jesus, the Good Shepherd, through Bishop Boyea, sent me to St. Thomas Aquinas in East Lansing.  Even though it wasn’t my first choice, I had a great four years in East Lansing, made some lifelong friends, and learned a lot about parish ministry.

Then, when my first four years were coming to a close, I thought I might become an administrator in a new parish.  There were a number of parishes that were open, but none of them really jumped out at me as a place for which I should apply.  Jesus, the Good Shepherd, through Bishop Boyea, sent me to St. Joseph in Adrian, on the outskirts of the Diocese of Lansing.  I had never even really visited Adrian before.  And yet, the people of St. Joseph became near and dear to my heart and it was a good, two-year assignment which helped me learn how to be a pastor.

In my second year in Adrian, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, through Bishop Boyea, again led me somewhere I never imagined to go: Flint.  I was very happy in Adrian, but Bishop Boyea said that, because of other moves, he needed me to go to St. Pius X.  I told him that if that’s where God wanted me, then that’s where I would go.  We have certainly had our struggles here at St. Pius X since I arrived, but I love it here, and I love you, my parish family.

In each of my moves, the Good Shepherd has taken me to pastures I never expected.  And in each move, I have found blessings more than I ever would have expected at places that maybe I thought I would do well.  And that extends even beyond my parish assignments: Jesus, the Good Shepherd, continues to guide my formation as a priest.  That is greatly impacted by Bishop Boyea, my immediate shepherd, who, I know, loves me (as he does all his priests), but also challenges me (as he does with all his priests) to grow.

The People of God, the laity, are also called to grow in ways, sometimes that they never expected, and Jesus, the Good Shepherd, exercises his role as Shepherd through His priests.  This is also World Day of Prayer for Vocations.  Each vocation is a gift from God, and whether a person receives the Sacrament of Matrimony, makes vows in consecrated life, or receives the Sacrament of Holy Order, each is called to build up the Church, along with those perhaps not in one of those vocations temporarily or permanently.  But priests in a special way help make the Church.  Without priests, we do not have the ordinary way that God forgives our sins in the Sacrament of Penance, and without priests, we are not strengthened to live our universal vocation to be saints through the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.  

And yet, some parents, or other family members, discourage their sons, grandsons, nephews, etc., to answer God’s call to become a priest.  As far as I know, no son of St. Pius X has ever been ordained a priest, or has even entered the seminary.  That is a very sad statistic.  Priesthood is not always easy; it is a sacrifice; and it requires a real man to step up and give his life away for the good of the People of God.  But it is also rewarding beyond any measure that I ever expected.  And I cannot imagine my life doing anything else (yes, that even includes being a police officer).  

So what can we do?  If you have a son or multiple sons, encourage them to think and pray about becoming a priest.  Always include it as an option for a future.  The same goes for if you have grandsons or nephews.  If you don’t, or can’t think of anyone who would be a good priest, then pray for the Holy Spirit to call one of the sons of St. Pius X to consider this vocation, maybe even if it’s simply trying out the seminary.  And pray for that man to be open to the Holy Spirit’s voice.  Another great way to promote the priesthood is to live married life faithful to the call in Holy Matrimony: a life of prayer, sacrifice for the other, and holiness.  Good priests come from good families.  

Jesus is our Good Shepherd, who sends us places sometimes we never expect.  He also sends us shepherds who care for us and help us to follow Him.  Pray for more men to respond to the call of priesthood: to a life of sacrifice, yes,  but also a life of great joy spent in imitation of the Good Shepherd, who calls us all to be saints, and leads us to green pastures.

It's Not What We Know, It's Who We Know

Fourth Sunday of Easter

We’ve probably all heard the saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”  I experienced that saying firsthand when I studied in Rome for 5 months as an undergraduate.  During  my time I met a monsignor who worked for the Roman Rota, the Supreme Court, as it were for the Catholic Church (though that analogy is not 100% accurate, as the pope is really the supreme judge).  He was also a chaplain for the local chapter of the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights of Malta, a chivalrous religious order that provides medical help in the name of the Church.  He  took me to different churches that I would have never known about, and certainly would not have been able to enter.  To be honest, it was pretty cool.

