{"id":14958,"date":"2014-05-26T01:01:22","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T06:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/?p=14958"},"modified":"2014-05-24T20:46:30","modified_gmt":"2014-05-25T01:46:30","slug":"cardinal-sean-omalley-homily-good-shepherd-ordination-to-the-priesthood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/2014\/05\/26\/cardinal-sean-omalley-homily-good-shepherd-ordination-to-the-priesthood\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinal Se\u00e1n O'Malley: Homily \u2013Good Shepherd \u2013 Ordination to the Priesthood"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 23, 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cardinal<\/a>

Cardinal Se\u00e1n O’Malley giving the homily to the soon to be new priests of the Archdiocese of Boston. Photo George Martell\/Pilot Media Group. Creative Commons License some rights reserved.<\/p><\/div>\n

Today\u2019s criticism of Jesus in the Gospel, \u201cThis man welcomes sinners and eats with them,\u201d is what occasions today\u2019s teaching about the shepherd and the lost sheep.\u00a0 Just as when the Pharisees criticized Jesus with the very same complaint about the party at Levi, and Zacchaeus\u2019 place.<\/p>\n

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Jesus is the friend of sinners and is always reaching out to those who are on the margins and He brings them center stage; the tax collector and prostitutes, the beggars, the blind, the lame and the halt.<\/p>\n

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Today\u2019s Gospel describes the Good Shepherd who is willing to leave the company of the 99 and seek out the one lost sheep.\u00a0 We might be tempted to say, let the one lost sheep be an insurance claim or a tax write off.<\/p>\n

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The shepherd seeks his lost sheep with determination until he finds it.\u00a0 And when he finds it He carries it on his shoulders with great joy.\u00a0 The bishop\u2019s vestments speak to us of our pastoral responsibilities.\u00a0 The crosier, the crook, is to ward off the wolves and coyotes and to rescue the lambs that stray into harmful paths.<\/p>\n

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The pallium is made from the wool of lambs blessed on the feast of St. Agnes and woven by the Benedictine nuns and kept on top of the tomb of St. Peter in St. Peter\u2019s Basilica.\u00a0 It is supposed to represent the figure of the Good Shepherd carrying the lamb on his shoulders.\u00a0 The black on the ends is supposed to symbolize the hoofs of the sheep.\u00a0 Each Archbishop receives the pallium from the Pope.\u00a0 This pallium I received from the hand of Pope Saint John Paul II.<\/p>\n

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Let it be a reminder to all of us that the Good Shepherd carries the lost sheep home rejoicing.\u00a0 The image of the Good Shepherd is the most common of the symbolic representations of Christ found in the early Christian art in the Catacombs of Rome, before Christian imagery could be more explicit.\u00a0 A cross was never displayed.\u00a0 It was too dangerous.<\/p>\n

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The form of the image showing a young man carrying a lamb around his neck was directly borrowed from the older pagan statues called kriophoros which means: \u201cThe lamb beaver\u201d and referred to the pagan god Hermes.<\/p>\n

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The Christians used it as a clandestine symbol since Jesus uses the metaphor of the Good Shepherd as one of the principal ways to communicate who He is, His love and care for us and His willingness to lay down His life for each of us.<\/p>\n

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Pope Francis\u2019 Chrism Mass homily last year made quite a splash by his statement that the shepherd should have the smell of the sheep.\u00a0 I proposed a sniff test for last year\u2019s ordination class.<\/p>\n

In this year\u2019s masterful Chrism homily, the Holy Father reminds us priests that in our priestly ordination, Christ has anointed us with the oil of gladness.\u00a0 We must appreciate the great gift: the gladness, the joy of being a priest.\u00a0 Priestly joy, the Holy Father says \u201cis a priceless treasure not only for the priest himself but for the entire faithful people of God.<\/p>\n

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Pope Francis says that the priest is anointed with the oil of gladness so as to anoint others with the oil of gladness.\u00a0 The Holy Father says priestly joy has three significant features.\u00a0 He has a great line, the Pope says \u201cIt is a joy which anoints us (not one that \u201cgreases\u201d us, making us unctuous, sumptuous and presumptuous); it is a joy which is imperishable and it is a missionary joy which spreads and attracts, starting backwards \u2013 with those farthest away from us.<\/p>\n

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I would like to reflect for a moment on this missionary joy of the Good Shepherd.\u00a0 The Good Shepherd has a special love and concern for the one who is farthest away, most ungrateful, perhaps even hostile to the rest of the flock.\u00a0 The Good Shepherd does not say that recalcitrant rebel deserves to be eaten by the wolf or end up as road kill on the highway of life, but rather risks all to pursue the lost sheep and does not stop until he finds it.\u00a0 And when he finds that lost sheep, he does not beat it with a stick or yell at it.\u00a0 The Good Shepherd lifts the sheep and places him lovingly on his shoulders and carries him home.\u00a0 And then the Good Shepherd assembles his friends and neighbors as the Gospel tells us and invites them, \u201cRejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Today, the Good Shepherd is saying to our ordinands, \u201cRejoice with me\u201d.\u00a0 Have this same missionary joy, always anxious to seek out and find the lost sheep.\u00a0 Let that be your passion and the source of your joy.\u00a0 It even causes joy in Heaven.<\/p>\n

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Last Thursday we gathered at the Pastoral Center for a ceremony to launch the process of Beatification for the Servant of God, Fr. Joseph Muzquiz, who worked for many years in the Archdiocese of Boston.\u00a0 Fr. Joseph used to say that when a salesman makes a sale, he gets a commission.\u00a0 If he makes no sale, he gets nothing.\u00a0 On the other hand when we present the Gospel, reach out to a sinner, try to convince the lost sheep, we get the commission just for trying.<\/p>\n

