[As always, you can see the whole Mass here, or just the homily here. ]
Good Shepherd Sunday, 2021,
The Fourth Sunday of Easter is known as “Good Shepherd Sunday” since the readings in each cycle have Jesus describing himself as the Good Shepherd. It is also a time when we focus on the special ministry of pastors in the Church. In fact, the word for shepherd in Latin is “pastor.”
Of course, you know the description of the perfect pastor? Here is a chain letter/email that’s been going around for some time:
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The Perfect Pastor
The Perfect Pastor preaches exactly 10 minutes. He condemns sin roundly, but never hurts anyone’s feelings. He works from 8 a.m. until midnight, and is also the church janitor.
The Perfect Pastor makes $40 a week, wears good clothes, drives a good car, buys good books, and donates $30 a week to the church. He is 29 years old and has 40 years’ worth of experience. Above all, he is handsome.
The Perfect Pastor has a burning desire to work with teenagers, and he spends most of his time with the senior citizens. He smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humor that keeps him seriously dedicated to his church. He makes 15 home visits a day and is always in his office to be handy when needed.
The Perfect Pastor always has time for parish meetings and all of its committees, never missing the meeting of any church organization. And he is always busy evangelizing the unchurched.
The Perfect Pastor is always in the neighboring parish!
If your pastor does not measure up, simply send this notice to six other churches that are tired of their pastor too. Then bundle up your pastor and send him to the church at the top of your list. If everyone cooperates, in one week you will receive 1,643 pastors. One of them should be perfect.
Have faith in this letter. One church broke the chain and got its’ old pastor back in less than three months.
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Christ is the Good Shepherd, but how does this ministry of Shepherd play out in the life of the Church? While the Archbishop is the chief shepherd of the Archdiocese, each parish within the Archdiocese is entrusted to a priest as its proper pastor. (Can. 515 §1). He exercises the pastoral care of the community entrusted to him…so that for the community he may carry out the offices of teaching, sanctifying and ruling (administration) with the cooperation of other priests or deacons and with the assistance of the lay members of Christ’s faithful…” (See Can. 519.)
Okay, great. But what does a pastor actually do?
As the staff and the various committees in the parish will tell you, every staff position, every ministry gets a job description. In the biz, we call it the “Position Description and Expected Results Statement.”
So where is the pastor’s job description? It’s quite Canons 528-530.
Can. 528 §1 The parish priest has the obligation of ensuring that the word of God is proclaimed in its entirety to those living in the parish. He is therefore to see to it that the lay members of Christ‘s faithful are instructed in the truths of faith, especially by means of the homily on Sundays and holydays of obligation and by catechetical formation. He is to foster works which promote the spirit of the Gospel, including its relevance to social justice. He is to have a special care for the Catholic education of children and young people. With the collaboration of the faithful, he is to make every effort to bring the gospel message to those also who have given up religious practice or who do not profess the true faith.
§2 The parish priest is to take care that the blessed Eucharist is the center of the parish assembly of the faithful. He is to strive to ensure that the faithful are nourished by the devout celebration of the sacraments, and in particular that they frequently approach the sacraments of the blessed Eucharist and penance. He is to strive to lead them to prayer, including prayer in their families, and to take a live and active part in the sacred liturgy. Under the authority of the diocesan Bishop, the parish priest must direct this liturgy in his own parish, and he is bound to be on guard against abuses.
Can. 529 §1 So that he may fulfil his office of pastor diligently, the parish priest is to strive to know the faithful entrusted to his care. He is therefore to visit their families, sharing in their cares and anxieties and, in a special way, their sorrows, comforting them in the Lord. If in certain matters they are found wanting, he is prudently to correct them. He is to help the sick and especially the dying in great charity, solicitiously restoring them with the sacraments and commending their souls to God. He is to be especially diligent in seeking out the poor, the suffering, the lonely, those who are exiled from their homeland, and those burdened with special difficulties. He is to strive also to ensure that spouses and parents are sustained in the fulfilment of their proper duties, and to foster the growth of christian life in the family.
§2 The parish priest is to recognise and promote the specific role which the lay members of Christ‘s faithful have in the mission of the Church, fostering their associations which have religious purposes. He is to cooperate with his proper Bishop and with the presbyterium of the diocese. Moreover, he is to endeavour to ensure that the faithful are concerned for the community of the parish, that they feel themselves to be members both of the diocese and of the universal Church, and that they take part in and sustain works which promote this community.
Can. 530 The functions especially entrusted to the parish priest are as follows:
1° the administration of baptism;
2° the administration of the sacrament of confirmation to those in danger of death, in accordance with can. 883, n. 3;
3° the administration of Viaticum and of the anointing of the sick, without prejudice to can. 1003 §§2 and 3, and the imparting of the apostolic blessing;
4° the assistance at marriages and the nuptial blessing;
5° the conducting of funerals;
6° the blessing of the baptismal font at paschal time, the conduct of processions outside the church, and the giving of solemn blessings outside the church;
7° the more solemn celebration of the Eucharist on Sundays and holydays of obligation.
Does this sound like the description of the Perfect Pastor I read to you at the beginning of the homily? More to the point, is it even possible for one man to do everything described in Canons 528-530? The answer of course, is no. He is not expected to do all this himself. But he does have the sacred responsibility of seeing that all these things are being done by those members of the faithful who have been invited, trained, supported and thanked as they engage in their respective liturgical, catechetical and evangelical ministries in the parish.
Having been a pastor for many many years, I find the ministry of pastor is best exercised in a manner similar to that of the conductor of a great symphony orchestra. Everyone has their part to play, but there is need for one to guide the life of the parish so that everything happens harmoniously and in the way intended by Christ, the Good Shepherd. It’s the difference between being in charge and being responsible. There are many people who are in charge of the various ministries in the parish, but in the end, it is the pastor who is responsible to make sure that it all happens in the best possible way. This can’t be someone without any skin in the game. He has to lay down his life for the flock. The stakes are no less than the salvation of every soul in 99504.
Being a pastor is what we often call a “vocation within a vocation.” Not all priests are pastors, but all pastors are priests. One of the reasons has a lot to do with our understanding of Christ, the Good Shepherd. While Christ is ultimately THE Good Shepherd, he has entrusted the proclamation of the Gospel to us, the Church. The ministry of shepherd finds its tangible expression at the parish level in the ministry of the pastor, who by virtue of his ordination acts in the very person of Christ, literally as alter Christus, “another Christ.” As you can see from the job description, it is no small thing to be a pastor. He has a lot he has to keep track of in the community entrusted to his care.
But in the end, it is not so much what we DO as a parish, as who we ARE as the People of God, the parish family of St. Patrick’s. We are a community of disciples, a family of faith.
There is a reason they call us “Father” and not just ‘pastor’. This is a vocation, not a job. It is a calling, not a task. Configured to Christ at the level of his very being, like Christ, the Pastor shows the parish family what is possible for them and leads them there,
sometimes exhorting them from the front and sometimes encouraging and prodding them from behind. Always walking with them on the journey of faith, sharing their joys, their sorrows, their tragedies and their triumphs.
There is no greater challenge. There is no higher calling. There is no greater way of imitating Christ, the Good Shepherd.
So, on this Good Shepherd Sunday, let us take a moment to thank God for those pastors we have had throughout our lives, the good ones and the ones who struggled, who with whatever resources God gave them for their ministry, faithfully served the people entrusted to their care and helped us find our way to Christ.
Fantastic!