How much do I care?

Homily

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time B2

21 July 2024

St. Ann Catholic Church, Prairie Village

AMDG

How much do I care?

It's not lost on me that on my first weekend preaching as your new shepherd, the Church providentially contrasts the difference between good and bad shepherds.  I don't have to tell you the difference.  You already know.  Good shepherds show up. Good shepherds care.  Good shepherds give their lives.  Good shepherds smell like the sheep, as Pope Francis famously has sad.  Good shepherds govern in justice and in truth, bringing people into right relationship by speaking and acting with integrity.  Good shepherds share in the sacred heart of Jesus, a heart that moves with compassion and the desire to have a shared experience of suffering, dying and rising.

Bad shepherds get scared and run.

I beg your prayers that I will try my best in this sacred responsibility for your souls that has fallen to me.  Please pray I don't run away scared at the sight of danger.  I hope you will find me zealous in teaching the faith and witnessing to it with integrity, for I truly believe in its power to bring new life to all of us when taught with conviction.

Most of all, I want to be a pastor that cries with and for you.  In this, I want to be like my grandpa Leo, who cried both when all his family was together, and even more so when someone was missing.  I'll never forget his tears at my ordination, since my mom had already passed and was missing.  I remember the same tears at his 90th birthday, when all 47 of his kids, grandkids and great-grandkids, and their spouses, gathered for the Mass and celebration.  I'm not a crier yet, but I'd like to be by the time I'm done shepherding St. Ann's.  A good shepherd cries for his sheep.  A good pastor has a heart that moves.  Please pray that I will try my best for love of God and for you.

Our common pasture is our parish boundary, that extends from 63rd to 83rd, north to south, and State Line to Nall east to west.  Jesus wants us to smash any wall that separates us from each other within this boundary.  Jesus's heart for us will not stop moving until each and all of us are with and for each other, without exception, and no one is missing.  This is his beautiful prayer for St. Ann's - I have not lost one of those that you gave me.  

Here at Mass we worship the source of unity that is God Himself.  Each of the persons in God is with and for the other; hence, those of us who would dare to grow in His likeness must do likewise.  Jesus always loved his enemies first and best. He always smashed hostility through forgiveness.  If you are looking ultimately to create a lasting and meaningful unity apart from the Mass, you're wasting your time.  It is here alone that we consummate our relationship to the ultimate source of reconciliation that is Jesus Himself.

Psalm 23 is fulfilled right here at Mass, for here we are refreshed by the waters of baptism and confession.  Here our heads are anointed with both the oil for the sick and the confirming love of the Holy Spirit.  Here a table is spread before us, even in the sight of our foes!  Within the pasture of this parish, the Eucharist will always be the gate by which we come in and go out, and find true unity and the source of eternal life.

I invite you to pray for me, and cry with me whenever someone is missing.  May our hearts always move in compassion like Jesus' Sacred Heart until everyone is here.

May I be honest with the Lord right now as I answer this question:  how much do I care?