Msgr. (now-Bishop) Giuseppe Sciacca, me, and some of
my classmates from my semester in Rome

It may sound surprising, but when it comes to eternal salvation, it is also not what you know, but who you know.  No, not in the sense that if you’re best friends with this priest, or this religious sister, or this bishop, then you can do anything you want.  But it is true when it comes to Jesus.  Salvation is intimately connected with knowing who Jesus is, and having a relationship with Him.  We can know all sorts of facts about Jesus, we can even be able to repeat the Catechism word for word.  But that knowledge does not equate to salvation.  Even Satan knows about Jesus; in fact, Satan probably knows more about Jesus than we do.  But Satan does not know Jesus as it pertains to having friendship with Jesus.

Jesus Himself asserts that it’s all about knowing Him.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about Himself as the “gate for the sheep.”  He is the one by whom the sheep (that is, we) enter into the verdant pastures that Psalm 23 spoke of in today’s Responsorial Psalm.  No one else is the gate: not Moses, not Mohammed, not Buddha, no one else.  If we wish to enter into heaven, we have to go through Jesus.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: what about all the people who didn’t or don’t believe in Jesus, who don’t truly know Jesus?  We can talk about people who came before Jesus, who had no way of knowing about Him, and those who have come after Jesus, who maybe do or maybe don’t have access to knowing about Jesus.  What Scripture makes clear, both in today’s Gospel, as well as in Peter’s speech in another place in the Acts of the Apostles, is that there is no other name on earth by when people are saved other than the Most Holy Name of Jesus.  So anyone who is in heaven, and only God decides who is in heaven, is there only because of the one saving act of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection.  Jews are not saved by the Law of Moses (St. Paul makes that very clear); Muslims are not saved by following the Qur’an; Buddhists are not saved because they followed the path of enlightenment.  If they are in heaven, it is only through Jesus.

The Church also taught in Lumen gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Vatican II, and I will quote the section: “Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do his will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.”  So the Church teaches that is possible that those who are ignorant of Christ through no fault of their own, and who are seeking God and following, to the best of the ability, their conscience, that they be saved.  We don’t know if they’re saved, because the only way we know to receive the gift of salvation is to know Jesus and be in a relationship with Him, begun in Baptism.  But the key is that if any person is in heaven, they are only there because of Jesus.

This should be a catalyst for us not simply to know about Jesus, but to truly know Him.  It should move us to say, ‘Do I really know Jesus?’  Simply being baptized, or even receiving other sacraments, does not necessarily mean that we know Jesus.  We might know about Jesus, but do we know Him as well as we know our friends or our spouse?

It should also be a catalyst to tell others about Jesus.  Your co-worker’s salvation could depend on how well you help them to understand who Jesus is.  Your spouse’s salvation could depend on how well you have made the life of Jesus your own and live it in your marriage.  Your classmate or friend’s salvation could be aided by the fact that you help them to know Jesus and reflect that relational knowledge through what you say and do.  Is that easy?  No.  The cost of discipleship, of knowing Jesus, is very expensive.  But God is pulling for us and giving us what we need to know Jesus and to share that knowledge with others through His divine grace, which is given to us through the Sacraments.

This weekend our First Communicants will receive Jesus, the Gate to Heaven, in the Eucharist.  In this new way, they are receiving the help to have union with Jesus, to truly know Him, and not simply to know about Him.  They asked for His mercy on Saturday, which He readily grants to those who are sorry and who seek to make the life of Jesus their own in their own way.  And on Sunday, having been purified of the obstacles to His life, they then/now receive that life and love in Jesus’ Body and Blood.  What a beautiful gift for Jesus to spread the table of the Eucharist, the altar of life, before us as we gather in the house of the Lord, which anticipates the eternal temple of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, where God wants us to dwell for years to come!  And each week we are invited back to Mass, to get to know Jesus better, and then to make His life our own by the power of His grace.  

