Remain faithful to the grace of God

Homily: 4^th Sunday in Easter – Cycle C

Friends, this weekend we are celebrating a number of wonderful things: namely, the World Day for Vocations and Mother’s Day.  We also call today “Good Shepherd Sunday”, since the Gospel reading for the day, regardless of which year in the three-year cycle of readings we are in, is taken from the “Good Shepherd” discourse in John’s Gospel.  Certainly, there are many great things to preach on today, but I am going to focus in on a phrase from our first reading that, hopefully, will give us something to take home with us to ponder and to work on this week.

In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear of Paul and Barnabas making their way to Antioch to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ to the community there.  Being Jews, they went straight to the synagogue to proclaim to God’s chosen people that the long-awaited Messiah had come: Jesus of Nazareth, who was persecuted and put to death, but rose from the dead on the third day and now lives, having taken his place at the right hand of God in heaven.  They came to proclaim to the Jews in Antioch that it is only in the name of Jesus that they can find salvation.  From the sound of it, they found a positive reception that first sabbath day as it says that many who were there began to follow them.

To those who began following them, Paul and Barnabas spoke to them and urged them to “remain faithful to the grace of God.”  This phrase—remain faithful to the grace of God—struck me as important.  Of all of the things that Paul and Barnabas could have told the ones who were beginning to follow them—for example, “go learn to pray”, or “go study the scriptures”, or “go serve the poor”—they chose to urge them to “remain faithful to the grace of God”.  I think that this is a great Easter message for all of us and it’s a theme that connects with our other readings today.

In the second reading, we continue to hear of John’s visions, recorded for us in the book of Revelation.  In this vision, we see a great multitude of people, too many to count, who are identified as “the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”.  This description is “New Testament speak” for the martyrs: those who have shed their blood for Christ.  And what does “having survived the time of great distress” mean, except that they “remained faithful to the grace of God”?  These who are identified as martyrs—and who, therefore, stand before the throne of God (that is, who stand in heaven)—are the ones who have remained faithful to the grace of God and, therefore, enjoy the reward for their faithfulness.

In the Gospel reading, we hear Jesus say, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish”.  He continues to say, “No one can take them out of my hand.”  This is a beautiful truth about Jesus as the true Good Shepherd.  What isn’t revealed here, however, is that, while no one can take one of Jesus’ sheep from him, his sheep, nonetheless, can wander away on their own.  Jesus’ promise is amazing and should give hope to everyone who comes to him; but it should also stir in us a desire to “remain faithful to the grace of God”, so that, having become a member of Jesus’ flock, we don’t find ourselves having drifted away from him and no longer able to hear his voice.  For when we can no longer hear his voice—that is, when we have failed to remain faithful to God’s grace—then we are no longer protected by his promise.

Friends, this really is the ongoing message of this Easter season.  Having feasted on the joy of Jesus’ resurrection, we perhaps find ourselves like those first followers of Paul and Barnabas in Antioch: excited but not quite sure what to do next.  To us the same instruction is given: “remain faithful to the grace of God”.  What does this mean for us?  Surely it means “Do not return to your life of sin”.  Sin is incompatible with the grace of God and so for us to return to the sin that we strove to leave behind during Lent would be an infidelity to the grace given to us by God (which, in point of fact, helped us to break free from that sin in the first place).  I would say that it also means to be docile to the Holy Spirit.  The grace of God, which we received at baptism, is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  This Spirit dwells in us to guide us and point us to God’s will for our lives.  He is not forceful, however.  We may choose not to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, but rather choose to follow our own will: in which case we stray from Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and make ourselves vulnerable to being overcome by the Evil One who seeks to separate us eternally from God.  If we make ourselves docile to the Spirit, however, we remain faithful to the grace of God and, thus, close to the protecting hand of Jesus.  Thus, enabling us to walk more confidently: ready to share the Good News of Jesus Christ to anyone who will listen.

