Caritas Christi Urget Nos

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  • Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    A lack of unity will destroy us all. Jesus knew this, and so did St. Paul. In fact, St. Paul used a lack of unity among the Jews to save his own life. He knew that the Pharisees, of which he was one, believed in the resurrection of the dead, and angels and spirits. He knew that the Sadducees did not (which, as one of my seminary professors used to say, is why they are sad, you see…). When Paul appealed to the Pharisees’ belief in the resurrection of the dead, he got them on their side, and the skirmish that ensued caused the commander to whisk Paul to safety. He was not to die this day; the Lord had other plans for him.

    As Jesus gets ready for his own death in the gospel reading today, he prays for the unity of the first disciples. He knew that they would be challenged greatly by the world, because they were no longer of the world. They belonged to God now, and that would be the source of their unity. That unity would keep them together and ensure that a reasoned, unified message would be proclaimed throughout the world and throughout the ages. That was the only way the gospel could be proclaimed to every creature on earth.

    In our day, unity is just as critical as it ever was. We still believe in ONE holy, catholic and apostolic church. We believe that Jesus came to found just ONE church, and that the fragmentations that exist among us are the result of sinfulness and broken humanity. We need to be people who witness to the joy of our faith so that we can bind up all that disunity and become once again one people, healed of all divisions. We are called to be one, just as Jesus and the Father are one, so that we can witness to all the world the saving power of our one, almighty God.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

    A lack of unity will destroy us all. Jesus knew this, and so did St. Paul. In fact, St. Paul used a lack of unity among the Jews to save his own life. He knew that the Pharisees, of which he was one, believed in the resurrection of the dead, and angels and spirits. He knew that the Sadducees did not (which, as one of my seminary professors used to say, is why they are sad, you see…). When Paul appealed to the Pharisees’ belief in the resurrection of the dead, he got them on their side, and the skirmish that ensued caused the commander to whisk Paul to safety. He was not to die this day; the Lord had other plans for him.

    As Jesus gets ready for his own death in the gospel reading today, he prays for the unity of the first disciples. He knew that they would be challenged greatly by the world, because they were no longer of the world. They belonged to God now, and that would be the source of their unity. That unity would keep them together and ensure that a reasoned, unified message would be proclaimed throughout the world and throughout the ages. That was the only way the gospel could be proclaimed to every creature on earth.

    In our day, unity is just as critical as it ever was. We still believe in ONE holy, catholic and apostolic church. We believe that Jesus came to found just ONE church, and that the fragmentations that exist among us are the result of sinfulness and broken humanity. We need to be people who witness to the joy of our faith so that we can bind up all that disunity and become once again one people, healed of all divisions. We are called to be one, just as Jesus and the Father are one, so that we can witness to all the world the saving power of our one, almighty God.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

    The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    When I was on my pastoral internship in seminary, my supervisor and I talked about the fact that our Liturgy is very wordy. Think about it: all of the prayers and readings and songs – it’s a lot of words to take in in an hour or less, but we do it all the time. So once in a while, I like to reflect on what are the important words in the Mass. We have the words of institution of the Eucharist – those are extremely important. The proclamation of the Scriptures, especially the Gospel, well we can’t discount those either. And let’s not forget the Creed, the words of which were the cause of many arguments and literally fights over the centuries – those words were very carefully chosen.

    But there is one word that I think is the most important, and I bet it’s going to surprise you. This one word, I think, is the rallying cry for all Catholic Christians. And that word is “GO.” Go: we have to wait all the way to the end of Mass to hear the deacon or priest say it. “Go in peace.” “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.” And because it’s way at the end of Mass, I wonder if some people ever get to hear it (ahem). But whether we hear it or not, it’s almost a kind of a throw-away, or it seems so. But it really shouldn’t be. It’s not just a word of dismissal kind of like “you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here” or “go on, get out of here, you’re annoying me!” It’s not even just a word to get us out of the church and on to the next thing in life.

    “Go” is a word of mission, and we hear it in our Gospel today. Jesus tells the disciples: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” That was what the disciples were to do. They weren’t supposed to just stand there staring up into the sky: they were supposed to GO and do the work of salvation until Jesus returned in glory. Catholic Christians are always a people on the move: on the move to conquer the whole world for Christ, on the move to get to heaven, and on the move to bring everyone we can with us.

