Bad Shepherds in Our Day?

BAD SHEPHERDS IN OUR DAY?

YES, BUT... ANYBODY

CONCERNED

ABOUT THE BAD SHEEP?

April 29 - Fourth Sunday of Easter

The well-known theme of the Good Shepherd dominates the Readings this Sunday though it is expressed in different ways.  St Peter also calls Jesus the "stone rejected by the builders " and in other places the Lord is called "the door." The idea is always the same: there is only ONE great individual capable of leading us aimless wanderers through the thorns and thickets of life to the flowing pastures and the restful waters of Paradise.

In the First Reading we have left the Upper Room some distance behind us and Peter is going, like a good Jew, to worship in the Temple when he is asked for an alms by a cripple and gives an alms no cripple could expect: a miraculous healing. As the crowd gathers in amazement. Peter takes the opportunity to remind them that they crucified their Best Friend (presumably some Pharisees were present and we can imagine their furious reaction) and that no other friend can match him. It is a brave and convinced statement but, clearly, the religious leaders cannot and will not let it pass unchallenged.

The Responsorial Psalm gives the same message:  you have sadly failed to understand the greatest Figure who ever walked the earth and, indeed, rejected him to the point of executing him. But no serious harm has been done: the Lord's kindness "endures forever."

The most intriguing lines in the Second Reading are " what we shall be has not yet been revealed ... but when it is revealed "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." It has not been revealed because it cannot be revealed. When the Lord takes over a soul, the result often is that the body breaks down under the strain, sometimes because of excessive mortification in a wild attempt to return some of the Lord's love, but also because " it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." After death, this problem is solved and there we shall not only see the Lord but actually be him or be in him - we don't know how, but the prospect is entrancing.

The Gospel is very familiar and the comparison the Master made was equally familiar to his hearers: sheep were an important part of the area where he lived and worked and was brutally put to death. The shepherds led heroic lives: long hours in the summer heat and in constant danger from wolves who were a danger to them as much as to their flock. And in due course the Master was called on to die a death that no one in charge of a sheepfold ever experienced. Our times have a problem with bad shepherds - and that theme has been played and played out. But sometimes I ask . . . what about today's sheep? The Catholics living in divorce, in civil marriages or in no marriages at all? The shepherds are, as we know, trying to regroup and reform and it is probable that in 10 Or 15 years we will have a priesthood severely reduced in number but otherwise above suspicion. But how will the people be 10 or 15 years from now? Anybody concerned about them?

~April 2012 Concord