Second Sunday after Easter, April 22, 2012
Good
Shepherd Sunday
(John 10: 11-16)
Our Lord tells
us in today’s Gospel, “I am the good shepherd,” and in the next sentence He tells
us what makes Him so: “The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep.” Jesus
is the Good Shepherd by His nature. We are called upon to imitate Him to become
good shepherds. When we marry, for example, we give up our independence. When
we have children, we give up our time and money to raise them. Our spouse and
children are our sheep. When we give up something for their benefit, we are Good
Shepherds, giving up a part of our lives for them.
Today is very important to Christians. Jesus
knew that He would return to His Father, but He would not abandon the children that
He was going to die for. So today our Lord and Master begins His work of
establishing and consolidating His Church by calling Himself the Good Shepherd.
He would later give it the pastor, Peter the Rock, the shepherd who would
govern it until the end of time. Let's go to the city of Caesarea
Philippi, at Matthew 16: 18 where Jesus asked His Disciples, “Who do men say that the
Son of Man is?” Various answers were given, but Simon said, “Thou art Christ,
the Son of the living God.” Jesus blessed him , “Blessed art thou, Simon
Bar-Jona,” because He knew His Father had revealed this to him, and Christ immediately
told him that from that time forward he was not to be Simon, but Peter, which
means the rock. In Aramaic the word is Cephas, in Greek Petros, in Latin
Petrus, in English Peter – and they all mean “rock.” St. Paul acknowledges Cephas in Galatians and
Corinthians. Peter is not a name without meaning. Cephas, Petros, Petrus, Peter
– in all languages means the rock. So Jesus was telling St. Peter “Thou art the
rock, and upon this rock I will build My church.”
Going back 800 years before Christ, Isaias spoke of Christ under the
name of a Rock, a Cornerstone: “Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I
will lay a stone in the foundation of Sion, a tried stone, a corner-stone, a
precious stone, founded in the foundation.” (Isaias 28: 16) When Jesus conferred on Simon his title of the Rock, the cornerstone,
Jesus is telling us and Peter the Rock that he was to have something in common
with Himself, something that the other Apostles were not to have. Because right
after He blessed Simon, He said, “You are Peter, you are the rock; and upon
this rock I will build my church.” Christians acknowledge that Jesus Christ is
the foundation stone of the Church, but here is Jesus, the Son of God, telling
Simon that he is the rock and upon this rock, Peter the rock, He will build His
Church. To build a church on earth is to build an organization that operates
within, of, by and for mankind. In all organizations of men, someone must be in
charge. This is true even in those religious sects that do not recognize
priests or ministers; someone, or some group, is always in charge. In the
Church that Jesus was going to build, Peter is that person who is placed in
charge. “Thou art Peter, the rock, and upon this rock I will build my Church,” –
this is Peter’s appointment as the leader of the Apostles. The other Apostles
that day drank this in. They did not question it, Judas perhaps excepted.
Further, if “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” then upon the
death of Peter, someone else had to be chosen to be the leader of Christ’s
Church, the person in charge, the person with the final authority.
Our Lord continues, telling Peter, “And I will give to thee the keys to
the kingdom of heaven.” In the language of the Jews of that day “keys” signify
the power of governing. (Isaias
22: 22 - Speaking of Sobna,
scribe of King Ezechias, and in charge of the Temple, that he, Sobna, will be
replaced by Eliacim, Isaias say, “And I will lay the key to the house of David
upon his shoulder . . .” Eliacim was appointed master over all servants in the
palace. Such is the nature of the keys given to Peter, the chief servant.) From the Catholic Encyclopedia, under Kingdom of God, is a discussion of the Kingdom of Heaven.