    So the command that was given to those first disciples is one that we are supposed to get as well. We are supposed to GO and preach the gospel in what we say and what we do. We are supposed to GO and baptize people by leading them to the faith in our witness. We are supposed to GO in peace, glorifying the Lord by our lives. We are supposed to GO and announce the gospel of the Lord. We do that by volunteering at the parish, looking in on a sick or elderly neighbor, living lives of integrity in the workplace. We do that by striving to be Christ-like to every person we meet. The mission looks different for every one of us, depending on our life’s vocation and our station in life. But let’s be clear about this: we all have a mission, we all are expected to respond to our Lord’s command to GO.

    So I hope that you’ll hear that word “GO” at the end of Mass differently now than perhaps you have before. I hope that you’ll hear it as a calling, as a challenge, and as a sacred duty. I hope you’ll all take up the call to GO and make disciples of everyone you meet. I hope you’ll take up the call to GO and make the world into the Kingdom of God among us.

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

    GO! (Okay, but not yet!)

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  • The Sixth Sunday in Easter

    The Sixth Sunday in Easter

    Today’s readings

    A topic in the spiritual life that I think we don’t understand the way we should, and which doesn’t get a lot of discussion, is hope. Saint Peter in today’s second reading urges us to “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…”  And that’s a bigger challenge, I think, than we realize sometimes.

    First of all, as I mentioned, I think we don’t really understand what hope is.  In common usage, I think hope means something like a wish.  We often say, “I hope that …” or “I hope so,” as if to say, “It probably won’t ever happen, but it would be really nice.”  That’s not what hope means, and that’s not the kind of hope that Saint Peter is asking us to be ready to explain.  Even the definition of hope leaves this discussion wanting.  Merriam Webster defines hope as “to cherish a desire with anticipation; to want something to be happen or be true.”  Anticipation implies more than a mere wish, certainly.  But wanting something to happen or be true entertains the possibility that it will not.  That’s not the kind of hope we’re talking about either.

    But Merriam Webster also provides what it calls an “archaic” usage, which defines hope in one word: trust.  And now I think we’re closer to where we need to be.  The hope that we have in Jesus is something in which we can certainly trust, because he promises its truth, and God always keeps his promises.  All we have to do is attach ourselves to that hope so that we can be caught up in it in all the right moments. So what is it that we hope for?  In what do we place our hope, our trust?  Maybe it would be better to ask in whom we hope: Jesus is our hope, and through his death and resurrection, he has set us free from the bonds of sin and death, and opened up the way for us to enter eternal life in communion with the Father.

    Our world needs this hope.  Just tune in to the news to see that lack of hope: wars, skirmishes and unrest in many parts of the world; bizarre weather and killer tornadoes in many places of our country; cataclysmic natural disasters over the past few years that have left communities or even whole countries reeling.  Closer to home, we could cite high unemployment, rising prices on everything from gas to food, violence in our cities, and so much more.  It doesn’t take much looking around to feel like there’s no hope of hope anywhere.

    So the problem, I think, is in what or where that we place our hope.  Often we place our hope in ourselves or our own efforts, only to find ourselves at some point over our heads.  Or maybe we place our hope in other people in our lives, only at some point to be disappointed.  We sometimes place our hope in self-proclaimed gurus like Oprah or Doctor Phil, only to find out that their pep-talks at some point ring hollow and their philosophies are shallow.  You can’t find much hope in sources like these, or if you do, you might find that hope to be short-lived.  And so, as I said, if we want real hope something in which we can truly trust, the only place we need to look, the only one we should look to, is God.

    Now, I say this, knowing full well that some of you have prayed over and over and over for something to change, only to be disappointed after you say “Amen.”  And there’s no way I’m going to tell you that all you have to do is pray and everything will work out all right.  God doesn’t promise us perfect happiness in this life, and so often we are going to go through periods of sorrow and disappointment.  That’s the unfortunate news of life in this passing world.  The sorrow and disappointment are not God’s will for us, they are by-products of sin – our own sin or the sin of others – and those things grieve God very much.

    But even in those times of grief, God still gives us hope, if we turn to him.  The hope that he offers is the knowledge that no matter how bad things get, we don’t go through them alone, that God is there for us, walking with us through the sorrow and pain and never giving up on us.

