PaddlingPadre

I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

This, of course, is what a shepherd does for his sheep. His task is to pasture them, to provide for them, to protect them. And you can see just how important the shepherd is to the survival and prospering of his sheep if you consider what happens in his absence. Without the shepherd, the sheep become scattered and lost. They fall as prey to wolves and other wild beasts. They are powerless against those who would harm them, against thieves and robbers.  And so it isn’t merely true that the shepherd is there to bring life to the sheep, but, for the sheep, there is no other way by which life might be found!

If they would have life then, it is imperative that the sheep follow the shepherd, that they hear his voice and heed it. And of course, the application for us is clear: Jesus is our shepherd. He has come that we might have life, and as our shepherd he leads us to life, protecting us from what would harm us and bringing us into good pasture. And not necessarily as regards bodily life, which many Christians have even been called to renounce for the sake of following Christ, but rather as regards spiritual life, which is higher and more lasting than the life of the body, and without which even bodily life is a kind of death. If we remain with Jesus, we can be confident and certain that he will give us this life, that he will pour his spirit upon us and strengthen us with faith, with hope, and with love. Whereas, by contrast, if we flee from him, we may be certain of encountering spiritual death in the wilds, which is as much more to be feared than the death of the body as the life of the spirit is above the life of the body.

And so if we would have life, and have it abundantly, then the question for us is how is it that we follow Jesus? How do we ensure that we are remaining close to him, and that we are not going off after false shepherds or wandering off on our own? This is a question that you could take in a few different ways and thus give a few different answers. Certainly it is important that we pray, that we read the scriptures, that we examine our lives. These are what you might call the subjective aspects of following Christ – if we would ourselves be holy, if we would follow Jesus, then each of us will have a certain amount of work to do individually and interiorly.

These subjective and induvial elements, however, are not all that there is when it comes to following Jesus. Sheep, after all, are not solitary creatures, and neither are Christians; there is no such thing as a merely Jesus-and-me Christianity. For beyond any individual and subjective element to our faith journey, and indeed prior to all such individual and subjective aspects, is the objective and visible nature of the Church. Jesus truly is a good shepherd, and he has not willed that we should be casting about and wondering where the shepherd is to be found. Indeed, if we had to look for him in that way, then in what sense would he even be shepherding us at all?

No, Jesus is still shepherding his flock, and in a way that is easily discernable. The sheep recognize his voice, as he says. For between his resurrection and ascension, Jesus appointed pastors over his flock. We see this in his words to Peter by the lakeshore: Feed my sheep. And these pastors were empowered by the Holy Spirit to appoint helpers and successors, such that, contra what some of our Protestant brothers and sisters might say (together with non-Christian sects such as the Mormons), there has never been a time, not even a single moment in these past twenty centuries, when the sheep were without a shepherd.

And so if you would follow Christ, then remain within the Church! Follow the shepherds who have been appointed by Christ! This is not abstract or difficult to work out. Jesus appointed the Twelve as shepherds, who appointed successors, of whose number is our own Bishop Mark. For my part, my priesthood, like that of Fr. Jijesh and Fr. Doug, is a participation in that of the episcopal order, which means I share in my own small way in Bishop Mark’s task of shepherding the faithful of this diocese, particularly of this parish that has been entrusted to the care of Fr. Doug. And so, as humbling as it is to say, and as much as it makes we aware of my own inadequacies and of my own deep unworthiness to stand where I do, I can, because of the grace at work in me through my ordination and the assignment that I have received from Bishop Beckman, say that if you would follow Jesus, then listen to my voice which is the voice of your priest, to Fr. Doug’s voice which is the voice of your pastor, to Bishop Mark’s voice which is the voice of your Bishop, and to Pope Leo’s voice which is the voice of Christ’s vicar on earth. Not because any of us are perfect or sinless – far from it – but because Christ has established the Church as a divine, visible, hierarchical society for the salvation of the world.

And so, Fr. Doug, Bishop Beckman, Pope Leo – even myself and deacon – we do not stand before you on our own initiative. No Catholic cleric in good standing has climbed over the fence. For Christ has not abandoned his sheep, but has instead called pastors who have been entrusted to govern and care for the Christ’s flock, such that whoever listens and heeds the voice of those shepherds remains safely within that flock, within the Holy Catholic Church which is ever united to Christ in that union in which we truly do find life, and find it abundantly.