All Called to be Shepherds Like Christ! (Easter 4.C)

 

Turn on the evening news, read the paper, or watch TV, and you’ll think this is a very violent world. Crime seems to be everywhere, almost the greatest risk of everyday life.

Well, let me tell you the true crime story for four generations of my family. My grandmother had her purse snatched in the carport of her apartment building more than forty years ago. End of story.

A purse-snatching. Not so scary. But not nice either, because it’s unexpected and sudden. In a single moment you lose many things of value, from money to keys, and you wonder where your credit cards will end up.

Today we hear Jesus talking about sheep snatching. Earlier in this chapter of John’s Gospel he talks about the thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy; this verse is more about kidnapping than murder. Both, of course, are violent crimes that represent here the theft or murder of a soul.

Are we more afraid of  a thug in a parking lot than of the one who can steal our souls?

We should be. Sometimes the sheep-snatcher tries to carry off a lamb who belongs to us—a child, a sibling, a student, a friend.

We’ve almost all had the pain of seeing a loved one “fall away,” as we like to say. Maybe we should say “snatched away.”

But how does that square with what Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand”? Is Jesus keeping his promise to protect his flock?

We know that God keeps his promises. If people are walking away from his flock, it can’t be that they’ve been snatched from the loving arms of the Good Shepherd. They must freely be leaving the sheepfold and wandering off. They can’t be taken violently, but they can leave freely.

There’s some consolation in this. Our fallen-away friends are not victims but free people. And we ourselves are not at the mercy of the Evil One and his schemes—the Good Shepherd is guarding us if we remain a part of his flock.

How does the Good Shepherd guard and protect us?

First, through the ministry of bishops. If Catholics couldn’t be sure of the truth, they would be easy pray for the snatcher of sheep. They wouldn’t recognize a wolf in sheep’s clothing, because his falsehoods would be camouflaged as new ideas, fresh ideologies, or just plain modern thinking.

Christ’s gracious plan protects those the Father has given him by allowing any member of the flock to recognize deception; whenever we hear doctrines or ideas in conflict with the authentic teaching office of the Church we know the sheep-snatcher is on the prowl.

Authentic apostolic teaching is the first protective fence around the flock of Christ. Brave bishops are good shepherds. This year, on the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, I think we should be praying that the Lord calls good men to be his bishops. Not only that, we should also pray that those whom he calls have the courage to say yes.

Second, through the ministry of priests. I can’t recall a parishioner who was faithful to Confession leaving the Church, although I am sure it’s happened. Faithful attendance at Mass also makes us strong, less vulnerable to being carried away from the sheepfold. It’s hard to go from worshipping the Lord with gladness, singing in his presence—as the Psalm says today—to rejecting Christ or his Church.

The increasing shortage of priests will soon mean decreased opportunities for Sunday Mass, especially outside of cities, and fewer opportunities for the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. When we pray for more vocations to the priesthood, we are praying for ourselves, that we will be shepherded by priests who are instruments of God’s grace and mercy.

Third, through the ministry of parents. Although we associate Good Shepherd Sunday with priests and religious, the vocation of the Christian mother and father has never been more crucial. Let’s face it: who tended Christ’s flock in my family with care and sacrifice? My mother and father, and especially my mother who as was normal in those days did the lion’s share of shepherding her lambs!

I once argued that the reason our prayer for vocations mentions only priests, deacons, and consecrated men and women was that there was no shortage of marriages, so we didn’t really need to pray for those. Of all the things I’ve got wrong over the years, this is near the top.

In the first place, there is a shortage of marriages! Outside the Church, cohabitation has taken its place. And even among good practicing young Catholics such factors as housing costs and social uncertainties have meant a plummeting number of marriages in almost every parish.

But more than that, we desperately need to understand marriage as a calling from God, a calling as indispensable as any ordained vocation. Every time I talk with Catholic teachers, in both secondary and elementary schools, I hear how the partnership between school and family falls apart when parents do not realize they are called to be shepherds—good shepherds, loving shepherds, countercultural shepherds.

Neither the best teacher nor the best pastor can protect the young without help at home.

Today is Mother’s Day. We honour our mothers. We give thanks for our mothers. But let’s also pray for the next generation of mothers, for they will need to be a sort of “tiger mother” to protect their children from the daily attacks they face in our confused society.

Finally, the Good Shepherd must have the help of every member of Christ’s Church. Every single one of us—priests, deacons, mothers, fathers, unmarried people—has a call to be a shepherd of the lambs and sheep around us.

As with so much else, our responsibility to shepherd one another comes from baptism and confirmation. This is particularly easy to see at the baptism of infants when the child is anointed with the oil of chrism. The celebrant says, “As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet and King, so may you live always as a member of his body.”

What kind of a King was Christ? Like King David, he was a shepherd-king. So too with us. We are all called in baptism to lead others, young and old, with authority and courage, even into battle with the thief and kidnapper of their souls.

I watched a so-called “ordinary” parishioner take hold of the shepherd’s crook at our on Friday morning men’s group when he gave a presentation as part of our series on the Ten Commandments.

He had been assigned the two commandments modern society most rejects: the fifth, which deals with life issues such as abortion and assisted suicide, and the sixth, which covers human sexuality. Without hesitation or compromise, he shared solid Catholic teaching with the other men.

He led us directly from present confusion to the green pastures of solid truth.

Not everyone gets a chance to give a talk about the fifth and sixth commandments. I don’t recommend it at the dinner table with your teenagers.

What I do recommend is a lot easier. Lead your friends and family members to still waters. That’s what they’ll find next week at our “Water in the Desert” event on Saturday evening.

In a time of quiet and prayer, they can meet the Good Shepherd himself.