Finally, I might also add, on this World Day for Vocations, that “remaining faithful to the grace of God” is also the way that we come to know and follow our vocation: whether that be to the priesthood or the diaconate, to the consecrated religious life, to marriage, or to the consecrated single life.  We cannot expect to know God’s will, which is made known to us through grace, unless we remain faithful to God’s grace throughout our lives.  Oh, and by the way, holy vocations foster other holy vocations!  Therefore, if you want to promote vocations to the priesthood, then remain faithful to the grace of God in your own vocation!  When young people see others leading joy-filled lives while following God’s will, it will inspire in them a desire to know that same joy in their own lives and they, too, will begin to discern God’s call.

Therefore, friends, let us spend some time this week reflecting on whether or not we have “remained faithful to the grace of God”; and, if we haven’t, to turn back to our commitment to do so.  In this way, we will stay attuned to the voice of Jesus, our Good Shepherd who leads us to eternal life, and we will also be great witnesses—that is, martyrs—to the joy of a life united to Christ, which will lead others to him, so that there may truly be “one flock” and “one shepherd” throughout the world.  May God bless us all in this good work.

Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – May 12^th, 2019

ONE : Shepherd/Flock

Homily: 4^th Sunday of Easter – Cycle B

          The other day, I got to thinking about this woman I knew named Laura.  I met Laura nearly eight years ago when we both signed up for a summer internship for future pastors and pastoral counselors at one of the hospitals in Carmel.  This was a non-denominational program, so there were Catholics, Protestants, and even those who didn’t claim to belong to any particular faith tradition.  Laura fit into that latter category.  She grew up Catholic but had long since drifted away from practicing her faith in the Catholic Church.  I must confess that at first I judged her unjustly.  Because she was a woman, divorced, in her early forties, and had left the practice of the Catholic Church I judged her to be someone who left the Church for ideological reasons.  Frankly, I assumed that she wanted women to be priests and that this was why she was now pursuing this pastoral career from outside of the Catholic Church.

          As I got to know Laura through working together in the hospital, I grew to respect her deeply.  She had been through a lot of painful situations in her life and I could see that she was trying to make sense of it all while remaining true to who she was and to being a disciple of Jesus.  Nonetheless, I still held on to my prejudice that she had an agenda against the Catholic Church (in spite of the fact that she hadn’t said one negative word against it).  One day, however, she said something that blew me away.  I don’t remember what the conversation was about, but we must have been saying something about the Church or about different faith traditions, because at one point Laura said “That’s why I love the Catholic Church, because it’s so egalitarian.  They take anybody!”  “Wait,” I thought, “you’ve abandoned the Catholic Church to do your own thing but you love it anyway?”  It was confounding to me, but it completely obliterated my prejudices of her and it made me think harder about how I look at people, especially people who don’t “fit” into my idea of a “good disciple”.

          Today, in our Gospel reading, we hear Jesus call himself the “Good Shepherd”.  In fact, in each year of the three year cycle of readings the Gospel for the 4^th Sunday of Easter is taken from the “Good Shepherd” discourse in John’s Gospel.  Therefore, we’ve come to call the 4^th Sunday of Easter “Good Shepherd Sunday”.  This year, we are blessed to hear the part of this discourse in which Jesus calls himself the “Good Shepherd” and then continues to describe how a good shepherd behaves.  The good shepherd “lays down his life for his sheep”, Jesus says, and he knows his sheep and his sheep know him.  We know that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, because we know that he laid down his life for us his sheep.  In every church we keep a reminder of that somewhere and so all we have to do is look to the crucifix over there—is everybody looking at it?—to be reminded that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for us his sheep.  And he knows us and we know him.  Every Sunday (and for some of you even more frequently) we come to Mass and we hear the Word of God proclaimed and broken open for us.  This word reveals Jesus to us so that we can know him and know him deeply.  And, of course, since Jesus is the Son of God “through whom all things were made” he knows us and he loves us: not as some sheep that his Father hired him to shepherd, but as his own sheep for whom he would lay down his life.  And this is all very familiar to us.

