10am
8am
According to mystical theology, before the Resurrection at Easter,
Jesus suffered in the Garden. In his
agony in the Garden, Jesus had a vision of all the sins of the world from the
time of Adam to the end of the world before his Second Coming. The vision caused him so much anguish that
Jesus’ sweat became drops of blood.
After asking His Father to let the chalice of suffering pass from him, Jesus
then accepted it, “Not my will but yours be done.” Jesus took all those sins on himself.
Then, with weak footsteps, Jesus approached the sleeping Peter,
James and John. Mystics describe Jesus
at this moment: “He came to them like a man overwhelmed with bitter sorrow whom
terror urges to seek his friends. But Jesus also came to them like a Good
Shepherd, who when warned with the approach of danger, hastens to visit his
flock, the safety of which is threatened…” (repeat)
I
And here is the first point of two main points in our reflection on
not just who the Good Shepherd IS but what the Good Shepherd DOES
in today’s Gospel: Jesus is the Good
Shepherd. Why? Because Jesus laid down his life for us the
sheep. He doesn’t just carry the sheep,
but Jesus also proves his great love by dying for their sins and saving them
from eternal separation from Heaven.
Here, we see the function or office of the Good Shepherd. The shepherd is not the Bad Shepherd, the hireling
who runs at the first signs of spiritual dangers and spiritual wolves. When our salvation was on the line, the Good Shepherd
didn’t run away at the sign of danger (like the last 30 seconds of an intense
game.) He stayed with His flock – you and
me – and died.
Of all the religions of the world, no one else is worthy but the
Lamb of God, Jesus. Jesus is both Lamb
and Shepherd. And of course, while we
respect other religions, it should be said that Jesus is the ONLY savior of the
world. No other world religion founders
died for our sins. In fact, Jesus died
for their sins.
As it is written in the Acts of the Apostles Chapter 4 from today’s
First Reading: Peter the first Pope, the one to whom Jesus said, “Feed my
sheep,” “said in one of his first homilies: There is no salvation through
anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven…by which we are to be
saved.”
AND not only does the Good Shepherd die for us his flock, but Jesus
rose from the dead for us his flock. No
other religion founders have ever risen from the dead. Jesus said in today’s Gospel, “No one takes
[my life] from me, but I lay it down on my own.
I [Jesus] have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again.” There is no Easter victory without the Good Shepherd
who dies for his sheep.
II
This leads to the second point: If we want to follow Jesus the Good
Shepherd, we too must defend and protect and love and guard the flock by
teaching orthodoxy, not heterodoxy or heresy.
Just as Jesus is both Lamb of God and Shepherd of God, we too are not just
sheep of the flock, but we too share his Shepherd office through baptism and Confirmation.
Here are some practical ways to live like the Good Shepherd. If we are entrusted with any teaching function
in the Church – as teachers, catechists, parents and godparents or grandparents–
our responsibility is SO great! (The
requirements of godparents are actually stricter than parents.) To be like Jesus the Good Shepherd, we too feed
the flock of God with sound teaching, with the Word of God. That means feeding others with correct or
orthodox teachings, not heterodoxy or heresy or our own human opinions.
Teaching correct doctrine is called orthodoxy. “Ortho” means correct, and “doxy” means
way. Heterodoxy is the opposite of
orthodox or correct teaching. “Hetero”
means different and “doxy” means way (a different way from Jesus) or heresy. Heresy is a post-baptismal denial of some
essential Christian teaching. Those who
share in the office of the Good Shepherd are called to teach orthodoxy, correct
teaching, against the errors of the day with love. In Heaven, we will see that those we instruct
in what is right will thank and love us for all eternity.
Religious Education – or Catechesis – is an extension of the Word
of God. When we catechize, when you and
I are teaching the Faith or any religious teachings about God, we are doing a
profound ecclesial act. We are feeding
the flock as shepherds. Whether we are
entrusted as parents as first teachers of the Faith or Catholic school teachers
or parish catechists or lay leaders with any teaching function, we are called
to shepherd and vigilantly teach truth in love (like a wise father or mother
guiding their children home to Heaven), not obnoxiously, arrogantly or even just to win an argument-- truth in charity (love).
So how does one act like a bad shepherd? What does it mean to see a wolf and run? When we see people living in a way that
contradicts the teachings of Jesus, do we run away for fear of confrontation or
rejection? Or do we share the Gospel
with charity, out of love for God and neighbor?
Bad shepherds see danger of false teaching and the wolves of bad
influences (like bad friends, books, ideas, TV and movies) and allow those
ideas to be taught to the sheep entrusted to them. O perhaps popularity and human respect causes
them to downplay a moral teaching of the Church.
We need courage to teach the fulness of the Catholic Church’s
teachings, even when they are difficult and even rejected by the majority of
Christians. As the Responsorial Psalm
says, “The stone rejected by the builders has become the corner stone.” Jesus himself knew what it’s like to be
reject, and so we share in that rejection.
[If time allows: Before I close, I’d like to talk how we need new
priests, how to encourage youth, Fr. Raj Derivera’s family (present at 10am
Mass), how the Archdiocese for the Military needs 800 priest-chaplains but only
has less than 200, and how parishes across the country used to have 2 priests
but now have only one.]
To summarize: (1) Jesus is the Good Shepherd because he laid down
his life for us the sheep and (2) we share in the office of teaching and
shepherding God’s holy people those entrusted to us. May Mary the Mother of the Good Shepherd, our
Blessed Mother Mary, help us to be faithful!
May she obtain for us all the graces to always teach and lovingly and
courageously feed the flock of the Good Shepherd.
I close here. As the Second
Reading says, “Beloved, see what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may
be called the children of God. …What we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be
like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
May we His sheep and lambs be also like him, the Good Shepherd, who laid
down his life for love of his flock. Amen.
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