THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH Her Doctrine and Morals Second Sunday after Easter 8 May 2011

The Sunday Sermon

Dear Friends,

There are three kinds of people portrayed by Our Lord in today’s Gospel: The wolf, the hireling, and then there is Jesus -- the Good Shepherd.

All of mankind belongs to God. He is our creator and therefore claims the right to do with us as He wills. In His infinite wisdom He has chosen to give us a free will so that we may freely and lovingly turn to Him. These are the ones that know Him and hear Him and follow Him. They know Him and He knows them.

God continues to call out to all of His creation, but especially to mankind. Truly blessed are they who hear and answer His call, but cursed are those who leave this world having never heeded that call; or having heard then reject it.

The first of these is the wolf. He represents to us the fallen angels and their human assistants who are constantly seeking to destroy the flock of Christ. We are soon aware of the attacks of these fallen angels and their temptations to sin and fleeing from the protective grace found within the sheepfold of the Catholic Church. If we are paying attention we also see how these fallen angels make use of our fellow men to become their willing instruments. We have many branches of pseudo-science professing from the fullness of their blindness that there is no God and everything happens by chance. We have pseudo-religions telling us that we are our own gods and we make our own destiny and path. We have people from all manner of pseudo-Christian religions striving in every way to take the sheep from the sheepfold of Christ.

Against these wolves God has given us many defenses. These defenses may be either hirelings or shepherds. God’s grace is a good shepherd to our souls; the conscience that God has given us is likewise a good shepherd. The free will that we have been given can be either a hireling or a shepherd. We become our own worst enemy when we choose to listen to evil – we allow the wolf to enter and destroy and carry away that which belongs to God. In this case our free will that was given us to watch over us and protect us flees and fails to hold his post and do his duty and proves himself to be nothing but a hireling. Our free will is a good shepherd when he stays at his post and keeps the heart, mind, and body fed with thoughts and desires for God and His will. He is a good shepherd when he chooses the path of truth and goodness regardless of the consequences.

Within the Catholic Church -- the Mystical Body of Christ -- we find likewise, both shepherds and hirelings in the pastors that God has appointed to watch over the sheep. Many, perhaps even the majority, are hirelings because they will not defend the sheep against so many attacks of immorality. The wolves have entered in and suggested that it is okay to disregard God’s laws and to condone things such as divorce, adultery, “birth control” (which is actually murder of the conceived and/or onanism). The hireling allows these evils to enter the sheepfold and remains silent or makes excuses one right after the other so that this wolf can destroy more and more. His love is not for the sheep. He allows the sheep to do or follow whatever they like and will not rebuke or correct because he does not want to “offend” them. The hireling has confused the wolves and sheep and in his attempts to save them all and keep them all together, he has allowed the wolves to kill and devour the sheep one after another. Then when there are only wolves left he works hard into deceiving himself that these wolves are really sheep. But, the wolves now turn on each other and the hireling because they will not be shepherded, but desire to continue on their path of spiritual murder.

We see this in all the pseudo-Christian religions where evils are allowed to enter and grow. Their membership grows and increases not by the grace of God but by the welcoming of more wolves. They are no longer a sheepfold but rather a pack of wolves. Their clever disguise as Christian is only a ruse which they use to deceive others and very often it seems to deceive themselves.

The shepherd who truly loves the sheep stands up and examines his sheep casting out any that are incorrigible or contagiously evil and causing harm to the rest of the flock. They are not true sheep but are wolves and cannot be allowed to remain. The shepherd does this not because he hates those he must excommunicate, but because he loves them and seeks that they realize what a dangerous position they are in and may repent and cease to be wolves and enter once again as true sheep. Even if the flock is reduced to just a few, the shepherd knows that it is better to have a small sheepfold of good sheep rather than a large one filled with goats or wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Jesus is this good Shepherd and His true ministers imitate Him rather than the hirelings.