Called to be Good Shepherds: Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

The theme for our Sunday Mass today is “Jezu Boro Gonvlli, Aplea Rogtan Ekttaita” (Jesus, the Good Shepherd, Gathers through His Blood) and we are simultaneously celebrating Natural Family Planning Sunday. Most of you will know about family planning; the government has for a long time been promoting family planning in all kinds of ways – the use of condoms, forced, coerced and incentivised sterilisation of both men and women, all kinds of products and procedures for women to ensure that they do not conceive. None of these methods, however, are compatible with theteaching of Our Holy Mother the Church.

The Church teaches that every individual has absolute dignity and that every life is precious, even the unborn, and the newly conceived. To prevent, therefore, the birth of new life is a sin. However, the Church in Her wisdom, and drawing from the teaching of Our Lord himself offers us ways in which we can plan the size of our families, naturally.

Recollect, the words of the Gospel we just heard:

his heart was moved with pity for them,

for they were like sheep without a shepherd;

and he began to teach them many things.

Given the delicate nature of the matter, I will not discuss natural family planning from the pulpit. However, I will say this much, that this method relies on a cardinal Catholic virtue; restraint. Restraint, means a recognition that we need to control our desires, that not every desire can be catered to whenever we feel like, that there is a proper moment to do so, and sometimes that moment is never!

To many people, however such advice, would sound crazy. After all, what our contemporary culture teaches us – through ads, films, and every other media – is that if you have a desire, any desire, and especially a sexual desire, it must be satisfied, the sooner the better!

It is, therefore, to the false prophets of contemporary culture that the words of the first reading from the book of Jeremiah apply:

Woe to the shepherds

who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture,

says the LORD.

Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel,

against the shepherds who shepherd my people:

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.

Hidden in these words of scripture is a truth that many of us will recognise; that all of us, regardless of our position in society, all of us are shepherds. This applies particularly to those of us who are baptised. In baptism we become a part of Christ, and his three munera, or responsibilities, that of priest, prophet, and king. Shepherding is way to understand not only the kingly duty of Christ, but also of those baptised into Him. All of us are kings, all of us are shepherds, who have a duty to take care of the flock that has been entrusted to us. And this flock includes, not just our families, but all those around us. We are obliged to care for them and resist the misleading teaching of the evil shepherds who, animated by the Devil who hates life, scatter the sheep, or the flock, of God.

Brothers and sisters, in the first reading, through the prophet Jeremiah God tells us that he will raise up a righteous king who will rule and govern wisely. That righteous King is Christ, who then transferred his teaching authority to the apostles, whose successors are the bishops, and supreme among them in teaching authority is the Pope. It is critical then, that we listen to the words of our bishops, and the pope, who communicate to us the eternal teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are all strengthened to follow these shepherds, and be ourselves good shepherds, by the fact that Our Lord gives us, in every Eucharist we worthily consume, His Precious Body and Blood which gives us the grace to fight the Devil and his shepherds, and follow Our Lord, and His good shepherds.

As he assured Saint Paul (2 Cor 12:9), "My grace is sufficient for you."

(A version of this homily was first preached in Concanim to the faithful at the parish of N.S. do Rosário, Fatorda on 21 July 2024.
Image featured: Roman tombstone depicting the Good Shepherd. Baths of Diocletian. National Roman Museum Rome.)