SHEEP OF HIS PASTURE

A SERMON FOR THE 2ND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

What are we doing here today?  Why did we come to Mass?  Wasn’t there something else we’d rather be doing?  Sleeping in, perhaps, taking part in sports activities, going out to breakfast, visiting family?  Look around. Are we all here?  I regret to say there are absentees this morning.  Some among them, no doubt, have a very good and valid reason for not being able to come.  But sadly, there are probably some who have deliberately chosen to stay away from Mass today.  And while we’re not going to admonish anyone by name this morning I will say this, that we do have a judge, one who has told us in no uncertain terms that those who do not obey his commandments will be not only admonished, but condemned.  They condemn themselves, I’m afraid, so they don’t need me to rub it in.  Unless these folks come to me and ask for my opinion, I’m going to leave it to Our Blessed Lord to separate the sheep from the goats.

Sheep and goats.  Two species of animal by which our Lord represents two kinds of people:  those who go to heaven and those who go to hell.  There’s no third option.  Our Lord doesn’t mention any other animals for this great division.  There are only sheep who obey God’s commandments and go to heaven, and goats who don’t obey and go to hell.  There aren’t any jolly panda bears who are very nice, likable, cuddly folks who go through life sinning happily and then go to heaven when they die.  There are no super-smart golden retrievers who come up with all kinds of clever reasons for refusing to accept the Church that Christ founded, but then expect to go to heaven anyway.  There’s none of that.  Just sheep and goats.  Certainly, no sloths who, even as we sit here now, are blissfully asleep in their beds instead of being here at Mass.

When we die, that’s when Christ himself will divide us into these two folds, one containing his sheep and the other the goats.  He is the Good Shepherd.  He knows his sheep.  He knows them very well, and will easily recognize them on the Day of Judgment.  He will know them by their fruits.  Their good works.  Their willingness to follow his commandments.

He will know them, and they will know him.  How will they know him?  Because they have taken the time and the effort to get to know him.  Through prayer, meditation, spiritual reading. Through penance, diligent attendance at Sunday Mass, through their attentive involvement in the Church’s mysteries and feastdays.   The more they immerse themselves in the things of God, the better they will know him.   And the better they know him, the more they will love him.  Their love for him will show itself in their willingness to obey his commandments.  Because they love they will serve.  So you see, it’s just one big cycle—if we get to know God we will love God, and if we love God we will surely serve him.  And because we are his servants, God will recognize us as his own. 

We start out on this path to salvation with Baptism, the sacrament by which we are made members of Christ’s Church, the pasture of our Good Shepherd. In the Breviary we read every morning at the very start of the day’s office, “He is the Lord our God; and we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”  Step one, then, is to make sure we’re in the right pasture, the Church Christ founded.  Unfortunately, there are many who refuse to take this first step.  Christ founded the Church to teach us in the Spirit of Truth. Those who refuse to accept his Church are in effect refusing to accept the truths he revealed.   They can’t know God properly, because they are missing some or all of the truths taught by the Church, and only by the Church he established for that very purpose.  

And if they refuse to know God properly, how can they possibly claim to love him?  How can they love someone they don’t know?  Sure, they probably have some emotive-type “feelings” of love for God, and certainly many good Protestant and Jewish and Muslim people do love God in this superficial and insufficient way that has no basis in truth and reality.  They love a God of their own invention, not the same God who revealed himself through not only Scripture but also the continual and infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost.  Theirs, alas, is not the same God we love, but one that fits their own erroneous view of who he is and what he teaches.  This cannot be true love.  And because they love him not, they turn their faces to him and say, like Lucifer once declared before them, “I will not serve.” “I will not accept your true teachings, O God, I will not submit to the Church you gave us, I will refuse the sacraments you provided for our salvation.”  That’s what non-Catholic people are really saying.  And even Catholics—oh dear!  Catholics who claim to be true sons and daughters of the Church, what are they saying about their love of God when they lie asleep in their beds, or idling their time on some trivial hobby this Sunday morning?

It’s an appropriate time to remind you that we have a “little thing” called Easter Duty coming up.  If you haven’t received Holy Communion since Easter, you have until Trinity Sunday to do so. This year, Trinity falls on June 16, which gives you about six weeks.  You must receive Holy Communion during Paschal Time, or you are, in effect, openly refusing to submit to the Church’s law, you’re defiantly claiming your place outside the safety of Christ’s pasture, out there with the goats who know Christ not.  Keep it in mind.  And parents, use a bit of tough love if necessary!  Yesterday was the feast of St. Monica; follow her example and do whatever you can, whatever you have to, for the salvation of your children’s souls, no matter how old they are.  Their place is here on Sunday morning!

You see, we have to belong to the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church if we want to save our souls.  In fact, it’s one of the infallible dogmas of the Church that “Outside the Church there is no salvation.”  To refuse to belong to Christ’s Church is a direct refusal to obey Christ himself. Our Lord didn’t establish a church for no reason.  It was to provide us with an institution we could belong to, where we would be taught the truths of the faith carefully passed down through the ages by good shepherds like himself.  It was so we could receive valid sacraments, instruments of grace, by which we could save our souls.   It was so we could be protected from the wolves outside the Church, who seek to lead us astray with their errors and their lies. The Church is truly a safe place to be, and we can expect from her, if we belong to her, that she will give us every means we need by which to save our souls.  But that “belonging” to the Church is a serious condition, upon which our salvation does depend.

It used to be so easy, didn’t it.  We knew which churches were Catholic and which weren’t.  Christ’s pasture was clearly marked by a sign outside and a multitude of uniquely Catholic symbols inside – the altar facing east, the tabernacle on the altar and the sanctuary lamp indicating the Real Presence; statues, stations of the cross.  Today, it’s not so easy.  How do we know whether we’re “inside” the true Church and not “outside?”  These days we’re forced to go back to the basics in order to recognize the Church.  Remember the catechism, and how we know where to find the true Church of God—it’s through the four marks of the Church.  One, holy, catholic and apostolic.  If our doctrine is “one” with the teachings of Holy Scripture and Tradition, the same as it has always been taught; if we are taught to follow a “holy” moral code that has likewise not changed; if we worship God everywhere, universally, with the same fundamental Sacrifice of the Mass; and if we have valid sacraments passed down in an unbroken chain from the apostles, then the four marks of the Church are present. 

Vatican II changed all these four things.  A pack of wolves hopped over the Vatican walls and infiltrated the institution of the Church.  We’re faced with so-called Catholic churches that no longer teach the true faith completely, that no longer offer Christ’s Holy Sacrifice, that no longer provide us with certainly valid sacraments.  “Beware of these false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”  They don’t pass the test—where is their true teaching, their accurate presentation of morality, their certainly valid sacraments?  They have changed everything so that it is no longer recognizable as having the four marks of the true Church.  And when you see the abomination of desolation in the holy place, saith our Lord, “flee ye to the hills.”  Flee ye to Urbana, to Lebanon, to places where you will be safe. Survive!

The day we’re judged, Christ will recognize us as his own only if we are active members of the Church he established here on earth.  Not of the church wechoose, but because we are convinced—and I mean convinced—that it is the Church Christ founded, and that it provides us with the only sure path to salvation.  Find the right Church, the true Church, and then cling to it like a drowning man to a life raft.  Your chapel may not be a grand cruise liner like the Queen Mary, but neither is it the Titanic.  So cling to it every Sunday, and remember, it’s the only thing keeping you afloat.