One of the struggles that we have
to go through as Christians in life is to handle the imperative given by Jesus
to go out to the whole world to proclaim the Good News and to baptize in the
name of the Trinity. In many
Christians’ minds, this is something that is better left to the ministers who
are specially appointed, chosen and ordained. So, that imperative, becomes a rather selective imperative,
and is somewhat conveniently by-passed or skipped over in life.
True, discipleship is far more
than just preaching and baptizing.
We only need look at the 25th chapter of Matthew to see that
discipleship entails either a knowing or unknowing feeding of the hungry,
clothing of the naked, giving drink to the parched and the visiting of the
incarcerated. So, the issue of
active Christian living is thus an all-round awareness of our very being, which
should permeate all levels of our human existence. It should be like bringing in a scented rose in full bloom
into a room, and everyone in the room becoming aware of the presence of the
flower either by detecting its perfume, or being attracted by its physical
beauty.
It is something that becomes
challenging though, when we become aware of the kinds of forces that we are up
against in our proclamation, especially when it is an active and intelligible
proclamation. We come up against
resistances on so many levels.
There are of course the hard-core atheists who will say that we are
wasting their time and that they have so much proof that there is no God. There are also those parties who are
staunchly anti-religious, who will say almost with vitriolic that the only
thing religion has done is to cause wars and strife. The fact that almost every country is multi-religious makes
us have to tread with great caution when we preach and share that Jesus is the
only way towards eternal salvation.
Some Christian sects do this with far less ‘Politically Correctness’
than others, and will even say that it is because they have Christ behind their
imperative, that they almost have a right to be direct, offensive and even
conceited in their approach and stance.
Personally, I find that in my
role as a possible future teacher of doctrine, this is something that I have to
have at the forefront in my approach towards my teaching. As I look around me in the classroom
situation that I am in currently, I can almost sense the kind of teachers we
will turn out to be. Some are
fiery in their approach towards Catholicism. Perhaps it was the kind of situation that they were brought
up in that caused some priests to carry with them an air of certitude that can
be (mis)interpreted as arrogance and moralistic. Maybe I have been tempered by a decade of parish encounters,
that I can see where high-handedness and unrestrained ‘in-your-face’ preaching
are sure-fire ways to prevent one’s listeners to receive a truth in their
hearts. If there is one thing that
has been somewhat seared into my mind from the exposure to the Dominicans here,
is that if our words and works are not filled with the grace of charity, it
often becomes ineffective and could end up as negative witnessing.
Why am I ruminating on this topic? Principally because it is Good Shepherd
Sunday. It has been the Church’s
traditional day to speak of and promote vocations to the priesthood (and often
with the call to the religious life thrown in for good measure). Our call to the priesthood is, as one
homilist put it, a call and an invitation to be in the privileged moments of
the lives of those who we are called to serve. He cited how, as ministers of the sacraments of the Church,
we have been given the grace to enter into the sacred and often very privileged
moments of our people. We carry
them as infants to the waters of new life at baptism, become conduits to their
reception of God’s forgiving words and action in the sacrament of
reconciliation, help them to be ministers to each other in the sacrament of
holy matrimony, and very significantly, to be greatly privileged to be called
to the bedside of one who is in his or her dying moments to receive Christ for
the last time in Holy Communion before meeting him in person in eternity. These are all moments of grace and
great privilege.
Each shepherd has a duty, as the
gospel of today reminds us, of bringing others into the fold as well. But this is where the analogy has its
limits. No shepherd expects his
sheep to go out to bring in other sheep into the safe pen. But this shepherd does.
There are many who do need to
know, that though they may be grazing on some good pastures elsewhere, there is
a greater, greener and more nourishing pasture that can only be given through
the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. No
priest can do this alone. It takes
a whole community who works and prays together to get this news to those who
need to hear it, and with words and actions soaked and laced with huge amounts
of love and charity. It is thus, a
call to all.
The Good Shepherd calls. Can you hear his voice? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_y-k0uxjQg
Once, in one of our Teaching Seminars, I remember vividly, the visiting Professor from the States gleefully telling us that as public speakers, teachers teaching in the classroom, must heed the 3-Ups – “stand-up to be seen, speak up to be heard and shut-up when you have nothing more to say!” But what is more important for teachers to have, are the 4 Cs – Care for those in your charge rather than the success of your teaching ; Compassion-for, your students are not things or statistics but individuals, so listen to them; Communication – that’s what the teaching-learning process is about and Competence – if you are not competent in the subject matter you are going to impart, you should not be there in the first place! That summarizes (according to him) a good teacher.
ReplyDeleteThis came back to me when I read your blog and asked myself why we call Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Unlike secular world leaders who issue out orders to be obeyed, driving their underlings from behind, this shepherd cares for his sheep for he knows each individually, guiding them safely to good pastures. In fact, he cares too much to the extent of laying down his life for all – saints and sinners alike. Compassion caused him not to condemn - even those who failed him, betrayed him or could not love him as they wished they could or should. This quality of his gentleness and compassion shines through the many episodes where he wept or prayed for..... Jerusalem, Lazarus, those who plotted evil against him. And he communicates......to the crowds but especially to his oft befuddled disciples.......patiently explaining in detail and correcting their mis-conceptions. We also see how frequently he slips away to be by himself - to communicate with his heavenly Father in prayer. As to competence - just run through the New Testament – probably, it was because his competence showed up the lack of it in the scribes and Pharisees that caused them to have a jaundiced view of him and gave them additional cause to ruthlessly seek his death.
So yes, our Lord is definitely the Good Shepherd and he is always calling to us but sometimes we choose not to hear his call because we are afraid ......for discipleship is a journey that involves failure, the way of the cross. However, what this Easter has made me remember is that – discipleship also involves forgiveness, repentance and the message from the empty tomb is that He will go before us if we, but trust and answer his call.
God bless you, Fr.
tessa
Dear Father
ReplyDeleteMy alma mater was (and still is) run by the Good Shepherd sisters, and at assembly and school masses we often sang the hymn 'The Lord is My Shepherd, and I want to follow, wherever he leads me, wherever he goes.... '. The image of Jesus being there with his crook and his staff to lead the way if we ever walked in the valley of darkness was always comforting through the often dark and dangerous paths that I tread.
Like you said, there are challenges and there are dark forces. While Jesus is the Good shepherd, I feel that we all are often called to be shepherds, especially when children come along. I know I try but I also know many hindsights later that the choices I make may not be the right ones even though they appear to have been the best ones I could have made in the circumstances. I guess that it is not only the Good Shepherd who calls, and often, I hear more than one voice.
Sf.