    Today’s readings give us a foundation for this hope.  In the second reading, Peter awakens our hope of forgiveness.  He says, “For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God.  Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit.”  Even the hopelessness of our sin is no match for God’s mercy.  Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, we have hope of eternal life in God’s kingdom.  Because God loved us so much, he gave his only Son for our salvation, and now we have hope of forgiveness, hope for God’s presence in our lives.

    In the Gospel, Jesus tells us that we can hope in him because we will always have his presence.  Even though he ascended to the right hand of the Father, as we’ll celebrate next week, he is with us always.  “And I will ask the Father,” he says, “and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth…”  We receive that Holy Spirit sacramentally in Baptism and Confirmation, and we live in his Spirit every day.  The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives gives us the hope that we are never alone, even in our darkest hours; that the Spirit intercedes for us and guides us through life.

    We disciples have to be convinced of that hope; we have to take comfort in the hope that never passes from us, in the abiding presence of God who wants nothing more than to be with us.  We have to reflect that hope into our sometimes hopeless world.  As Saint Peter said, “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.  Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…” The reason for our hope is Christ.  We find our hope in the cross and resurrection.  We experience our hope in the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.  We spread that hope in our hopeless world by being Christ to others, living as disciples of Jesus when the whole world would rather drag us down.  Even when life is difficult, we can live with a sense of joy, because above all, we are disciples of hope.

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • Saturday of the Fifth Week in Easter

    Saturday of the Fifth Week in Easter

    Today’s readings

    Just in case we thought living the Christian life of discipleship was going to be a rosy celebration of joy every single day, our Lord gives us a dose of reality today. He points out that if we find ourselves hated by the world, we have to remember that the world hated him first. If the world hates our Lord, then those of us who purport to follow after him have to expect that the world will hate us too.

    In fact, one might say that being hated by the world was a kind of litmus test of discipleship. If we are not actually hated by the world, one might wonder if we are truly living the Gospel, witnessing to the Truth and worshipping rightly. Because all of those hallmarks of discipleship necessarily cost something, and if we’re not paying the price, we’re not doing it right.

    So for us, being hated by the world might look like being passed over for a promotion or some other honor because we value time with our family over endless hours at work. It might look like being the object of unkind gossip because we value Sunday as a day of worship and family rest instead of having our children involved in all kinds of sports or artistic endeavors on the Lord’s day. It might look like skipping the latest gadget or the glitzier car so that we can be kind to the poor. The world will hate us because our commitment to Jesus will challenge their commitment to selfishness.

    We Christians live in the world, but we do not belong to the world. Our witness, our living, has to be at a different level. If we find ourselves fitting in nicely, it might just be that we’re doing it wrong.

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • The Fifth Sunday of Easter

    The Fifth Sunday of Easter

    Today’s readings

    Catholics by nature are not supposed to be stagnant people. Being Catholic means being on the move. Many of the ancient churches were built in a shape that evoked a ship, which hearkened back to Noah’s ark, which was a foreshadowing of the Church. Just as that ark was the means of salvation for a few people and a refuge against the storm, so the Church is the means of salvation for the world, and a refuge against everything that the world has raging around us. We are always and forever a people on the move; we are not at home in this world, wherever we may be, no matter how nice our place in the world may be. Our true home is in heaven and we are on our journey there. Every moment of our lives has to be a choice to move closer to our heavenly homeland.

    And that’s what today’s Gospel is all about. Jesus, foreseeing his death and resurrection, is preparing his disciples for the day when he returns to heaven to prepare a place for us. He promises that we can get there one day by following him: he who is the way, the truth and the life. And we need him to be that way for us, because our sinfulness had cut us off from God, and it was only the death and resurrection of Christ that could ever restore us to the inheritance that God always wanted for us. So today’s Scriptures, I think, give us the goal, and the way to get to the goal.

    We know, then, what our goal is. The goal is that mansion that Jesus speaks of – the Father’s house in which there are many dwelling places. It’s a mansion in which there is room for everyone, just as long as they find the way to get there. This reminds us that as nice as our home may be here on earth, there is something better awaiting us. It also serves as a reminder to those whose earthly home is difficult, or even non-existent, there is a place where they truly belong. Whatever our current living situation, however entrenched we are in our earthly life, we are reminded today that we are not home yet, that ultimately there is a place where we can live that will make us feel truly at home for all eternity.

