Last Sunday in the first lesson we read that the Prophet Amos earned the contempt of the court officials in the Northern Kingdom of Israel who protected their corrupt monarchy. Amaziah, an idolatrous priest of the royal temple at Bethel, commanded Amos to depart Samaria because of his criticism of the king’s immorality, and Amos explained himself, saying: “I was no prophet, nor have I belonged to a company of prophets; I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. The Lord took me from following the flock, and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’”
And today we hear the Prophet Jeremiah denounce the corrupt shepherds who lead astray the Lord’s flock. “Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord … You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds … I myself will gather the remnant of my flock … I will appoint shepherds for them … and none shall be missing … Behold, the days are coming when I raise up a righteous shoot to David; as king he shall reign and govern wisely, he shall do what is just and right in the land.”
Corruption, infidelity, and incoherence are common and constant problems for the People of God, both in Israel and in the Church. And the Lord’s answer is always to provide shepherds after his own heart to lead his people through conversion back to fidelity to his covenants. Today is the second of seven Sundays on which the New Testament lesson is taken from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, and last week we read that even before the creation of the universe, God the Father had in mind an eternal plan of salvation for the human race.
At the heart of that plan is the taking of flesh by God the Son so that he can be the shepherd-king who rules forever from the throne of his father David, and in the Gospel today we read that the heart of Jesus was moved with pity for the people who were like sheep without a shepherd and so he taught them many things.
But in that same eternal plan, Christ also took our human nature to divinize us, that is to share his divine nature with us through the grace of adoption, and the word used by Saint Paul last week in Ephesians which was translated as plan is in Greek oikonomia. But we can also render this word as economy, a term which originally meant household management, hence home economics.
So, from all eternity God the Father has had a plan of home economics for the salvation of the human race, and at the heart of that economy is the Word made flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul then explained that the making known of God’s plan of salvation is called a mysterion, a Greek term that came into Latin through two words: mysterium and sacramentum. So, the making known of God’s eternal economy of salvation can be called both mystery and sacrament, meaning a visible sign of an invisible reality and the making known of a once hidden thing.
Now we can understand that the eternal plan of salvation is a sacramental economy, and the primordial mystery or sacrament by which God the Father made known his plan of salvation in the New Covenant is the Lord Jesus himself. Then because the Church is Christ’s mystical Body, the Church is also rightly called a sacrament of salvation. And finally, the seven sacred rituals given by Christ to his Church as the ordinary means of grace are also called mysteries or sacraments because they make visible to us the eternal economy of salvation.
And this is why the seven sacred rituals entrusted to the Church cannot have their intended effects in our lives if we do not first know, love, and serve the Lord Jesus Christ as faithful disciples in his Church. Expecting the sacraments to accomplish their purpose in us if we are not living as friends of Christ in his Church is superstition, not faith, and although the sacraments are powerful instruments of grace, they are not magic.
Those who approach the sacraments without having first surrendered their lives in the obedience of faith to Jesus Christ are not worshiping the living God in spirit and truth; they are, rather, worshiping themselves and expecting that God will bless their own thoughts and desires whatever they may be. And, friends, that is not true religion; that is idolatry of the sort known to and condemned by Amos, Jeremiah, and all the prophets.
Accordingly, for the pastors of the Church to be true shepherds of God’s people, we must teach those who seek the sacraments that they must also be authentic friends of Christ who are living, or who at least want to live, the life of grace. And that is why no priest should receive the marriage vows of those who do not follow the Lord in the Way of the Cross or baptize a baby whose parents are not already living the Christian faith. And that is also why those who are not living in full, visible communion with the Church should not receive Holy Communion lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.
Yes, the sacraments are powerful instruments of grace, but they are not magic. Repentance and faith in the Gospel must come before the celebration of the sacred mysteries can truly unite us to the economy of salvation decreed by God the Father for the management of his household, the Church. To approach the sacraments without the proper dispositions of faith, hope, and charity for which we prayed in the Collect of this Mass is to endanger oneself by presumption rather than to be changed by God’s grace and the reception of heavenly mysteries.
Of course, the Church makes every effort to welcome those who come looking for the sacraments even if they do not yet fully understand the Gospel, and starting with their interest in Baptism or Marriage, we invite them to follow the Lord Jesus in the Way of the Cross. But more than that, we know that the sacraments are not a reward for good behavior; they are the very means of grace that change us and give us the strength to follow Christ. So the sacraments are given readily to anyone in communion with the Church who seeks to follow Christ, however imperfectly and confusedly.
But in most parts of the world, the casual cultural Catholic can usually find a parish where few if any questions will be asked and the cost of discipleship will not be explained as essential to the life of grace, and so it remains regrettably common that many baptized Catholics have never truly heard the Gospel or been changed by an encounter with Jesus Christ and a decision to surrender their whole lives to his liberating dominion through faith, hope, and love.
But even more troubling, some priests in the world today, and sadly not a few bishops, are prepared to change the doctrine and discipline of the sacraments to conform to the wisdom of the world rather than teach that our lives must be changed by the power and the wisdom of God in Christ Jesus. Such men seem convinced that human experience rather than divine revelation must be the norming norm of the Church’s life, and they lead others astray by suggesting that the sacred deposit of faith given once for all to the saints can be changed to suit our desires, including our sinful selfishness.
The Prophet Jeremiah provides a stark warning to such false shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock, and any pastor who does not teach the whole counsel of God falls under that condemnation. “The whole counsel of God” is a phrase used by Saint Paul in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 20:27) to explain to the priests of the Church in Ephesus that while he was among them he proclaimed everything revealed by God to bring about the obedience of faith among those who received the Word of God as the supernatural gift of divine revelation. And the whole counsel of God is what every bishop and priest must be committed to teaching in just that way lest the people be left, as Christ found them in the Gospel today, like sheep without a shepherd.
You know already that in our time the Catholic Church around the world is a mess and that the Church’s pastors have too often been part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Doctrinal confusion, liturgical incoherence, and moral corruption seem to be found everywhere, including in Rome, and those entrusted with the essential task of promoting the Church’s unity seem all too often to be damaging it rather than preserving it by means of ambiguity and equivocation.
So, what are we to do? Well, first we can resolve not to be led astray by the false shepherds who would compromise the truth of the Gospel, even as we must also acknowledge that it is beyond the power of any of us to change the condition of the Church. But it is not beyond the power of God. When all earthly shepherds fail us, there is one who never fails, and he is the Good Shepherd.
The Twenty-third Psalm was composed about one thousand years before the birth of the Lord Jesus, but like everything else in Holy Scripture, this psalm speaks of the Christ. So when you are disappointed or scandalized by an unfaithful bishop or priest, starting with me, remember that we should never put our hope in mortal men in whom there is no help. Instead we should turn always to the Good Shepherd, for
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
This is the text of my homily for 21 July 2024, the 16th Sunday of the Year.
Fr Jay Scott Newman