“As men grew to understand the
Divinity of Christ they grew to see that the kingdom of God was also that of Christ — it was
here that the faith of the good thief excelled: ‘Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into
thy kingdom.’ So, too, as men realized that this kingdom stood for a certain
tone of mind, and saw that this peculiar spirit was enshrined in the Church, they began to speak of the Church as ‘the kingdom of God’; (Colossians 1:13; 1 Thessalonians 2:12; Apocalypse 1:6-9 and 5:10) The kingdom was regarded as Christ's and He presents it to the
Father; (1 Corinthians 15: 23-28; 2 Timothy 4:1). The kingdom of God means, then, the ruling of God in our hearts; it means those
principles which separate us from the kingdom of the world and the devil; it means the benign sway of
grace; it means the Church as that Divine institution whereby we may make sure of attaining the spirit
of Christ and so win the ultimate kingdom of God. See Matthew
13 where, in a series of parables
Jesus describes the “kingdom of heaven” as His Church. So by saying to Peter,
“I will give to thee the keys to the kingdom of heaven,” Like Eliacim, Peter is
made chief servant, under Christ the King, and in charge of Christ’s Church.
After Jesus had been crucified and
rose from the dead the time came for Him to make good on that promise to build
His Church. So we jump forward to the time near the end when Jesus appeared to
the Apostles on the shores of the Lake of Tiberias, the Sea of Galilee. He
provides them with dinner and after eating He says to Peter, “Simon, son of
John, lovest thou me?” (John 21: 15-17) Jesus did not call him Peter, but Simon, so the other Apostles
would note the transition between the earlier promise of establishing this Rock
as the foundation of His Church, and the actual fulfillment of that promise.
Peter, with his usual eagerness answers, “Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love
thee.” Jesus commands him, “Feed my lambs.” Then He repeats the question, “Simon,
Son of John, lovest thou me?” Again Peter gives the same answer. The others are
respectfully listening to this dialog and see plainly that Peter is again made
an object of Jesus' partiality, and that he is receiving something which they
are not receiving. They remember what happened at Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus
said to him, “Thou art the rock, and upon this rock I will build my church.” A
third time then, Jesus asks Peter, “Simon, son of John, lovest thou me?” Peters
answers again, perhaps more humbly, “Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou
knowest that I love thee.” Then, making Peter's authority complete, Jesus
pronounces these imposing words: “Feed my sheep.” Peter is made shepherd by Him
Who calls Himself the Good Shepherd. Giving Peter twice the command to “Feed my
lambs” did not make him the complete shepherd, but when Christ tells Peter to
“Feed my sheep,” the whole flock is then subjected to Peter's authority.
The time of Jesus' visible presence on Earth is coming to an end, and
there on the shores of the Lake of Tiberias Peter is proclaimed the visible
head of Christ's Church. Is the Church a building? Peter is the
foundation-stone. Is the Church a kingdom? Peter has the keys, the authority to
rule it. Is the Church a fold? Peter is the shepherd, the chief servant.
Now we come back to today's Gospel, which ends with the words: “and
there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” These are Christ's words, the words
of God, so we know that if His Church is to be one fold it must have one
supreme shepherd. Although it is popular today to claim that the Church of
Christ is composed of all the Christian churches, this claim simply doesn't
stand up to an examination of the Bible and of the history that followed.
The Figure of the Good Shepherd is the most perfect human image given to
us of the whole divine plan of our restoration to God by means of the Word
Incarnate. It is the most complete, the most tender and the most authoritative image
since it is given to us by God Himself. We live today in an Age of
Disobedience, so it is important for priests and laymen alike to “stand fast in
the Lord,” as St. Paul expressed to the Thessalonians. The ancient Jews, when
disobedient to God's Word, “went aside after their own inventions.” (Psalm 105: 39)
That is what we see happening so in
the world today with Catholics who aren’t Catholics and thousands of Christian
sects each with its own shepherd. +++
In his City of God, St.
Augustine makes these remarks about the Catholic Church:
“Here we notice three incredible things. (1) It
is incredible that Christ rose from the dead, (2) that this was believed around
the world and (3) that a small number of men from the lower rungs of society
persuaded even wise men of the truth of the Resurrection. Many refuse to
believe the first; they see the worldwide spread of the Church and they can
only account for it by admitting the third, that obscure and ignorant men were
responsible for its spread. If Christ’s Resurrection is too incredible to
believe, why does the world believe it? Those people who will not believe that
the Apostles performed miracles in testimony of His Resurrection ask us to
believe in an even greater miracle – that the whole world did believe without a
miracle.”
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