    The way to get to that goal is made pretty clear in the Gospel too. Jesus is very direct about saying, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” So if we want to get to our promised inheritance, there is just one way to get there, and that is through Jesus Christ whose sole mission was to pave the way for us to get back home. Notice very carefully that Jesus does not say, “There are several ways, and I am just one of them; there are many possible truths, and you can hear one of them in me; you can live your life all sorts of ways, and my life is a nice one.” No – he says “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” This is a statement that has all sorts of implications for the work of evangelization, because if we believe this, seriously believe it – and we should! – then we have to make sure that everyone comes to know the Lord.

    Does this mean that those who do not ever come to know the Lord will never receive the heavenly inheritance? Put another way, more directly perhaps, does this mean that non-Christians don’t go to heaven? That’s a tough one. Vatican II addressed that concern by stating that while the fullness of the means of redemption were present in the Catholic Church, still there are elements of redemption present outside the Church. It says, “… some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ.” (Unitatis Redintegratio, 3) Basically, we don’t have a monopoly on how Christ reveals himself to people, and we cannot know the depths of God’s mercy. Still, helping people to come to know the Lord needs to be at the top of our to-do lists.

    So the goal is heaven, and the way is Christ. Some people say that Jesus never came to establish a Church, but today’s readings tell us that is patently false. He certainly came to establish a Church, because after his death and resurrection, it was the actions of the Church that continued his saving work. It was the Church that continued the healing, reaching out to the needy, preaching the Word, and all the rest. And the Church continues this saving work in our own day. We are empowered to do wonderful works: to preach, to heal, to serve and love in the name of Jesus Christ. None of this happens on our own, or as a result of our own ambition. It only happens by joining ourselves to the One who is the way, the truth and the life.

    There’s a lot at stake in our Liturgy today. There is a world that needs to know Jesus so that they too can know the Father and experience the joy of a real home. There is a world that needs to know the touch of Jesus so that they can be healed and strengthened for life’s journey. There is a world that needs to hear the Word of Jesus so that they can come to the way, the truth and the life. It’s on us now, none of us can be passive observers or consumers only. As St. Peter says today, we “are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that [we] may announce the praises’ of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light.” We are not home yet, but we can get there through Jesus: our way, our truth, and our life, and we have to gather everyone we can, and take them with us!

    Because Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • Saint Athanasius, Bishop, Doctor of the Church

    Saint Athanasius, Bishop, Doctor of the Church

    The divinity of Jesus is an essential truth of our faith.  The words of the Liturgy proclaim that divinity very boldly, especially in the Creed. The Gospels show us time and time again that Jesus came to proclaim his divinity, his oneness with the Father, so as to be the means of salvation.  Almost all of his hearers rejected this message, except for all but one of his disciples, and the centurion who noticed that he was the Son of God as he hung dead on the Cross.

    The Arians, led by the priest Arius in the third century, also rejected that message – they did not believe in Jesus’ divinity.  They believed there was a time before Jesus existed, that he was not consubstantial with the Father, but rather was created by the Father.  This position denies the divinity of Christ, which is an unacceptable position for our faith.  If Christ is not divine, he has no power to save us, and we are still dead in our sins.  God forbid! – And he does forbid it!

    St. Athanasius was a great champion of the faith against the harmful teachings of Arius.  But it was a hard battle.  He was exiled not once but actually five times during the fight against Arius’s teachings.  His writings are almost all a great defense of the faith and are so sound that Athanasius was named a Doctor of the Church.

    We have St. Athanasius to thank for the wonderful words of our Creed.  We often say them, I think, without a whole lot of thought.  But we need to remember when we pray the Creed that each of those words was the result of dedicated work, intensive prayer, and hard fought defense against heresy.  Because of people like St. Athanasius, we may indeed come to share in the divinity of Christ.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

  • Saint Joseph the Worker

    Saint Joseph the Worker

    Today’s readings

    Today we have the option to celebrate the memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker. And I personally think that, whenever we have the option to celebrate Saint Joseph, we should! I think this particular memorial resonates with so many of us who work for a living; Saint Joseph is our patron. The Christian idea of work is that through the toil of work, the Christian joins her or himself to the cross of Christ, and through the effects of work, the Christian participates in the creative activity of our Creator God. This memorial puts that in the spotlight.

    In today’s first reading, Saint Paul urges all disciples to do whatever they do, as if they were doing it for the Lord. This is a great spiritual principal that reminds us that our lives are not all about us, that we receive our abilities and talents from the Lord, and that we are accountable to God for all that we do, in thought, word, and deed. He reminds us, too, that our working should be cause for thanksgiving: thanksgiving that we have our abilities, and that we can use them for God’s purpose and for the support of ourselves and for the family entrusted to us.

