16th Sunday in Ordinary Time
St Mary's Cathedral
Jer 23:1-6; Eph 2:13-18; Mk 6:30-34
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
20 Jul 2003
In Australia now we do not have shepherds. Not like the young man I saw on a road in the Translyvanian Mountains of Romania about 12 years ago, in traditional costume with his flock of about 30 sheep and carrying one of them in his arms. This was the type of shepherd Jesus was describing nearly 2000 years ago in Palestine.
The shepherd was a familiar figure to Jesus’ listeners; as familiar to them in everyday life as it is unknown to us in daily life even in country areas.
Probably the image is familiar to most of us from the scriptures, from religious statues and pictures, while the psalm we are using today “The Lord is my shepherd” is one of the most famous and popular hymns in the Christian churches. It is a favourite image to explain Our Lord’s concern for us, Jesus as the Good Shepherd, even if the image has been sentimentalized. The Romans, before Christ, had statues of the good shepherd, often a handsome young man with a beautifully manicured or rather pedicured sheep around his shoulders.
This is not the way the image would have struck Jesus’ listeners, because the life of a shepherd was often rough, exposed to every type of weather, occasionally dangerous when the sheep had to be defended from wild animals or robbers, and generally boring because for most of the time there was not much to do. Shepherds often had time on their hands and for this reason generally had a bad reputation, for thievery and violence. Everyone knew that there were good shepherds and bad shepherds; the good ones looked after the sheep and the bad shepherds looked after themselves.
A friend of mine many years ago, (he is now a senior academic and remains a strong Catholic) told me that he did not like the image of sheep for the Catholic people, because sheep are silent, or at least unable to speak, often fleeced and sometimes led to the slaughter. He had a point, but every image has its downside, and the emphasis is on the shepherd, rather than the sheep in this story.
The bishop’s crozier is an elaborate replica of the shepherd’s crook or staff, a reminder that he should imitate Christ and act like a good shepherd.
The Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah was well into doom and gloom. If someone calls us a Jeremiah, he is not saying that we are optimists! He was active just before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians early in the sixth century BC, prophesying accurately that the Jewish Kingdom would fall.
Just as there are good and bad shepherds, good and bad people in every walk of life, so too unfortunately over the centuries up to the present there have been bad priests and bishops, even bad popes, recognizing of course that the bad ones are much in the minority. Jeremiah was quite clear that God would punish the bad religious leaders of his time and I am sure that this promise or equation continues today.
Therefore one important task for all the Catholic people is to pray for their pope, bishops and priests that we will live up to the truths which we proclaim. No priest makes any claim to perfection; we are not preaching ourselves. We appeal to Christ crucified, but our hearts have to be undivided, fundamentally sincere and true as followers of Christ and teachers of his message.
We also need more shepherds here in Australia. Throughout the world the number of seminarians for the diocesan priesthood has about doubled since the Holy Father was elected nearly 25 years ago in 1978. For the past three years an appropriate number of young men have started training for the priesthood in the Sydney Archdiocese. But we need this blessing to continue on for many years into the future and the next five or ten years at least will be difficult as we wait for the young students of today to come through. Therefore I ask you all to pray for vocations to the priesthood and to the various forms of leadership, new or traditional, needed in the Church. Even this is not enough.
One bishop I know remarked years ago that many Catholics are in favour of vocations to the priesthood as long as they come from someone else’s family, not their own! It is not much use praying for vocations, if we are regularly critical of most priests, refuse to offer regular support and friendship, and try to dissuade anyone and everyone who might be tempted to try out as a seminarian.
One final point: the gospel passage finishes with Jesus feeling sorry for the multitude who followed him into the wilderness because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Anyone who aspires to leadership must like the people he is serving, as Jesus today. And today, with the decline of religious practice and the collapse of religious bigotry between Christian denominations many people are lost, searching for meaning and sometimes, perhaps often, wounded in the society around us. There are enormous opportunities for people who know Christ, strive to follow His way and are prepared to witness, to explain and speak as opportunities arise.
Today too many are like sheep without a shepherd.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