          Then Jesus says something interesting.  He says “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.”  You know, if you take a look around you, you’ll notice that we’re a pretty homogenous group of people.  Certainly there is great diversity in our backgrounds, but if someone who didn’t know any of us stood outside and watched as everyone left after Mass, I’d bet that he or she would conclude that, for the most part, we were all pretty much the same.  And if we look around in our community, we can see that there is a large part of it that does not belong to this Church: people of different races and ethnicities, people of different socio-economic status, and people of different religious tradition.  And so when you heard the words of Jesus today—“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold… These also I must lead”—I hope that some of these people came to your mind.

          In the first reading, we heard Peter proclaim in his speech to the Sanhedrin that there is only one name by which we are to be saved (that is, the name of Jesus).  Notice he didn’t say by which “the chosen ones” would be saved, but rather by which we—meaning all—are to be saved.  Coupled with Jesus’ words that there would be “one flock [and] one shepherd”, we see that we have no claim to exclusivity in the Catholic Church.  In other words, no one has any right to claim “this is my church and I hope that only people like me attend here.”  In fact, none of us even have the right to claim that any church is “their church”.  There is only one person in the entire universe who can rightfully say “this is my church”, and that’s Jesus.  For rest of us, there is only the Church and we, at best, belong to it.

          And so, my brothers and sisters, we see that my friend Laura was right.  The Catholic Church, that is, the universal Church, is the Church for everyone, because it is Jesus’ Church.  In fact, it has to be for everyone; because if it devolves into being “my church” then it loses its very reason for existence: to be the one flock of the one shepherd, Jesus Christ.  In our second reading from the letter of Saint John we read: “Beloved, we are God’s children now.”  My brothers and sisters, there is no greater dignity than this: to be children of God.  Therefore, any distinction between us and those around us—either here in the pews or out in the community—are distinctions in this world only.  In God’s eyes, we are either his children or those who will potentially become his children through baptism.  Our task is to erase every other division and work solely so that there would be one flock for our one shepherd, Jesus Christ.

          Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t take the opportunity, on this Good Shepherd Sunday, also known as “World Day of Vocations”, to speak about vocations: especially vocations to the priesthood and consecrated religious life.  The priesthood is the visible presence of Christ in our community—the many manifestations of the “one shepherd” for the “one flock”.  Therefore, we must be bold in encouraging young men to ask God if he is calling them to the priesthood so that the presence of the Good Shepherd will always be visible to us.  Consecrated religious persons are bright sparks of light in the Church, of which currently there are too few.  Therefore, we must also be bold in encouraging all our young people to ask God if he is calling them to consecrate themselves in a special way to be a bright flash of light of God’s love in the world, which is shrouded today in so much darkness.  In both, we must do so without prejudice, knowing that God “does not call the qualified, but qualifies the called.”

          Friends, as we continue to revel in our Easter joy, let us show God how grateful we are to be called His children by renewing our efforts daily to build up His Church into the one flock for whom Jesus the Good Shepherd laid down his life; and for whom he will one day return to shepherd into the eternal joy of heaven.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – April 22^nd, 2018

Seeking the authentic voice of Jesus

Homily: 4^th Sunday in Easter – Cycle A

          Friends, in this Gospel passage, Jesus uses imagery that would have been very familiar to the people to whom he was speaking in the Ancient Near East: images of sheep and shepherds.  Now, most of us probably have never raised a flock of sheep (and even if we had, we might not have done it the same way as they did back then).  Thus, it might be helpful to unpack these images that Jesus uses so that we can understand the message that Jesus is trying to convey.

