Monthly Archives: April 2010

Hearing the Shepherd’s Voice

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Click here for today’s Scripture readings.

Acts 11:19-26
John 10:22-30

A few years ago, on a visit to England I stayed at Ministeracres, the Passionist Retreat Center in Durham. Just opposite the front door was a large pasture that the community had rented out to two farmers to graze sheep. Half of the sheep had a blue mark on their backs and the other half, a red mark. There were also several lambs. Never having had a chance to observe sheep up close, I was fascinated and I spent a lot of time watching them and trying to get one of the lambs to allow me to touch her.

Every day, first one of the farmers and later the other would enter the pasture on a tractor with feed for the sheep. The sheep would hear the tractor long before it appeared and all the sheep with either the red or the blue mark would run to the tractor. The other sheep would ignore it. Later when the other farmer arrived on his tractor the other half of the population would respond. The tractors looked identical to me, but it was clear that the sheep recognized “their tractor” – “their shepherd” and would have nothing to do with anyone else, including me. I never got to touch a lamb. None of them would get close enough to me and would run away when I approached the fence.

Sheep are interesting creatures. They give themselves over with complete trust to their shepherd, recognize his voice, (even if it’s a tractor’s engine), and follow the shepherd wherever it goes. They seem not even to hear and will not follow or even come close to anyone else.

In today’s Gospel Jesus says to his detractors, “ . . . you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.

People are a lot like sheep. We hear and follow the voice of whatever or whomever we belong to. If I can’t hear the voice of Jesus, if he seems far away, then I have to ask myself, “Who moved? Have I given myself over to another shepherd?  Do I belong to something or someone else other than Christ?”

History is full of examples of what happens when people follow false shepherds. Think of Hitler and the Nazis. Everyday, on the news you can hear stories about people who got in with the wrong gang, or got lost in drugs or greed or a quest for power.

In one crucial way we are different from sheep. Unlike them, we must decide each day to follow Christ, to turn our lives over to him.

Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand.”

Let us give ourselves over with complete trust to this gentle shepherd who will guide, protect and lead us home.

Sister Mary Ann Strain, CP lives in Union City, NJ and helps represent the Passionists at the United Nations.

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Church Leaders

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Acts 11:1-18
John 10:1-10

We need to keep Peter and the rest of the apostles in mind when we think about church leaders, especially today.

Look at Peter in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles. He’s in Joppa, at the house of Simon the Tanner. Joppa, remember, was the seaport where Jonah began his perilous journey into the gentile world. After Pentecost the apostlle strongly proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus; he performed miracles and bravely withstood persecution by  the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem. The church was doing very nicely.

Peter saw the gospel welcomed even in Samaria and Galilee. Visiting the coastal areas near Joppa, he heals Aeneas, a paralyzed man in bed for eight years and raises Tabitha from the dead. (Acts 9,31-43) Doesn’t that remind us of Jesus?

Then, the apostle tired and hungry goes to sleep on the roof of Simon the Tanner’s house overlooking the vast sea, and he has a disturbing vision. Instead of the kosher food he’s eaten all his life a gentile banquet is poured out before him, and reacting as a typical loyal Jew Peter protests that he wont eat it. Three times the vision invites him to eat then vanishes before the puzzled apostle.

Messengers appear at the door from Cornelius, a gentile soldier stationed in Caesaria Maritima, the main Roman headquarters some miles up the coast, asking Peter to come and speak about “the things that had happened.” Here’s the gentile banquet that Peter is invited to attend.

“I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but every nation is acceptable to him,” Peter says as he instructs Cornelius and all his household and then baptizes them.

I wonder, though, if Peter truly understood all the consequences of his visit to Cornelius.
Did the simple fisherman, who spoke Aramaic with a Galilean accent, who felt the pull of home and family and the nets of his fishing boat, ever become comfortable in a gentile world? Later, the apostle would travel to Antioch in Syria and then to Rome, where he was killed in the Neronian persecution in the 60’s. Did he move as confidently in the gentile world as he did in his own? Would he ever understand the gentile banquet?

The portraits of Peter in Rome usually portray him firmly in charge of the church with the keys of authority held tightly in hands. He’s clearly the one whom Jesus called the rock.

I prefer another portrait of him, however, that I saw years ago in the Cloisters Museum in New York. He’s softer, reflective, more experienced, not completely sure of himself. There’s a consciousness of failure in his face. He seems to be listening for the voice of the Shepherd. hoping to hear it.

Fr. Victor Hoagland, CP is the Director of Passionist Press and member of the Passionist Community in Union City, NJ.

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The Good Shepherd

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Good Shepherd fresco from the Catacombs of San...
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Click here for today’s Scripture Reading

Acts 13:14, 43-52
Rev 7:9, 14b-17
Jn 10:27-30

“The Good Shepherd.” This is one of the names Jesus often used to describe himself and his mission. The Old Testament before him used this same image to describe God. As Psalm 21 says: “The Lord is my Shepherd.”

During the Easter season the church likes to portray Jesus in symbolic ways: “I am the vine,” “I am the Bread of Life,” and the description of him in our gospel: “I am the Good Shepherd.” That’s because we know the Risen Christ now, not by seeing him, but in signs and symbols.

The Good Shepherd is a many-faceted image. On one hand, Jesus says he is the shepherd who goes in search of his lost sheep, and when he finds it he cradles it tenderly in his arms and brings it back to the flock. We will always find comfort and safety in Jesus, however far we stray.

But the shepherd also leads his sheep and guides them through “a dark valley” into experiences and ways they cannot know. And so, during the Easter season the church reads the story of the development of the early church. Jesus is her shepherd who leads his church into paths unknown, until finally she comes into “green pastures.”

Will he not also comfort and lead each of us on our journey? Like sheep we feed intently on the small plot of life our eyes fall on. But the Good Shepherd is never far from us. No, we do not see him; but he is always near. We can trust him, “the guardian of our souls.”

Fr. Victor Hoagland, CP is the Director of Passionist Press and member of the Passionist Community in Union City, NJ.

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