The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Lectionary: 160

Thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark. 

I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly.

Christians who are able to swallow their pride and admit they need good leadership readily turn to the Good Shepherd. 

After a bone-wearying election cycle, as yet unresolved, we are ready to embrace a worthy leader, if only one might appear. 

I have enjoyed long, energetic conversations with Veterans in "substance abuse rehab" about whether the human being has instincts. I argue that we have none; we have only habits. And -- the point! -- habits can be changed, altered, forgotten, or simply "quit." 

But we might have an instinct for flocking like birds, fish, sheep and many other animals. Birds seem to do it without leaders. Feeding, they scan earth, water, and sky for food, while watching one another. When one spots food they go fly toward it; the others, seeing the changed flight and direction, follow suit. But birds also flock, it seems, for the fun of it. Who hasn't watched pigeons and starlings swirling like clouds through the sky in an ecstasy of togetherness? 

Sheep, both wild and domestic, also follow one another. Perhaps wild sheep and goats have their alpha leaders -- I wouldn't know -- but after thousand of years, domesticated sheep follow and rely on shepherds. 

Whether human beings instinctively or habitually their leaders, they do better when they have good leaders. And Christians especially have an instinct -- called the Holy Spirit -- for following their pastors -- a Latin word for shepherds. We cannot know the Lord without the Holy Spirit to lead us to him, and that Spirit gathers us into congregations. 

Self-described Christians who willfully suppress that holy instinct are doomed to sterile extinction. They wander from the fold, fashioning their own moral standards and swearing only by their own opinions. They are lost in the wilderness without progeny. They're sometimes known as goats; and they follow the one who is represented with goat horns and cloven feet. But they do more harm than the silly romantics who call themselves satanists.

Because we welcome the Holy Spirit who guides us with good leaders, we must pray for them -- especially our deacons, priests, and bishops -- and for the discerning spirit that obeys without servility or fawning. We owe our pastors love, support, and respect; and honesty in our discussions with them. We differ from sheep in that we are not stupid! Wise shepherds listen to their flock even as they speak to them, and they speak less than they listen.

Saint John Henry Newman wondered how a pastor could shepherd his flock if he never heard their confessions. He said of the Sacrament:

How many are the souls, in distress, anxiety or loneliness, whose one need is to find a being to whom they can pour out their feelings unheard by the world? Tell them out they must; they cannot tell them out to those whom they see every hour. They want to tell them and not to tell them; and they want to tell them out, yet be as if they be not told; they wish to tell them to one who is strong enough to bear them, yet not too strong to despise them; they wish to tell them to one who can at once advise and can sympathize with them; they wish to relieve themselves of a load, to gain a solace, to receive the assurance that there is one who thinks of them, and one to whom in thought they can recur, to whom they can betake themselves, if necessary, from time to time, while they are in the world. How many a Protestant’s heart would leap at the news of such a benefit, putting aside all distinct ideas of a sacramental ordinance, or of a grant of pardon and the conveyance of grace! If there is a heavenly idea in the Catholic Church, looking at it simply as an idea, surely, next after the Blessed Sacrament, Confession is such. … Oh what piercing, heart-subduing tranquility, provoking tears of joy, is poured, almost substantially and physically upon the soul, the oil of gladness, as Scripture calls it, when the penitent at length rises, his God reconciled to him, his sins rolled away for ever!

The Saint would be saddened if he were to return today and discover how many Roman Catholics shun the Sacrament, avoiding it like Protestant Christians. Many Catholic children have forgotten, if they ever learned, how to examine their conscience, confess their sins, and offer atonement. They are sheep without shepherds. 

This election year has revealed deep pools of racism, distrust, fear, and hatred in our homes and churches. As Advent begins next week, let us return to our Shepherd of Souls through the Sacrament of Penance.