HOMILY – EASTER IV 2017 -- “Good Shepherd"

“ . . now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”

"Jesus is Lord." How often have we heard or said these words? Jesus is the divine Son who David foresaw at God's right hand (Acts 2:34). He is also the Messiah,  the Christos or Anointed One that God had promised to be the Shepherd of the scattered flock of the house of Israel (Ezekiel 34:11-14, 23; 37:24).

The empty tomb of the risen Jesus, our Lord and Messiah, calls us to enter in, to enter into his death and resurrection. By this tomb, we know for certain that God has made Jesus both Lord and Messiah. He is the Christ, the New Torah, as Pope Benedict points our in his book JESUS OF NAZARETH. He is the anointed one for all nations not merely his own nation, as Peter preaches in today's First Reading.

The Gospel calls Jesus the Good Shepherd, sent to a people who were like sheep without a shepherd (Mark 6:34; Numbers 2). Jesus, this Good Shepherd calls not only to the children of Israel, but to all those far off. He calls those lost in the Kingdom of Self, in the Oligarchy  of Materialism, in the inclusiveness of Sin, in the Dictatorship of Relativism. 

These perverse principalities claim that all “truths” are equal even when they are manifestly neither true nor equal to the truth of Christ and the Kingdom of God.  

Jesus calls whomever the Lord wishes to hear His voice. He calls as the Good Shepherd calls and leads us away from rule of the Dark Prince of the World.

  

The call of the Good Shepherd leads to the healing waters of Baptism, to the anointing oil of Confirmation, and to the table and overflowing cup of the Eucharist.

Again, on this Fourth Sunday of Easter, we hear Jesus’ voice calling us His own. He awakens in us the response of those who heard Peter's preaching. 

"What are we to do?" they cried.

We have been baptized into his life yet each of us goes astray like the sheep, as we hear in today's Epistle. We become subject to the thieves in our society who seek to steal, to steal hope, to steal morality and goodness, those who seek to in Jesus words: “kill and destroy;” to kill the innocents and destroy the family. We need daily to repent, to seek forgiveness of our sins, to pray for protection from the thieves of morality and to separate ourselves from this “corrupt generation” from the siren songs of materialism, of concupiscence and of immorality, and from the colourful flags they fly.

We are called to follow in the footsteps of the loving and self-sacrificing Shepherd of our souls. By Jesus’ suffering, He bore our sins in His body to free us from the power and the influence of sin. But His suffering is also an example for us. From Him we  learn patience in our afflictions, offering our struggles for the benefit of others,  for all those who have been or will be washed in the Easter waters of Baptism. We are all connected, all bound together, all part of the Body of Christ, struggling and suffering for one another as Jesus has done and calls us to do.  We hand ourselves over to the will of God for the good of others.

Jesus has gone ahead, leading us through the dark valley of evil and death. His Cross has become the narrow gate through which we must pass to reach His empty tomb and then on to the verdant pastures of abundant life.

“ . . now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”

Pope Benedict - Last Testament with Peter Seewald

I have just finished reading this book which contains Pope Benedict's final interview with Peter Seewald.

It covers some territory partially discussed in the several previous volumes in what has come to be a biography-by-interview series.  Unlike Jesus of Nazareth, Benedict's magisterial biblical exegesis and christological masterpiece, this translation from the German (in which both he and Seewald write) has some phrases that sound a bit awkward to the English-speaker. The use of the pronoun "one" is a bit formal but in the case of a Pope, more appropriate that the more formal regal "we."

All the topical questions are asked.  With remarkable candour and humility, the aged Benedict emerges as a still astute observer of the world in which "the good God" seeks to communicate a message of love amidst what many see as the ruins of Christian culture in Europe after a century in which humanity very nearly destroyed itself.  

There is considerable early biographical background in this book in which the Ratzinger family emerges as profoundly Catholic, opposed to the horror of Nazism and deeply devoted to one another.  Joseph Ratzinger's father was particularly opposed to the rising Nazi tide. The family suffered for this opposition but was largely unscathed in terms of physical harm.  

Both parents were raised and lived a traditional life in the heart of Catholic Bavaria. They encouraged both sons in pursuit of vocations to the priesthood. Their sister, Maria, remained quietly devoted to her brothers and lived with Joseph over many years, including in Rome, until her death in 1991.

A shy and often solitary figure to the minds of many, Joseph Ratzinger emerges as a first rate theologian, at first allied with the more liberal wing of German Catholic scholarship.  He had, for example, sharp disagreements with Paul Hacker, historian and critic of the Second Vatican Council.  Joseph's fascination with the Jewish theologian and mystic Martin Buber is also explored. 

