4th Sunday of Easter (Fr. Francis)

Jesus the Good Shepherd

Last week we heard about the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and how Jesus went after these two ‘lost sheep’ and found them. Today we hear a lot about Shepherds and Sheep, and so consequently we call today Good Shepherd Sunday.

“Ninety-eight percent of all priests make the other two percent look bad.” I’ve forgotten where I first heard that quip, but it’s my favorite among the anti-clerical tropes of the past generation. Pope Francis offers similarly flavorful, albeit sometimes vinegary, morsels, e.g., “I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber.” Even within the clergy, we older men have been known to discount the younger as “millennial creampuffs,” and have in turn been discounted by the trendy insult, “Okay, boomer.”

The Lord Jesus himself sets the standard for anti-clericalism — or better, the standard for clerical standards. “Whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate . . . is a thief and a robber,” “All who came before me are thieves and robbers.” The shepherds are judged by Jesus, who will shortly identify himself as the Good Shepherd. The evangelist applies the judgment to the Pharisees, and Jesus may also have had in mind the Zealots who run hither and thither, chasing after false messiahs. Jesus identifies himself as the gate, but tantalizingly omits any explicit mention of his own apostles or their successors and lesser ministers, anyone who might be affirmed as proper shepherds who go through Jesus as the gate.

It’s no surprise, then, that some Christians grow cynical about the clergy. They blame the clergy for the ills of the world or the Church. Just like those sullen priests who bemoan the laity, some laymen speak or write as if the earthly Church would be indistinguishable from the Church Triumphant, were it not for our miserable priests, who instead have made us all feel as if we are the Church Suffering. Far too many of us, both clergy and laity, compete with each other for what we imagine to be the moral high ground. We speak very much like the pompous Pharisee of Jesus’s parable: “I may be a sinner, Lord, but at least I’m not that kind of sinner.” And thus we betray the Gospel of forgiveness for a brief flush of self-righteousness.

But our Lord’s purpose is not the mutual recrimination among clergy and laity. Jesus can be stern about the care for the sheep because their life — abundant life, no less! — is his primary concern: “Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will go in and come out and find pasture.” While the analogy of the sheepfold suggests to us an ordered Church, with recognizable shepherds going through the gate, from Jesus’s perspective we are all sheep, all in need of salvation. Even the priests, especially the priests, depend upon the righteousness that comes from Christ, and not on any “self-absorbed, Promethean neo-Pelagianism.” To the extent we are sheep, we dare not mimic Jesus’s judgment on shepherds.

Moreover, today’s other readings also bear witness to good shepherding, the ministry of St. Peter and the apostles, themselves the Church’s foremost clergymen. Reversing his earlier denial, Peter now boldly proclaims Christ to the Jewish pilgrims gathered for Pentecost. He invites them to “repent and be baptized . . . receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” recognizable fruits of the ministry of others. When Peter contrasts the crowd with “this corrupt generation,” he speaks not so much of the moral or spiritual corruption of the Jewish clergy as he does of our bodily corruption. Standing on the tomb of King David, he contrasts David’s bodily death with Jesus’s bodily resurrection, and invites everyone to be saved in him. For all Peter’s failures, he is now an image and instrument of the Good Shepherd, by which three thousand sheep will find salvation in one day.

Saint Peter makes a second appearance also as the author of today’s epistle. He exhorts us not to compete with one other for worldly reputation, but instead to count it as a grace “when you suffer for doing what is good.” We go through Jesus as our gate whenever we imitate him in suffering lovingly for others. For Jesus, too, returned no insult for insult, but bore our sins that we might live in righteousness. Though we retain an obligation to protect weak sheep from the wolves, none of us have standing to posture against each other’s inadequacies, for we are all formerly stray sheep now returned to our Shepherd.

Laymen who loudly denounce the failures of the clergy might imagine themselves heroic advocates and protectors of the sheep, but if they posture thus, they are then assuming some of the responsibilities of the shepherds, and will be judged by the standards Jesus sets. In the end, they are of no more use than the clergy who loudly denounce the inadequacies of the laity. Even when they’re right, they’re wrong, for they are trying to get to the flock not through Jesus, the gate, but around another way, like thieves and robbers.

Insofar as we are all sheep in the fold for which Jesus is the gate, we are all in this together, sharing responsibility for each other’s welfare — the one defense of the sheep that they stay with the flock. Insofar as some of us are priests, shepherds in service of the Good Shepherd, then we have the responsibility of speaking not in our own voice but only with the voice of Jesus, and the sheep have the responsibility to recognize his voice in ours, and follow us, so that the shepherds are saved by the saving of the sheep. Either way, Jesus is our gate, our only gate, to the flock and to salvation.

The Church uses this year’s World Day of Prayer for Vocations to encourage vocations to the ministerial priesthood, the diaconate and the consecrated life. All Christians need to share in the responsibility of fostering these vocations: a) the faith community must continuously pray for vocations both in the Church and in their families. b) Since good priests, deacons and people embracing the consecrated life come from good Christian families, all Christian parents need to live their faith in Christ on a daily basis by leading exemplary lives as parents and by fostering good relationships with, and among, their children. c) Parents need to respect and encourage a child who shows an interest in becoming a priest or deacon or of entering upon a consecrated life. Parents need to encourage their children, including their teenagers and young adults, to participate actively in the children’s and youth activities in the parish, like faith formation and youth ministry. They also need to encourage and actively support them in becoming altar servants, gift-bearers, lectors and ministers of hospitality.  On this World Day of Prayer for Vocations, let us begin, or continue, especially in these most stressful times in and for the Church, local and universal, to pray earnestly for continued conversion and perseverance in the Faith for our bishops, priests, deacons, those living a consecrated life, and all of the laity, for we are One Body and what one member suffers, all suffer. Amen.

Fr. A. Francis HGN