          First, Jesus refers to a sheepfold.  In his time, villages were much smaller and compact and people didn't have large, separate properties in which to raise their flocks.  Therefore, usually, just outside the village, there would be a large pen—or sheepfold—in which several flocks of sheep were kept.  This sheepfold would have a large, lockable gate to secure it and a hired guard to watch over it.  The gatekeeper would know the shepherds who had brought in their flocks and so would not allow anyone other than them to enter.  Thus, those who are seeking either to harm the sheep or to steal them for their own purposes would have to climb over the wall of the sheepfold in order to get in.  Jesus contrasts this image of the “sheep stealer” with the shepherd who freely walks in through the gate to retrieve his sheep.  Not only is he known to the gatekeeper, but he is known also to his sheep.  Even though the flocks are intermixed, a shepherd would simply stand to one side after entering the sheepfold and call out to his own.  His own, who would have grown accustomed to his voice, would then respond, drawing near to him.  They would not recognize the voice of a stranger, however, so, should a stranger call out to them, they would avoid him.

          Something analogous of this to our own situations might be a Neighborhood Watch team.  The Neighborhood Watch is a team of residents in a particular neighborhood that organizes itself in order to keep watch over the neighborhood so as to keep it safe.  The first goal of the team is to ensure that everyone in the neighborhood knows everyone else so that they will recognize strangers when they come.  The next goal of the team is to be vigilant for one another: that is, to watch out for one another’s safety and security.  Strangers that enter the neighborhood, but then enter someone's house by the front door are probably known to that person; and so, no alarm is necessary.  Strangers that enter the neighborhood and try to enter a home through a window or by climbing over a fence, however, are probably thieves and robbers and, thus, need to be stopped.  Basically, it's an understanding that the neighborhood is like a sheepfold and the residents are like gatekeepers.  Those with good intentions enter through the gate.  Those with harmful intentions try to sneak in through other ways.  Jesus, in describing all of these things, is contrasting himself, as the shepherd, with the false messiahs who had come before him, whom he is portraying as thieves and robbers.

          The chosen people of God were in the sheepfold and the Messiah was the shepherd who would call them out and lead them into pasture.  In fact, the Messiah—the shepherd—knows the sheep so intimately that he calls them each by name.  The false messiahs, Jesus implies, entered the sheepfold like thieves and robbers and have tried to lead the sheep astray.  By using this image, Jesus is trying to lead the Pharisees to realize that he is the true Messiah, and, thus, to accept him; and to teach his disciples about how to recognize authentic authority: authority that will lead them in God’s way, towards eternal life.  Thus, this is the message that Jesus is also trying to convey to us: for he is trying to teach us about recognizing and following authentic authority.

          My brothers and sisters, there are many voices trying to lead us in different directions in this world.  The one who wields authentic authority is the one to whom we should pay attention.  We know that Jesus is the one who wields authentic authority; but the question remains: how do we hear his voice?  In the Holy Scriptures, of course; but also through his bishops, priests, and deacons.

          And so, if this is true, then why are so many people being drawn to places of purported revelation?  I think that it is because they’re hungry for authentic authority and they don't see it in their churches.  Therefore, if Jesus speaks to us through the authentic authority of his bishops, priests, and deacons—and if people are hungry for authentic authority—then it must be that there is not enough bishops, priests, and deacons to satisfy the needs of the people; and so they are flocking to places of purported revelations seeking to satisfy their need for someone to wield authentic authority in their lives: that is, for someone to shepherd them in the name of Jesus.

          My brothers and sisters, this is why we pray for vocations on this Sunday, which is commonly known as Good Shepherd Sunday, so that there might be an increase in the number of priests and religious in the Church who can interpret for us Jesus’ authentic voice in our lives.  And while prayer is always very necessary, so is action in the world.  Thus, I have homework for you: If you know a young man in your life who you think might make a good priest someday (or even if you don't know what his vocation might be), invite him to consider the priesthood.  Most priests will tell you that they began considering the call to the priesthood because someone invited them to consider it.  Your invitation could open a young man's heart to this call from God.  And so, please make a resolution today to make it a habit in your life to invite young men to consider the priesthood.

          Then, pray for them every day.  This doesn’t have to be complicated.  You could simply pray a Hail Mary during your morning or evening prayers, or at any other time that you think about it throughout the day.  You could also come and offer prayers to Jesus here in the Church before the Blessed Sacrament.  Any and all of these little sacrifices of prayer win grace for the young person so that he might discern well God’s voice in the midst of the thousands of voices that call out to him each and every day.