An interesting influence upon the young theologian was Heinrich Schlier, a Protestant opponent of the Hitler regime and one-time disciple of Rudolph Bultman. Schlier later (in 1954) became a famous convert to Catholicism. Ratzinger says that Schlier was "a uniquely big influence on me."  

This influence was continued in the ongoing dialogue Prof Ratzinger had with Protestants. Along with the influence of the writings of the Anglican convert, John Henry Newman and engagement with Lutheran scholarship, as Cardinal Ratzinger and then as Pope Benedict XVI, he was able to bring to fruition the profound action for Christian unity, the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. The Ordinariates which have developed from this work are seen by many to mark the first formal healing of the Reformation breach. Thousands of Anglicans and other Protestants have been welcomed into the full communion of the Catholic Church through the outreach and ministry of the Ordinatiates.

Later, Cardinal Ratzinger became a formidable opponent in many debates with such notables as Hans Kung after Vatican II and what Prof. Ratzinger considered misinterpretations and misapplications of the Documents of Vatican II.  As an admirer and colleague of von Balthasar, Yves Congar and Henri de Lubac, amongst others, the book describes his profound christology which shaped his teaching about the nature of the Church and her mission.  

The various challenges that Benedict faced as pope including the clergy sex abuse scandal are explored in a series of challenging questions.  What never wavers in his response is his profound thankfulness for the guiding presence of "the good God" whom Benedict perceives through nature, society and the movement of history despite the darkness of fallen human nature.

This book adds to what we know of one of the most profound and under-rated thinkers of the past century and one who has done so much to shape the mission of the Church in the twenty-first century.  

He concludes with a message about the guiding presence of God which has sustained him: "God is not, let's say, a ruling power, a distant force; rather he is love and he loves me - and, as such, life should be guided by him, by this power called love."

STM Choir (Toronto) is now recruiting singers.

If you read music, like to sing sacred music and can attend one practice weekly in addition to Sung Mass at 12:30 noon on Sundays, call for an audition 647-200-8981. 

Several paid positions are available.

Easter Day Sung Mass at St. Thomas More, Toronto

AN EASTER HOMILY

“When Christ our life appears, then you also will appear with him.”

Jesus is nowhere visible. Yet today's Gospel tells us that Peter and John "saw and believed" having been chosen to be "witnesses"  to the reality of Jesus Christ risen from the dead. 

The Acts of the Apostles tells us that the Apostles were "commissioned...to preach...and testify" testify that they had seen Jesus - from the anointing with the Holy Spirit at the Jordan to the empty tomb.

In this sense, the resurrection life (this new life of God’s power) had begun with Christ, the Son of God, when he was born as Jesus of Nazareth, a human person. Acts tells us, “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power: how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.”  Jesus was going about doing good i.e. doing God’s will: healing the sick, forgiving sinners and proclaiming the Kingdom of God in the here and now; living his human life for the sake of others.

Beyond their own experience, the Apostles were instructed in the mysteries of the divine economy, God's saving plan – to know how "all the prophets bear witness" to Christ (Luke 24: 27, 44).  Now they could "understand the Scripture," they could teach us what Jesus had revealed to them and how that related to what he did, by the power of God.  

Jesus was "the Stone which the builders rejected," now he has become the head cornerstone, the Servant King who turns history and all notions of kingship upside down; Jesus who put the good of others ahead of his own wants or needs.

We are the beneficiaries and stewards of their apostolic witness. That is why we still gather on the first day of every week to celebrate this feast, to give thanks for "Christ our life," as today's Epistle calls Him.  This means that we live that resurrection life now, not just seeking some future reward; we live the resurrection as we serve others in the name of the Lord.  We pray for the sick and visit them; we take a compassionate interest in others not just in our own ideas or projects. 

This means that in the face of the narcissism of Western Culture we choose to live in the light of the resurrection not individualistically but as a community, a community whose life is Christ:  Christ our life -- not my life but our life.  We share in the life of his body by submitting our time, talent and treasure to the good of His community – the Body of Christ so that his resurrection life may be manifest.

Baptized into His death and Resurrection, we live the life of the risen Christ; our lives, as St. Paul says, are "hidden with Christ in God."  We are now His witnesses, too. So we are called to testify to things we cannot see but believe; we seek in earthly things what is above and we journey together to our own resurrection in the power of the resurrection of Jesus by attending, as he did, to the needs of others.

We live in the light of the Apostles' witness, like them eating and drinking with the risen Lord at the altar. And while we wait in hope for what the Apostles told us would come –  the day when we too "will appear with Him in glory," we live in the power of Christ’s resurrection serving others in his pattern and in his strength.

“When Christ our life appears, then you also will appear with him.”

