The Fourth Sunday of Easter

April 13, 2008

Homily for the Anglican Usage Mass

of the

St. Thomas More Society

celebrated at

St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church , 1013 Wood Street

Scranton, PA

John 10:1-10

            In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen

            Pope Benedict XVI will visit the United States this week, as I am sure you know.  Next Sunday the Diocese of Scranton will send 300 people from our eleven county Diocese to New York City, where they will assist at the Papal Mass at Yankee Stadium.  Jule and Bob Harris and David Kern will represent the Society, and I ask your prayers for them as they make this sacrifice on your behalf.  The demand for these tickets has been incredibly high.  My sister called me yesterday and said that her diocese in North Carolina received just two tickets and will thus send only their two most-recently ordained priests.  This eagerness to worship with the Holy Father is reflective of who he is, the Vicar of Christ on earth; so on this, Good Shepherd Sunday, it is helpful to look at what the role of our German Shepherd is, standing as he does in the place of Jesus.  Our Gospel today is incredibly generous in this regard; so I will focus just upon three things the Good Shepherd does for us, the sheep.

            Jesus says that the sheep hear His voice and that He leads them out to pasture.  Moreover, they follow Him because they know His voice and the sheep will not heed the voice of strangers.  Who can doubt that the Catholics of our nation are now hearing the Holy Father’s voice?  Since his election three years ago, Pope Benedict tirelessly has proclaimed the Gospel, focusing particularly on the relationship between faith and reason, as well as on the meaning of God’s love and our hope in Jesus Christ.  This is not to say that everyone has heeded his voice, but the sheep have.

            Whether we heed the voice of our Shepherd is a good indication of whether we are Catholic.  When Pope Benedict issued Sumorum Pontificum last year, freeing up the 1962 Missal of Pope John XXIII, some bishops hesitated in its implementation.  The Holy See made clear a few months later that such men risked falling out of communion with the Catholic Church by their failure to heed the Shepherd’s voice.

            The same is true for us.  As Catholics, we are not permitted to disagree with the Pope concerning matters of faith and morals.  If we fail to heed the Shepherd’s voice, we lose the precious pasture into which He desires to lead us.  The price of our independence is that we get lost and thus can fall prey to the many thieves who wish to snatch us away.  If we remain within the fold, however, the Holy Father will not allow anyone to steal us.  We need only listen to his voice to challenge the deceivers and those who would enslave us.

            The second role of the Good Shepherd that I want to point out has to do with what He did in today’s Gospel.  We learn from St. John that the meaning of Jesus’ first discourse we heard was not clear to His disciples.  His response to their confusion was to offer the second discourse.  We see that from the moment Jesus’ words were uttered, we who follow Jesus have required someone to interpret them for us.  This, too, is the Pope’s role, for he clarifies for us the Truth when we are confused.

            You will recall the tragedy of Terry Schiavo’s death a few years ago by starvation and dehydration.  In the wake of this highly publicized homicide, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops sent to the Holy See a request for a clarification.  There was disagreement among theologians and even among bishops over whether food and hydration were to be considered extraordinary medical treatment.  The Holy See sent back a clarification on its teaching that an unconscious person can be refused extraordinary medical treatments if they were to impose an undue burden on the family or on society.  Quite simply they stated, however, that food and water are NEVER a medical treatment, but simply the means by which human life is sustained. The Pope made clear that Terry Schiavo was murdered, murdered legally, but murdered nonetheless.

            If we are not clear on a certain point, all we have to do is ask.  Our own interpretations will not do, and we have an arbiter of disputes when legitimate authorities disagree.  Turn to the Holy Father, turn to our Good Shepherd, for the clarity we all require to live a holy life in a very confusing world.

            The Holy Father speaks that we may hear him, and he clarifies the doctrine and moral teaching of the Church in service of the third point I wish to emphasize. That is, Jesus says that He came that we may have life and have it abundantly.  The voice of our Shepherd and the clarity of His teaching are given in the service of life.  We know that He desires us to live a holy life while we walk the earth in order to be a witness to the Truth, just as He is. But even more importantly, we receive these gifts from the Good Shepherd in order that we may have eternal life.  Quite clearly, we risk imperiling our very souls when we fail to heed the voice of the Good Shepherd, when we look elsewhere for the clarity that only He can give us.  Just as Jesus is concerned primarily with procuring our eternal salvation, so the Vicar of Christ is concerned first with preserving Jesus’ hard-won victory.  In other words, the Pope speaks and clarifies because he cares about our souls, each and every one of us, that he might lose nothing of what was given to him.

            I will, therefore, end today’s homily with a challenge and a warning.  The fact that we know Pope Benedict is coming is likely due to our exposure to the mainstream media (I do not mean Catholic media), who will cover this momentous event 24-7 as soon as our Good Shepherd arrives on our shores.  Do not, however, listen to what the media says about our Holy Father.  Do not even listen to what the media says our Holy Father said!  Listen, rather, to the voice of the Good Shepherd.  It is his voice we must heed, and he provides the clarity that others cannot match.  The media in many ways want to be your pope.  Do not let them supplant the Good Shepherd.  After all, they are motivated by a bottom line, by the profits they earn when you consume their product.  They love money more than truth.  Pope Benedict XVI is coming motivated by the salvation of souls, his charge as the successor to St. Peter.  He will not try to fleece you, because he loves you, not your pocketbook.  And if you need a firsthand account of what happens in New York City next Sunday, I am certain that Bob, Jule and David will offer a more reliable firsthand account than can the New York Times.