          St. John Vianney, the patron of parish priests, once said that "The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus."  As we offer to God this Eucharist today, which is made possible for us only because of the priesthood, let's pray in a special way for the young men in our parish that God is calling to be priests: that they would be kept safe from all temptation that would lead them away from this noble calling and that they would respond generously to his call.  And let us pray also for the grace to rely on the authentic authority that he has already placed in our midst—and to trust in the fullness of spiritual revelation that he has already given us by His presence, both in the Scriptures and in His real presence here in the Blessed Sacrament—so that we might always be anticipating the fullness of his presence among us when he, the Good Shepherd, returns to call us each of us, by name, back unto himself.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – May 7^th, 2017

Of Cowboys and Shepherds

          I hope that you enjoy and are edified by my homily from this past Sunday.  Please pray for me this week as I will be on retreat.  Many blessings to you all!

Homily: 4^th Sunday of Easter – Cycle C

          If you’ve grown up here in the United States, then you probably know something about cowboys and cattle ranchers.  Perhaps many of us have never been on a cattle ranch, but the image of the cowboy and cattle rancher is so ubiquitous in our cultural folklore that I would dare to say that very few of us know nothing about them.  Even for our friends who have come to us from south of our borders, even if they have never seen the countless films and television shows about cowboys and cattle ranchers, they would know something about them because many of them have come from rural areas where they either owned or worked on ranches.

          That said, one of the most prominent images of cowboys and cattle ranchers is the image of the cowboys driving the herd of cattle: either from one area to another or to market for sale.  It takes a lot of cowboys to drive a herd of cattle.  You need a line of cowboys pushing from behind just to get them moving and a number of cowboys on either side to keep them all together.  It takes a lot of energy to drive a herd of cattle and there’s nothing gentle about it.

          Shepherding, however, is very different than this.  Perhaps, for many of us, the only things that we know about shepherding are what Jesus tells us in the Gospels.  The shepherd, in contrast to the cowboy driving the herd from behind, walks ahead of the sheep, whistling, speaking, or singing, and the sheep follow behind.  As long as they can hear the shepherd’s voice, they will keep following.  This, of course, means that they have to stay close to the shepherd; because, if they get too far away, they won’t be able to hear his voice and, thus, may get separated from the flock and become lost.  This is, perhaps, why it always looks like sheep are walking on top of each other: they don’t want to risk getting too far away from the shepherd!  This helps for protection, too, as predators won’t attack the sheep if the shepherd is close.  And so we see that the work of the shepherd is much different than the work of the cowboy, though the result is the same: the herd/flock moves from one place to another.

          Isn’t it interesting, then, that God has chosen to use the image of the shepherd to describe himself?  Among ancient religions, even those that worshiped many gods, they almost always acknowledge one god that is supreme above them all.  This god is often associated with the sun or the sea or a volcano—some natural phenomenon on which their culture depends.  Never, however, do they see this supreme god as a divine shepherd of humankind.  Comparing God to a good shepherd can only happen in a religion that recognizes a special connection between the human person and God—such as, for instance, when the book of Genesis describes that man was created in the image of God.  Only then does the comparison make sense, because a God who is a good shepherd is a God who walks with his people, guiding them and protecting them from harm.

          Thus, when Jesus says “My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me” he is invoking this image of the divine shepherd of humankind.  He is reminding us that God is not someone who is distant from us, but rather someone who is close to us and who wants us to remain close to him.  Too often, perhaps, we think of God as a cowboy driving the herd, using force to move us in the direction that he wants us to move.  The Scriptures today remind us, however, that God is like a shepherd who leads us by the sound of his voice.  In this image, we have a responsibility, don’t we?  A responsibility to stay close enough to hear his voice.