Holy Week and Easter

Dan Robertson, an STM parishioner, has come up with this excellent poster for the season

Holy Week and Easter at the OCSP Parish of St. Thomas More, Toronto

Baptism is Indelible

A reflection by J.D. Flynn on Catholic Baptism:

In the post-modern West, well before believers can proclaim revealed truth, they’re forced to combat the epistemological consequences of the dictatorship of relativism—to explain the possibility that truth claims can have real, objective, and unalterable meaning. It is an absurd, but nonetheless real, challenge to defend the idea that “true” and “false” exist, that “right” and “wrong” have meaning, that the contours of the natural world have significance, and order, and law.

For the past few years, we’ve been ridiculed and persecuted for proposing that gender has something to do with physical sex. The libertine guardians of the sexual revolution brook no dissent from the idea, so famously articulated in Casey vs. Planned Parenthood, that “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

As transhumanism becomes more prevalent, as the sexual revolution identifies more perversions as “rights,” as technocracy overtakes ethical reasoning and truth is more frequently confused with power, believers will find themselves ever more frequently in the position of explaining that some realities are not contingent on the prevailing ethos of culture, or on our judgments, or on the fleeting whims of self-definition.

To combat the dictatorship of relativism, we have to approach the truth with humility. The philosophical project of our time, Matthew Crawford says, is to “reclaim the real,” responding to reality, rather than trying to define reality according to our preferences, or bend it according to our agenda.

In the 2016 Presidential election, both vice-presidential candidates [were] Catholic. In circles of faithful Catholics, both have been referred to as “Catholics in Name Only.” One journalist has labeled them both “Catholic-ish.” Pundits in the Catholic media say that Mike Pence is an “ex-Catholic,” and remind us that Tim Kaine can’t really be Catholic and also be pro-choice.

Fr. Cleevely administers the Sacrament of Holy  Baptism

It’s obvious that Mike Pence and Tim Kaine have strained relationships with the Catholic Church. Pence, who worships at an evangelical church and professes an evangelical’s faith, seems to have rejected the authority of the Church’s Magisterium. Kaine, who supports abortion rights and the redefinition of marriage, might believe that the Church has authority, but he has obviously chosen to defy that authority.

The communion of the Catholic Church is a communion of faith, sacraments, and governance. Both vice-presidential candidates seem, at least, to have rejected that communion.

But there really is no such thing as an “ex-Catholic.” Catholicism is not a congregationalist religion. Membership is not a self-defining proposition. Grace—the grace of baptism—makes one a Catholic. The Church teaches that “by baptism, one is incorporated into the Church of Christ and is constituted a person in it.”

Catholics believe that baptism has certain objective and unalterable consequences. That Catholic identity is not the subject of self-definition. Nor is it the consequence of proper Catholic behavior, or assent to the Church’s teachings, or even obedience to the Magisterium.

In 2009, Pope Benedict affirmed that Catholicism comes without an escape clause: Once a person is baptized or received into the Church, there is no getting out.

Of course rejecting ecclesiastical communion or the Church’s doctrine has consequences, among them the penalty of excommunication. But excommunication is a punishment, not a shunning. Disobedient or dishonest Catholics might face damnation for their choices, but they will go their deathbeds as members of our Church. One can be a Catholic and be pro-choice, but having rejected the truth and the Church’s communion, he had better be prepared to face his judgment.

The fact is that among the People of God are those who have rejected the grace God has given them. That our Church includes the reprobate, and the dogmatically impure, and that we ourselves sometimes fill out those categories. The unpleasant truth is that one can be Catholic, and still be damned.

We’re formed to believe that religious ascription, like so many other things, depends on our free choices. That changing a religion is like changing a political party: We need only sign up at the place that agrees with our view. Catholicism doesn’t hold that view. The Church teaches that in baptism, the Church confers a reality that is not dependent on our assent.

Among other things, baptism frees us for the fullness of ecclesiastical communion. Freedom doesn’t go away because we reject it. Lost through obstinance, ecclesiastical communion can be had again through repentance. In fact, this is the project of the New Evangelization—to call Catholics who have lost the faith to live out the remarkable potential of belonging to Christ’s Mystical Body.

This matters. It matters because we blaspheme when we presume to undo the consequences of baptism by differentiating between “so-called Catholics” and the genuine article. We also capitulate to the dictatorship of relativism when we substitute the sociological idea of “religious identity” for the objective reality of religious fact.

We can’t credibly oppose self-defined genders or marriages while redefining the meaning of our Church’s own sacraments. We teach that some facts cannot be altered by judgment or force of will. Men are men. Women are women. Catholics—no matter how odious or recalcitrant—are Catholics. Our task is to call them to be saints.

This article by JD Flynn appears on the FIRST THINGS website. Flynn writes from Lincoln, Nebraska.