The iconic end of the movie Planet of the Apes, which I won’t completely give away shows that the astronauts, who landed on that planet, had actually been there in the past. The planet changed drastically from their previous time there.Similarly, A few people have mentioned that they are not sure they would recognize our country if they visited it now from a previous decade, maybe even the decade when the first Planet of the Apes appeared in theaters.

Clearly our world changed from the time telephones had rotary dials and television ads suggested putting seat belts in your car. However, I am talking about something else?

If you look carefully, one of the drastic changes happening is a rejection of belief in God. Now it is chic to say there is no God and to live your life as you see fit. I would suggest that idea if there indeed was no God and the truth about us, that we did not have an inclination to sin were both true. However, God is real and yes, we as members of this race suffer an inclination to sin. This leads to a great divide in our country between those who live by the assumed truth of who we are as humans and those of us who live by the truth.

A political operative who is also a professor at a local university wrote a paper, several years ago,  basically calling for the government to get out of the marriage business. He cited the words of Friedrich Nietzsche who said that we should eliminate marriage altogether. The professor did not note that Nietzsche also said that “God is dead,” and called us to change our whole morality based on that assumption. In a neaky way, the paper demonstrated the professor’s desire to carry out Nietzsche’s disastrous proposals .

So, we live in a time where we make assumptions based on the beliefs that God is dead, we are now gods who can dictate right and wrong ourselves. The fruit of it is obvious and it is not stopping here.

This brings us to today’s celebration. This is Good Shepherd Sunday. Our readings reflect the truth of what it means to be a believing Catholic. We are in union with Christ and we follow His wisdom for our lives. This is so drastically different from what is happening in the world that we find ourselves living in a time of great divide. The non-believers are not more numerous, but are more vocal. So we hear stories of people being fired from their jobs or even arrested for speaking out against a change of morality in their school systems, in  their work and in their lives.

This means we need to realize that our world changed, and is changing. The divide is growing between believer and non-believer. There is a warning in this, we have been here before. What makes it worse is there are those who over the past two decades warned that not only we would be where we are, but will end up in even worse places. The reason is because many reject the teaching of the Good Shepherd for their own source of wisdom and that wisdom will lead them into and this world into disaster.

Many years ago, noting that students at Harvard were learning the techniques from Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals which praises the devil in its dedication, I warned that evil would grow at that campus because some professors embraced the demonic; some exorcists also warned the same thing. You know that tomorrow night there is a public black mass on that campus. The organizers assure us that a real consecrated communion wafer will not be used in the ceremony, but a non-consecrated one, but think that one through. They are going to worship the prince of lies and we are supposed to believe them? 

We live in a time now where we must re affirm everyday our choice to listen to the Good Shepherd. Read the gospel carefully and you will find something powerful. The sheep hear the voice of the shepherd, not the voice of the thieves and marauders. We stand here and we know what is true and what is false, we know what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong. How do we know? We listen to the voice of the shepherd. Many of our political and cultural leaders in our nation lost that ability or never learned it in the first place. They are blind to the truth. So now is the great divide.

I’ve come to realize that we have entered a time in our nation where we may have to pay a cost for  living our faith. I am not talking monetarily, but in putting our faith and our life on the line. If we listen to the Good Shepherd, we may have to follow him at a personal risk.

Let me give you an example, recently, a man was arrested for speaking out against a book used  in his daughter’s classroom that graphically described a teen rape. Graphically! The school board had him arrested for speaking over the two minutes against his daughter reading this book. No one spoke up in his defense. If you were there, would you have had the courage to stand up and say, “If you are going to arrest him, you are going to arrest me too?” We may actually have to come to this point in our lives. However, think what would have happened in people did that?

The United Nations has had a mission in place for sometime to silence the voice of the Catholic Church. In a recent meeting at the UN the Holy See, which is the name for that Vatican was brought it to task in the name of preventing torture for its stand of contraceptions and abortion. 

We have come to a time where our greatest challenge may be living our Catholic faith in this world because our world is rejecting Christ and embracing the ways of Nietzsche. If we abandon our faith, then the light of the nations goes out. However, that means that we may live our faith in a time where doing so is going to cost us more than what we put in a collection basket. It will cost us in putting our very lives on the line for what we believe. However, if we do not do this, then our the cost to our culture and the people who live it will be more greater than it can sustain.

Jesus is our Good Shepherd leading us to the kingdom. He reminds us that those who hear His voice find life and life to the full. Elsewhere He teaches that we are the light to the world. It is going to cost us more to follow His words but if we persevere, we will be in service to God himself for His and our glory in the world to come.

Fr. Carr is an alliance member of the New Song Community (Canção Nova). He is the pastor of Holy Trinity Quincy, MA and is the editor of this blog. He is the author of several books, blogs and hundreds of videos all of which you may find at his website.  He also has a regular radio program on WebRadio Canção Nova. Which he podcasts on Mixcloud and here on Catholicismanew.
You can follow him on twitter as @frbobcarr. Thoughts, comments on the homily? Let us know at Facebook