IC1 - 6, 4 Easter A, 2002

Upon taking over as pastor of this parish, my exemplary predecessor, Monsignor Sawher, gave me the gift of an image of Jesus the Good Shepherd. He said, “I was going to take this with me, but I decided to pass it along to you instead so that it would always remind you to be a good shepherd to your people.” Those were moving and weighty words from a man who seldom showed such verbal intensity. It spoke of a standard that is beyond human capability, but the only standard for a priest and pastor of souls. All that this holy Gospel would teach us has to do with this very thing.

A good shepherd, we are told, is one who “leads the flock”. He is not a follower, a conformist to popular trends or one who yields to the least common denominator of moral or spiritual achievement. This is not to say that priests are “better than thou” in some inflated estimation of their own importance–that would be sheer Pharisaism which Jesus roundly condemned. But being a leader is a difficult posture to maintain today perhaps because so many of our once-trusted leaders (from elected officials, to school teachers, and now clergy) have let us down through their own personal failings and exploitation of the very ones entrusted to their care. And if that were not enough, there are ideological forces against the very idea of leadership that would have us operate in strictly democratic terms, such that no one should presume to take charge or have responsibility over others: all must be equal in every sense, and everything is a matter of opinion: of your thoughts versus mine; there can be no definitive right or wrong: just personal preferences. This egalitarian posture has now created a psychological problem by instilling in us a certain reticence to act boldly, even when it would be required of us, for lack of conviction and self-confidence. We have the fear of acting outside the mainstream. The expectation is that we’re all supposed to be equal, which, in this context, is to say ‘mediocre’.

This deplorable state of affairs that has afflicted us politically as well as mentally was changed somewhat on September 11^th of last year. As if awakening from sleep, our nation once again exercised its mettle, took bold initiatives, and rediscovered a latent heroism. It was a moment of honor when our once-deflated spirits were returned to us. Virtues so long neglected and unpracticed were taken up again. ! A pity that it took an act of such maliciousness to arouse us!

That moment of national glory was short-lived but it was sufficient to cause a bit of self-reflection. We had been on a steady moral decline and were scarcely conscious of our baseness. Whatever had caused our corrosion, our vulgarity and our lethargy? How to account for it?

The Imitation of Christ, always sagacious in its counsels, leads us to understand how it that we could lose our moral integrity and intellectual certainty. No individual–and no nation composed of individuals–who loses his ability to control his desires and curb his appetites can ever be at peace. Indulging in the vain desires of pride, of avarice, or of bodily lust produces that restlessness, that mental and physical disquiet, that bring on misery, guilt, intellectual darkness, the loss of self-confidence and that fidgetiness that brings on as much bad health to our souls as to our bodies. Like it so bluntly put or not, the Christian moral lesson can always be reduced to relearning how to say No! to our evil tendencies. Unlike the mastery of academic subjects, this is not a lesson once learned, never repeated. And this is so because we are not dealing here with a lesson for the intellect primarily, but for the will, that faculty of the soul that is ever in need of fresh motivation to practice what is good and shun what is wicked. Without the love of Christ, without the devout reception of the sacraments, with daily and humble prayer to Almighty God and to our Lady we can never muster the needed strength to become good, virtuous and noble.

This is indeed a moralizing lesson. It is a nagging reminder much like the one St. Peter urged on his audience in the first scripture for this Mass: “Save yourselves from this generation which has gone astray.” Or, in his commendatory words of the epistle reading: “At one time you were straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd, the guardian of your souls.”

Returning to Jesus the Good Shepherd; revisiting confession and making a firm resolution to amend your ways; leashing your appetites and desires and forcing them to submit to the rule of right reason: these are the perennial moral lessons that priest-shepherds must always preach, not because they are without fault, not because they are necessarily better than anyone else (although we do have a right to expect them to have a little edge on holiness), but because they are have been made guardians, shepherds who are entrusted with the care of men’s souls.

If we all would help to improve the moral climate of the world; if everyone here made just one personal improvement in his spiritual life, the effects would be felt far and wide. And from that reformed condition we could rightly hope for a stronger Catholic Church and for a more disciplined faithful from which would emerge many wholesome men to take up their posts as priests and responsible guardians of the flock of Christ.

It is in this context that I read to you a letter that Cardinal Maida has asked to be read at all Masses this weekend: