Good Shepherd Sunday

Cousins

He bore our sins in his body upon the cross,

so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness.
By his wounds you have been healed.
For you had gone astray like sheep,
but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

Every year, on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Lectionary offers a gospel passage that leads to reflection on Jesus the Good Shepherd. From there we pray for the leaders of our church, which must include everyone from pope to catechists and Eucharistic ministers. In fact everyone in the Church is called to lead others to faith by living our faith. There are no passengers in this boat.

This reflection must begin with our own ovine instincts. Like sheep, we flock together. Despite our romantic pretensions to being self-made “Marlboro” men and women, each of us is profoundly influenced by the crowd around us.  I would not know English if I hadn’t learned it from my parents. I might not be Catholic if my parents had not been Catholic.

But then, if my parents had not been English-speaking Catholics I would not be the person I am. I would be somebody else; and that’s inconceivable, an oxymoron. Each of us is shaped from conception to death by those around us. True, we make decisions that set directions and, in a sense, create us; but those decisions are always limited by our circumstances. No matter how hard I try, I could not be a Roman emperor. I missed the opportunity by two millennia.

When I consider our ovine nature I remember the tragedy of Jonestown. In November 1979 more than nine hundred people committed suicide at the behest of their shepherd Jim Jones. They were good, Christian, American people who had gradually fallen under the influence; then, the spell; and finally the power of one madman. It was a story that could not be made up; it was too unbelievable to be fabricated. And as the story unfolded in the newspapers of that late autumn week Christians everywhere had to reflect on our vulnerability.

Like sheep, we flock together because we need one another and because we find comfort, reassurance, encouragement and direction from one another. We gather together in churches because we cannot meet Christ outside his congregation. So are we made and so has he ordained it.

But we must pray for our leaders. They are the products of our own church. Ministers reflect the attitudes, ardor and devotion of their own people. Like a democracy, a church usually gets the leadership it deserves.

The celibate priest enjoys a special relationship to his church because his parents were not of a priestly class. His mother and father sat in the pews of the church, as do his brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. He depends upon the church to satisfy his natural longing for progeny; they must give the Church their children if he would have the satisfaction of mentoring the next generation. Without their enthusiastic support of the priesthood as they rear their children, his life is shadowed by the specter of failure.

On this Fourth Sunday of Easter we heed the Lord’s command to “Ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest” and to find shepherds -- clerical and lay, religious and diocesan -- in our homes and churches, to gather us together.