          Unfortunately, life in today's world is noisy, and it is not always easy for us to hear the voice of our good shepherd.  We are bombarded with so many other voices, so many images, so many ideas.  Christ knows this, yet he still tells us, "My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me."  What gives Christ so much confidence in our ability to stay close to him and avoid the traps set by poachers and wolves?  It is prayer, one of God's greatest gifts to us, and one that we often take for granted.  Christ is always paying attention to us, just as a good shepherd pays attention to his sheep.  He is always speaking to us, just as a good shepherd walks ahead of his flock talking and singing, so they can hear him and follow.  No matter how noisy, dark, or stormy it gets, Jesus knows how to make his voice heard in our hearts; but we have to tune in.  So how do we do this?

          First, of course, is to stay close to him in the sacraments.  Our weekly participation in the Mass and the frequent use of the sacrament of Reconciliation are tangible means of grace that keep us close to the Shepherd so that we can hear his voice.  Beyond that is our time of private prayer, particularly spending time with the Holy Scriptures.  The Scriptures are the living Word of God and so spending time praying with them helps us to know what his voice sounds like so as to know when he is speaking to us.  Finally, the teachings of the pope, our bishop, your priests and lay leaders are additional ways that we can hear the voice of the Good Shepherd speaking directly into our lives. 

          Listening for the voice of the Good Shepherd is also the way for one to discover his or her vocation.  We all know that there is a constant need for more young men and women to discover and to follow God’s call to the priesthood and religious life.  Every one of us has the duty to help our young people to hear the call of the Good Shepherd.  God keeps calling, but there must be a fervent Christian environment among families, parishes need to promote formative and apostolic activities that open young people’s hearts to the call of the Lord, and young people need to be taught generosity so as not to deny God anything He asks for. We need to pray for our young people and to encourage them to listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd to see if he is calling them to a vocation to the priesthood or religious life.  It is also providential that this World Day of Prayer for Vocations comes just one week after Pope Francis released his apostolic exhortation “On Love in the Family”, because it is truly the fostering of a renewal of Christian family life that will foster a renewal of vocational discernment among our young people.

          My brothers and sisters, with all of the competing voices surrounding us, it surely is hard work to listen for the voice of Jesus; but it is a work we must take up if we hope to be one of the great multitude standing before the throne of the Lamb who will drink from the springs of life-giving water for all eternity.  Let us take up this good work so that we may never lose our way and so that we might enjoy the loving care of the Good Shepherd forever in heaven.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – April 16^th, 2016

There can be only one...

          Jesus came to gather God's scattered children into one flock under him, the one (Good) Shepherd.  If there is any division among us, we must work to erase it so that there would be only one flock.

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Homily: 4^th Sunday of Easter – Cycle B

          The other day, I got to thinking about this woman I know named Laura.  I met Laura nearly five years ago when we both signed up for a summer internship for future pastors and pastoral counselors at one of the hospitals in Carmel.  This was a non-denominational program, so there were Catholics, Protestants, and even those who didn’t claim to belong to any particular faith tradition.  Laura fit into that latter category.  She grew up Catholic but had long since drifted away from practicing her faith in the Catholic Church.  I must confess that at first I judged her unjustly.  Because she was a woman, divorced, in her early forties, and had left the practice of the Catholic Church I judged her to be someone who left the Church for ideological reasons—I assumed that she wanted women to be priests—which was why she was now pursuing this pastoral career from outside of the Catholic Church.

          As I got to know Laura through working together in the hospital, I grew to respect her deeply.  She had been through a lot of painful situations in her life and I could see that she was trying to make sense of it all while remaining true to who she was and to being a disciple of Jesus.  Nonetheless, I still held on to my prejudice that she had an agenda against the Catholic Church (in spite of the fact that she hadn’t said one negative word against it).  One day, however, she said something that blew me away.  I don’t remember what the conversation was about, but we must have been saying something about the Church or about different faith traditions, because at one point Laura said “That’s why I love the Catholic Church, because it’s so egalitarian.  They take anybody!”  “Wait,” I thought, “you’ve abandoned the Catholic Church to do your own thing but you love it anyway?”  It was confounding to me, but it completely obliterated my prejudices of her and it made me think harder about how I look at people, especially people who don’t “fit” into my idea of a “good disciple”.

