Bulletins
April 26, 2015
Download the Bulletin as a PDFGood Shepherd Sunday.
For over a thousand years, today's Gospel reading from the tenth chapter of the Holy Gospel of St. John was heard on the Second Sunday after Easter. So I preached on it last week at the Noon Latin Mass in the Extraordinary Form. In the modern calendar this Fourth Sunday of Easter is also designated "World Day of Prayer for Vocations" and for good reason. Our Lord is the "Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep" (John 10,11) and issued the three-fold commission to St. Peter to "feed my lambs… tend my sheep… feed my sheep" (John 21,15- 19), marching orders which included a description of how St. Peter would be led to his martyrdom.
How perfect a fulfillment of the promise given through the prophet Jeremiah: "I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding" (Jer 3,15) because "the shepherds are stupid, and do not inquire of the LORD; therefore they have not prospered and all their flock is scattered" (Jer 10,21), "many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard" (Jer. 12,10). "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD" (Jer 23,1). He says even more in Jeremiah 25,24-26 and 50,6. Instead, the LORD "will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more" (Jer 23,4).
We pray, then, for shepherds to have the Heart of Jesus, who promised that the living waters He offers would not stop flowing with him: "He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, `Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water'" (John 7,38).
Pray not just for vocations. Pray for holy vocations and not just a few more. Pray that we have enough holy priests to evangelize the whole world and sustain the people of God, each of whom will have to be willing to be the only faithful soul in the room. In 1534 when King Henry VIII severed the Church of England from the See of Peter and then a year later ordered the severing of the heads of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, each of whom were abandoned by their supposedly Catholic colleagues, there was such a robust Christian culture that we can hardly imagine it. At that time one in fifty men in England were ordained or otherwise in religious life.
One in fifty! That translates into many more than one young man and one young lady from every Confirmation Class of ours. In this zip code there are slightly more than five hundred 18 year olds. That means we would have to provide fifty vocations… each year.
Let's get praying. God bless you!
Fr. Christopher J. Pollard
