4th Sunday of Easter C, 2007

The fourth Sunday of Easter is always devoted to the theme of Christ the Good Shepherd, an endearing image of our Savior which can easily be trivialized through sentimental piety. The first scripture of this Mass may well correct this idealistic picture. There the apostles’ preaching had the effect of dividing their audience–something for us to notice who are so determined to have uniformity, toleration and peace among men at all costs. Getting along happily together, while undeniably pleasant, is not the highest good; unity can’t be forced or feigned. The truth is the highest good because God is truth; Christ is truth. Those who accept Him totally will be saved; those who do not believe in Him will be condemned. These are not my words, this is not my judgment, but Christ’s.

Of course, it’s a very good thing to pray for the salvation of the whole human race: such is the will of God for us so to do. It is also good to seek that unity among men which is the working of the Holy Spirit attracting them into unity by the power of His truth, by grace, by charity. But these divine methods, these God-given means which produce unity cannot be substituted by the counterfeit efforts of compromise instead of truth, coercion instead of grace, sentimentality and emotion in place of charity. ‘Let’s all get along together’ is a slogan that can be used either for good or ill, for attaining true peace or for subverting the Gospel, the truth of Christ, the truth of the Catholic faith. Neither dissent from the teaching of the Church on dogma, or morals, nor departure from the discipline of the Church, her laws, her norms of right worship–none of this will bring about unity in the Church because these are not the work of God the Holy Spirit, these are not the words of the Good Shepherd, but of the Deceiver, the conceit of the Father of Lies, the devil. And he has enjoyed great success in our day by inducing many Catholics to follow their passions instead of reason, to obey their lusts (‘concupiscences’ would be the more accurate word) instead of following the voice of Christ in the teaching of the Scriptures and in the magisterium of the Church.

Listen again to what the apostles had to say: “Since you reject the word of God, you condemn yourselves as unworthy of eternal life.” And the Church ‘rejoiced’–yes, they rejoiced–certainly not because souls would be forever lost through their willful disobedience but because the truth of God had been spoken, the mind of God revealed, and it would save those accepted it. Saint John (in the Apocalypse) could see in heaven a great multitude of saints from every nation, race and people. But he would not see there the impious, the dissidents, and those perverted through their rejection of truth. Why did Our Lord speak of His sheep who listen and follow Him, of those who cannot be taken away from Him unless He meant to distinguish them from those who choose not to follow His voice, not to accept grace, not to belong to Him? There is not only one answer possible to the questions Jesus poses at various places in the Gospels: “Do you believe this?”; “Will you also leave me?”; or “Do you love me more than these?”. There is yes and there is no; there is acceptance and there is refusal; there is Credo (‘I believe’) and there is Non serviam (‘I will not serve’). When will people in the Church begin to see clearly that being a Christian is a matter of acceptance of Christ in the totality of his word? We are too often being misled by false hopes of universal salvation, of syncretism, of a facile and empty ecumenism, and of a nod and a wink towards the prevailing sensuality which governs people’s lives today. “My sheep hear my voice. I know them; they follow me.”

While we wish to be compliant and obedient to Christ, to be docile to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, we should not forget that the Spouse of Truth is the Mother of God, His ‘helpmate.’ The maternal Heart of Mary is the beauty of a soul not merely asserting the truth and agreeing to the creed, but also of one who loves it and who loves Him, drawn by the beauty of His goodness. This is necessary to say because religion is not only an intellectual exercise–however necessary–of consent to the articles of the creed, but it is also of the love of God who reveals these things. It’s a matter of being responsive–like Mary–to the attractiveness of the mystery of God and of holiness, the awe of His power and the beauty of His Being. The ‘sheep-following-along-according-to-their-hearing-the-voice-of-a-shepherd’ is a touching image of love. Non-thinking, unreflective animals love to hear the sound of his voice; they go as the voice goes, now here, now there. Are we then, intelligent beings, to do less than these creatures? Shall we hear but not follow-out-of-love?

Let us pray for the conversion of non-believers, surely. Let us pray for the conversion of sinners, always. And let us not fail in our zeal for the grand schemes of unity and inclusion to be faithful ourselves to our Lord and, with Holy Mary, to give wholehearted assent of mind and heart to the persuasive power of God’s goodness and His truth.