          Today, in our Gospel reading, we hear Jesus call himself the “Good Shepherd”.  In fact, in each year of the three year cycle of readings the Gospel for the 4^th Sunday of Easter is taken from the “Good Shepherd” discourse in John’s Gospel.  Therefore, we’ve come to call the 4^th Sunday of Easter “Good Shepherd Sunday”.  This year, we are blessed to hear the part of this discourse in which Jesus calls himself the “Good Shepherd” and then continues to describe how a good shepherd behaves.  The good shepherd “lays down his life for his sheep”, Jesus says, and he knows his sheep and his sheep know him.  We know that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, because we know that he laid down his life for us his sheep.  In every church we keep a reminder of that somewhere and so all we have to do is look to the crucifix to be reminded that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for us his sheep.  And he knows us and we know him.  Every Sunday (and for some of you even more frequently) we come to Mass and we hear the Word of God proclaimed and broken open for us.  This word reveals Jesus to us so that we can know him and know him deeply.  And, of course, since Jesus is the Son of God “through whom all things were made” he knows us and he loves us: not as some sheep that his Father hired him to shepherd, but as his own sheep for whom he would lay down his life.  And this is all very familiar to us.

          Then Jesus says something interesting.  He says “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.”  You know, if you take a look around you, you’ll notice that we’re a pretty homogenous group of people.  Certainly there is great diversity in our backgrounds, but if someone who didn’t know any of us stood outside and watched as everyone left after Mass, I’d bet that he or she would conclude that, for the most part, we were all pretty much the same.  And if we look around in our community, we can see that there is a large part of it that does not belong to this Church: people of different races and ethnicities, people of different socio-economic status, and people of different religious tradition.  And so when you heard the words of Jesus today—“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold… These also I must lead”—I hope that some of these people came to your mind.  I want you to ask yourselves this question: “Are there any of these people who are not part of this Church whom I would not want to be part of this Church?”  In other words, is there anyone who isn’t here whom you would be “repulsed” to see come here?  My hope is that the answer for all of us is “no”, but I suspect that at least for a few of—perhaps more than we would like to admit—the answer is “yes”: that there are people in our community whom we think don’t “fit” and so we would rather that they find another place to worship.

          In the first reading, we heard Peter proclaim in his speech to the Sanhedrin that there is only one name by which we are to be saved (that is, the name of Jesus).  Notice he didn’t say by which “the chosen ones” would be saved, but rather by which we—meaning all—are to be saved.  Coupled with Jesus’ words that there would be “one flock [and] one shepherd”, we see that we have no claim to exclusivity in the Catholic Church.  In other words, no one has any right to claim “this is my church and I hope that only people like me attend here.”  In fact, none of us even have the right to claim that any church is “their church”.  In fact, there is only one person in the entire universe who can rightfully say “this is my church”, and that’s Jesus.  The rest of us can only claim to belong to it.

          And so, my brothers and sisters, we see that my friend Laura was right.  The Catholic Church, that is, the universal Church, is the Church for everyone, because it is Jesus’ Church.  In fact, it has to be for everyone; because if it devolves into being “my church” then it loses its very reason for existence: to be the one flock of the one shepherd, Jesus Christ.  If we struggle with the idea of having… oh let’s call them “less favorable people” here, then I invite you to remember one thing, which we heard in our second reading from the letter of Saint John: “Beloved, we are God’s children now.”  My brothers and sisters, there is no greater dignity than this: to be children of God.  Therefore, any distinction between us and those around us—either here in the pews or out in the community—are distinctions in this world only.  In God’s eyes, we are either his children or those who one day will be his children through baptism.  Our task is to erase every other division and work solely so that there would be one flock for our one shepherd, Jesus Christ.

          As we continue to revel in our Easter joy, let us show God how grateful we are to be called His children by renewing our efforts daily to build up His Church into the one flock whom Jesus the Good Shepherd laid down his life for; and for whom he will one day return to shepherd into the eternal joy of heaven.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – April 25^th & 26^th, 2015