    Sometimes, it is true, work is not much of a blessing; often work seems less than redemptive. To that, Saint John Paul said in his encylcical Laborerm Exercens, “Sweat and toil, which work necessarily involves in the present condition of the human race, present the Christian and everyone who is called to follow Christ with the possibility of sharing lovingly in the work that Christ came to do. This work of salvation came about through suffering and death on a Cross. By enduring the toil of work in union with Christ crucified for us, humankind in a way collaborates with the Son of God for the redemption of humanity. They show themselves true disciples of Christ by carrying the cross in their turn every day in the activity that they are called upon to perform.” (27)

    And so we all forge ahead in our daily work, whether that be as a carpenter, a businessman or woman, a homemaker, a mother or father, a laborer, a white collar worker, a consecrated religious or ordained person, or whatever it may be. We forge ahead with the joy of bringing all the world to redemption through creation, through the cross and Resurrection of Christ, and through our daily work.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

  • Thursday of the Fourth Week in Easter

    Thursday of the Fourth Week in Easter

    Today’s readings

    We see a few messengers in today’s readings. In the first reading, Saint Paul is a messenger bringing news of the real meaning of the ancient Scriptures in light of the death and resurrection of Jesus. And he speaks of another messenger, John the Baptist, who paved the way for the coming of Jesus by preaching a baptism of repentance. In the Gospel, Jesus points out that a messenger is never greater than the one who sent him, and that those messengers sent by Christ should be accepted as Christ, since Jesus himself was sent by the Father. Accepting the messenger is accepting Jesus is accepting God the Father.

    he Greek word for messenger is “angeloi” from which we get our English word, “angel.” Angels are messengers sent by God to communicate something specific to humankind. The messenger is truly on a mission from the one who sent him. When you think of it, all of us disciples are messengers on a mission. We all have been charged with the mission of proclaiming the Gospel and witnessing to Christ. We do that in our own ways; sometimes, as Saint Francis would say, we use words. But often we do not. Most often our witness depends on how well we live our mission, the message that we send comes in the things we do and the way we live. As my father used to say, “actions speak louder than words.”

    And so we come to this place to be nourished for our mission. We hear the words of Scripture that gives us the message to preach and receive the Eucharist that gives us strength for the journey. People will come to know Christ as they come to know us. We pray that our message might be a good one, a message that compels everyone we meet to turn to God. Because the mission, the message that we have is better than anything on earth.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

  • Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin, Doctor of the Church

    Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin, Doctor of the Church

    Saint Catherine was born at Siena, in the region of Tuscany in Italy. When she was six years old, Jesus appeared to Catherine and blessed her. As many parents do for their children, her mother and father wanted her to be happily married, preferably to a rich man. But Catherine wanted to be a nun. So, to make herself as unattractive as possible to the men her parents wanted her to meet, she cut off her long, beautiful hair. Her parents were very upset and became very critical of her. But Catherine did not change her mind: her goal was to become a nun and give herself entirely to Jesus. Finally, her parents allowed it, and her father even set aside a room in the house where she could stay and pray.

    When Catherine was eighteen years old, she entered the Dominican Third Order and spent the next three years in seclusion, prayer and works of penance. Gradually a group of followers gathered around her—men and women, priests and religious. They all saw that Catherine was a holy woman and they flocked to her for spiritual advice. During this time she wrote many letters, most of which gave spiritual instruction and encouragement to her followers.

    Because of her great influence, she was able to help the Church navigate a rocky period of two and eventually three anti-popes. She even went to beg rulers to make peace with the pope and to avoid wars. At one point, Saint Catherine convinced the real pope to leave Avignon, France, where he had been staying in exile, and return to Rome to rule the Church, because she knew that this was God’s will. He took her advice, and this eventually led to peace in the Church.

    Catherine had a mystical love of God, and his goodness and beauty was revealed to her more and more each day. She wrote of God, “You are a mystery as deep as the sea; the more I search, the more I find, and the more I find the more I search for you. But I can never be satisfied; what I receive will ever leave me desiring more. When you fill my soul I have an even greater hunger, and I grow more famished for your light. I desire above all to see you, the true light, as you really are.”

