Et suscitabo super eos pastores, et pascent eos : non formidabunt ultra, et non pavebunt, et nullus quaeretur ex numero
I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing.
It’s hard to be Catholic. Each of us knows this: there is something asked, something demanded of us – each of us has this thing and we know it. But, if we’re doing it all wrong, we can see someone over there doing exactly the same thing with seeming impunity. It’s so easy to judge that person over there for doing it. And then we are tripped up, ourselves, and it must be ok, right? So it is with the sex scandal. All in high places in the Catholic Church have always been sinners (we are all sinners) but some of them spectacularly so. A google of “bad popes” or “Irish nuns” will bring all kinds of stories. And no few news stories today – even within the last few weeks – will be found without much clicking.
No one has asked me about why I became Catholic in the light of the continuing sex scandal. But friends of mine have been asked that. Being Catholic is hard and the sex scandal is huge. It might have broken earlier, to be honest, if there had been electronic media in the 9th century. It might have broken in another church if the Soviets had been on their game. It might have broken in ECUSA if our clergy had not been married – because an abusive husband is surely just as bad as a pedophile, right? But society ignores that sin in a different way. And a married man who has sex outside of his marriage is pretty normal stuff even if it is with another man. Most of us never got around to talking about relationships of power-imbalance until it was too late. Ever wonder why a given ECUSA Bishop had to retire early?
And after hearing (in some cases, daily) preachers who say “don’t do this”, we discover that some were doing it quite often. Why should I bother refraining, right? Because I, at least, am not an abuser but rather a lover. I can see that over there is a huge sin. What is mine? And yet…
Each of us is a shepherd, really. The entire body of Christ, the entire Body of the Good Shepherd: we are all shepherds. The flock you lead is your family, your friends, your coworkers. The people you see daily on the subway. God expects you – demands of you – the same love, the same care, the same purity of life and doctrine, the same self sacrifice and death from you on their behalf as God demands of his other priests in their place and time. We are all shepherds and when the shepherd falls, the flock is scattered.
When our sins are so small, you know what else is worrisome? Yes, I’m a Christian, but not like that. I have made some different choices, and it’s all ok. And a few more sheep are lost… thinking either we are all hypocrites or else we’re all liars. Or worse, they think they can continue in their sin as well. We try to be all modern and relevant and stuff but become pharisees who gain an convert and make him to be worse than he was before.
We are all shepherds. This is what the name “little Christ” means here. We are all priests, prophets, kings, and shepherds.
We must look out, and as Christ was coming back from retreat with his Apostles, we must be moved with compassion. For all around us are like sheep without shepherds. And we have been sent.
Kneeling in Church just before the communion last night, our cantor began one of those songs that “everyone knows” as far as Church goes. I didn’t know it cuz I’m new here.
I will come to you in the silence
I will lift you from all your fear
You will hear My voice
I claim you as My choice
Be still, and know I am near
I am hope for all who are hopeless
I am eyes for all who long to see
In the shadows of the night,
I will be your light
Come and rest in Me
As I was near the front of the Church I had received the Precious Body and was waiting from the Chalice to come as the first refrain began.
Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and follow Me
I will bring you home
I love you and you are mine
Hearing these words for the first time as one is drinking the Very Blood of God was overpowering. I was standing less than two yards from the Cantor as he sang them.
But then I knelt in my pew to say my thanksgiving for the gift of Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, given to me, an unworthy sinner, a man with a past. And as Jeffrey finished each verse the congregation, slowly receiving their communion and filling in behind me, softly took up the refrain. More and more sang each time. until the song was a soft but insistent thunder of Love around me.
I am strength for all the despairing
Healing for the ones who dwell in shame
All the blind will see, the lame will all run free
And all will know My name
Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and follow Me
I will bring you home
I love you and you are mine
I am the Word that leads all to freedom
I am the peace the world cannot give
I will call your name, embracing all your pain
Stand up, now, walk, and live
Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and follow Me
I will bring you home
I love you and you are mine
Surrounded by my fellow sheep echoing the words of our Shepherd, I knew that I had come home, that I was surround by – yes, Sinners – who were in love with the same Shepherd. We are all growing into his likeness. Some of us fall… daily some of us fall daily. Yet we reach out, we raise up, we commune, we grow more and more.
But that’s not all, comforting as it is. If we are not thus moved to be better shepherds, better Christs living in the world leading our little flocks to his, then we have failed. We are not failing as fabulously as a Medici Pope, and no one will file a lawsuit against us for malpractice over our personal impious peccadilloes, but we will lose some sheep. And God will have to say to us each, You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds.
Yet God will bring them home.
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Doxos 