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The keen realization that we are moving from a cultural Catholicism to an intentional Catholicism, underscores the need to be an energetic evangelizer, never passing up an opportunity to invite, to encourage, to evangelize.<\/p>\n

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The second reading from tomorrow\u2019s Mass is taken from the first letter of Peter; our first Papal Encyclical declares: \u201cAlways be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The priest today cannot be absconded in the rectory waiting for the lost sheep to come and ring the door bell; he must go out.\u00a0 Pope Francis says that when a priest tries to find his priestly identity by soul searching and introspection, may well encounter \u201cexit\u201d signs that say: exit from yourself, exit to seek God in adoration, go out and give your people what is entrusted to you, for your people will make you feel and taste who you are, what your name is, what your identity is, and they will make you rejoice in that hundredfold which the Lord has promised to those who serve Him.<\/p>\n

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Whoever is in Christ, is a new creation as St. Paul tells us.\u00a0 Your ordination makes you a new creation and an instrument of reconciliation in a world fraught by division.<\/p>\n

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You are Christ\u2019s ambassadors, His messengers, His reconcilers.\u00a0 One of the greatest joys of a priest is to bring those words of comfort \u2013 Go in peace, your sins are forgiven.\u00a0 That means more than giving someone a million dollars, the assurance of God\u2019s love and mercy.<\/p>\n

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To be a good confessor, you must be a good penitent.\u00a0 Use the sacrament of God\u2019s mercy to deepen your own conversion.\u00a0 What a great photo of Pope Francis going to confession in St. Peter\u2019s.<\/p>\n

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The confessional is the emergency room of the field hospital that is the Church.\u00a0 Learn to be a man of compassion and mercy so as to help your people experience God\u2019s healing mercy.<\/p>\n

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Jesus makes use of the shepherd image to describe God\u2019s unfailing concern for those who have gone astray.\u00a0 Jesus calls Himself the Good Shepherd who is willing to lay down His life for the sheep.\u00a0 Jesus even quotes from the prophet Zechariah: \u201cThey shall strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.\u201d\u00a0 But Jesus, the Risen Lord, returns as the Good Shepherd to gather those scattered disciples and frightened followers to Himself.<\/p>\n

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One important feature of the shepherding image in Scriptures is courage.\u00a0 The courage of Jesus is both strong and gentle.\u00a0 Above all, it is courage for others, not a courage for his own defense or aggrandizement.<\/p>\n

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There is courage in the words of Jesus.\u00a0 Throughout the Gospel, Jesus us put to the test and challenged by His opponents.\u00a0 Should we render tribute to Caesar?\u00a0 Should we stone this adulterous woman?\u00a0 Why do you heal on the Sabbath?\u00a0 Why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners?\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 answers are both calm and fearless.\u00a0 They spring from an inner strength that comes from His oneness with the Father.\u00a0 There is courage in the actions of Jesus.\u00a0 He touches lepers and speaks to the possessed.\u00a0 He rides into Jerusalem knowing that His enemies are watching every move.\u00a0 He boldly drives the moneychangers from the temple.<\/p>\n

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There is courage in the sufferings of Jesus.\u00a0 He willingly shares the lot of the poor, the homeless, the exiled.\u00a0 He rejects the comforts of family and possessions.\u00a0 He accepts the friendship of those who misunderstand Him, and even betray and deny Him.\u00a0 He overcomes temptations and in His agony in Gethsemane, finds a way to bend His fear and sorrow to the Father\u2019s Will.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He endures taunts, flogging and crucifixion because He knows that it is the way love requires.<\/p>\n

Such is the courage of the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the Flock.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Too often we lack the courage that shepherding requires.\u00a0 We lean desperately on the goodwill and praise of others or on the reassurance of possessions and of social standing, because we lack trust in our own worth without these external validations.\u00a0 When we lack an inner wholeness, we do not have the grace to speak to others with both tenderness and strength.\u00a0 It matters too much that the other is pleased and too little whether we speak the truth.\u00a0 We cannot be shepherds so long as comfort is our main concern and so long as the roads through the wilderness are too lonely and too dangerous for us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We will find that courage to lead God\u2019s people, only through our prayer life and the support of priestly fraternity.\u00a0 Without Him, we can do nothing.\u00a0 Without each other, we can do little.<\/p>\n

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The Good Shepherd was born in Bethlehem, which means the House of Bread, and was laid in a manger, a feed box.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today, the tabernacle is the manger and we are the shepherds called to feed Christ\u2019s flock.\u00a0 We must be men of the Eucharist.\u00a0 The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity; we who eat of the one loaf become one body.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We must work tirelessly to achieve unity and fellowship in Christ\u2019s Church.<\/p>\n

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The Good Shepherd washes the feet of the disciples and entrusts to us the mission of feeding new generations of disciples.\u00a0 Jesus asks us as He did Peter, Do you love me\u2026then feed my sheep.There is so much spiritual hunger in our world, waiting to be fed by faithful shepherds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

May Mary, Mother of the Divine Shepherd, make you priests according to her Son\u2019s own heart.\u00a0 May your ministry abound with the missionary joy, born of giving your life for God\u2019s people and seeking out those who have stormed off, dozed off, or just drifted away.\u00a0 Put them lovingly on your shoulders and rejoice with the Good Shepherd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 23, 2014   Today\u2019s criticism of Jesus in the Gospel, \u201cThis man welcomes sinners and eats with them,\u201d is what occasions today\u2019s teaching about the shepherd and the lost sheep.\u00a0 Just as when the Pharisees criticized Jesus with the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12771,9791],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14958"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14958"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14961,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14958\/revisions\/14961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cancaonova.com\/catholicismanew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}