    Saint Catherine is one of just four female Doctors of the Church, being named so by Pope Paul VI in 1970. Saint Catherine is also the co-patron saint, with Saint Francis, of Italy.

    I think the story of Saint Catherine is amazing for many reasons. Very importantly, Saint Catherine’s story shows the significant contribution of women to the Church. Over time, countless women have contributed so much to what the Church knows about God and the spiritual life. Without the witness of the women who came to the tomb after Jesus was buried, we would not have known the Good News that he rose from the dead. Without the contribution of Saint Catherine, our understanding of God’s fierce love for people would be much poorer.

    So we have much for which to be grateful on this feast of Saint Catherine. Through her intercession may we all have a deep appreciation and love for the depths of the mysteries of God.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

  • The Fourth Sunday in Easter

    The Fourth Sunday in Easter

    Today’s readings

    What would you give for just five minutes of peace and quiet? We are all probably sadly familiar with the many loud distractions our world puts before us. And we’ve become quite conditioned to accepting it, even needing it on some primitive level, I think. How often do we get out of bed and flip on the radio or television right away, or check our text messages or email before our feet even hit the floor? Can we even get through a car ride without having the radio going? Is the television always the background noise in our homes? I know I’m guilty of those myself. There’s a whole lot of noise out there and it’s become so that we are very uncomfortable with any kind of quiet.

    And the noise doesn’t lead us anywhere good. The Psalmist talks about walking through death’s dark valley. I think some of the noise out there resembles that dark valley pretty closely. There are voices out there tempting us to all sorts of evil places: addictions, selfishness; pursuit of wealth, prestige, or power. Those same voices call us to turn away from the needy, from family, God and the Church. Those same voices tell us that we are doing just fine on our own, that we don’t need anyone else to make us whole, that we are good enough to accomplish anything worthwhile all by ourselves. And those voices are wrong, dead wrong.

    Those are the voices of those Jesus mentions in the Gospel who circumvent the gate and come to “steal and slaughter and destroy.” The frightening thing is, we have become so used to these distracting voices that many of us have turned away from God, turned away from the Savior we so desperately need, and have been led astray. That’s the heart of why our pews aren’t filled, why people call themselves “spiritual but not religious”, why the likes of Oprah and Doctor Phil and Joel Osteen have become so popular in this day and age.

    So maybe we have to become a little more like sheep. Now I want to be careful about saying that, because being like sheep has a pretty negative connotation. To be clear: I don’t mean that in the sense of cultivating blind obedience. Because, as it turns out, sheep aren’t as dumb as we often think they are.

    Here’s the backstory on today’s Gospel image of the sheep, the shepherd, and the sheepfold: In Jesus’ day, the shepherds would gather several flocks in the same fenced-enclosure. The sheepfold might be constructed in a pasture using brush and sticks; or, it would adjoin a wall of a house and have makeshift walls for the other sides. Owners of small flocks of sheep would have combined them in the secure enclosure at night. Someone – the gatekeeper – would then guard the flocks. The “gate” would have been a simple entrance, but the gatekeeper might even stretch out across the opening and literally be the “gate.” The shepherds would arrive early in the morning and be admitted by the gatekeeper. They would call out to their sheep and the members of the flock would recognize the voice of their own shepherd, and that shepherd would “lead them out.” The shepherd then walks in front of the flock and they follow. (cf. Jude Sicilliano, OP)

    We, like the sheep, have to cultivate the silence and the ability to hear our shepherd’s voice and follow him, being led to green pastures, and not be distracted by all the noise out there. We are a people in great need of a Savior, of the Good Shepherd. When we deny that, we’ve already lost any hope of the glory of heaven. We desperately need the guidance of the one who is the Way, the Truth and the Life; the one who leads us to eternity, laying down his own life to keep us out of the eternal clutches of sin and death. Jesus came into this world and gave himself so that we might “have life and have it more abundantly.” We just have to stop settling for the noise out there and tune in to our Savior’s voice.

    Here’s a way to pray with this in the coming week. Take five minutes, or even just five seconds if that’s all you can find, and consciously turn off the noise: whether it’s the physical noise of the television or radio, or the internal noise of distractions in your head. And then reflect on what voices are out there distracting you from hearing the voice of your Good Shepherd. Ask the Good Shepherd to help you tune them out so that you can more readily discern his voice and follow the right path. Jesus can do amazing things even with a small space of peace and quiet.

    Because Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!