When it comes to eternal salvation, to being welcomed into heaven, it’s not what we know, it’s who we know.  Do we know the Good Shepherd, the One who is the Gate for the sheep, who came that we “might have life and have it more abundantly”?

Cure for a Cult-Personality Parish

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Today the Church celebrates the Fourth Sunday of Easter, which has also been called “Good Shepherd Sunday,” because the Gospels for each year come from John 10, where Jesus refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd.   The Church uses a three-year Sunday cycle of readings (we refer to them as Year A, B, and C), and it is very rare that the Gospels for Years A, B, and C would all have the same theme.  But, for this Sunday of Easter, we do.

Of course, this year the readings take on a new meaning for me as I prepare to leave this flock and shepherd (pastor) another flock.  So many of you have been very kind in your outpouring of love and support for me during this time of transition.  Many of you have asked the question, “Do you really have to leave?”  Some have even threatened to write letters to the bishop (and some have followed through).  One of the Adrian firefighters must have figured that he didn’t want to mess with middle management; he was sending his letter straight to Pope Francis.  In any case, it has been touching to me to have this demonstration of your love for me as your pastor.

At the same time, though, as we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday, I am not the Good Shepherd.  That’s Jesus.  I hope I have been a good shepherd, but I am not the Good Shepherd.  Families are often the ones who are most cognizant of each other’s faults, and I am sure that you are very cognizant of mine, along with my idiosyncrasies.  But this parish is not about me.  If I have given that impression, then I owe you a huge apology.  This parish is about Jesus, and how the people of this parish can follow Him more closely.  It should be Jesus’ voice that you hear and recognize and follow; not mine.  

Of course, each priest is called to be as close of an icon of the Good Shepherd as he can be.  But each priest has his own gifts and talents and his own failings.  Fr. Dave, who is still so loved here, and rightly so, brought with him as pastor his gifts and his failings.  I brought with me my gifts and failings.  And Fr. Kurian will bring with him his own gifts and failings.  Some of our gifts and some of our failings are probably the same.  Some of them are certainly different.  But we all, Fr. Dave, myself, and Fr. Kurian, all try to lead you to the Good Shepherd.

The temptation in our day is the cult-personality parish.  Because of our increased mobility, it is easy to travel 20 or 30 minutes without thinking about it because we like this priest or don’t like that one.  Maybe we like this way this one celebrates the Mass better than that one.  Maybe we like that one’s homilies better than this one’s.  But the Church is not meant to be built around any one person; she is meant to be built around Three Divine Persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  If our faith and our religious practice is built around anyone else, it is built on sand, and is always in danger of collapsing.  

St. Paul, whose preaching to the Gentiles we heard about today, was no stranger to this.  In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul bemoans the fact that there is a cult-personality parish being built in Corinth.  He writes: 

Whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human?  What is Apollos, after all, and what is Paul?  Ministers through whom you became believers, just as the Lord assigned each one.  I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.  Therefore, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who causes growth.

He then writes a little further, “So let no one boast about human beings, for everything belongs to you, Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or the present or the future: all belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God.”  It isn’t about Fr. Dave, or Fr. Anthony, or Fr. Kurian, or any other priest.  Only Jesus, the Good Shepherd, saves.  Inasmuch as certain priests lead us to God, let us give thanks to God for them.  Inasmuch as we struggle to find God in them, let us pray to God for them.  But may our faith be centered in Jesus, and may we follow His voice, so that we can have eternal life and never perish.  

Having said all that, I treasure my time that I have spent with you, and the next two and a half months that I will spend with you.  Pray for me, that I may be a good shepherd after the heart of the Good Shepherd.  Pray that I can continue to build you up as disciples of Jesus in Adrian, those who recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd, who follow Him, and who are led to the verdant pastures in which He wants to give us repose.