« March 2008 | Main | May 2008 »
April 7, 2008
ORDINATION ON GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY
What a day to celebrate the ordination, when we shall be making of John Slavin a shepherd through the sacrament of the Holy Orders, when we hear again the words of our Lord “I am the Good Shepherd and I lay down my life for my sheep”. In today’s gospel Jesus articulates what a shepherd should be and who he should not be: He needs to be a Good shepherd and not a hireling. In the person of our Lord, the shepherd is a GOOD Shepherd and also the lamb that is sacrificed. A shepherd as a lamb sounds like an oxymoron. Contradictory as it may seem in its denotation, verily the shepherd becomes the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world
.
The shepherd is the one who has a unique relationship with his sheep. The sheep know him and follow him and they are certain that he will lead them to verdant pasture. Psalm 21 addresses the Lord as our shepherd and as sheep there is nothing we shall lack. Fresh and green are the pastures where he gives me repose, near restful waters he leads me to revive my drooping spirit. He will guide me along what he knows to be right: if I walk in the darkness no evil shall I fear. I know that he will be there with his crook and with his staff.
Personally I have had some experience as shepherd boy in my early childhood days. My mom who worked as a nurse in a government hospital, would ask us to graze our sheep and cows. It was a steep hillside with thorny bushes and rocks. I was seven or eight year old then, and the landscape looked huge for me then. I had to make sure that the sheep did not slip and fall and I had to bleat to mimic them at times to get their response, if I lost sight of them. At times, pretending to be a young one, I would bleat and the lambs would also respond. I needed to make sure that they all reached their pen. It was a small house that we lived in and the pen was just next to our house. Any little noise would wake us up. When they give birth to the young ones, we would stay awake at night to make sure that the birthing was right. What a joy it was to see them when they were born.
Our Lord applies this example of his times, an example of a shepherd that every one of his audience was familiar with. He is the Great and Good Shepherd, who is not a hireling. He will not run away at the face of danger, because his sheep is in danger. He would fight and defend his sheep till they are secure. Simply put, someone can go only over his dead body to steal his sheep.
What is great about this Good Shepherd is that He is God the Shepherd and true enough He lay down his life for his sheep. In this act of sacrifice, he was not only the shepherd, but the sheep, the lamb, the victim that was sacrificed. Call to priesthood, is just the beginning of a struggle in living out the calling. It could be martyrdom, but in our day and age it is a bloodless one. If anyone thought wearing this collar is going to command respect, they are mistaken. If anyone taught and thought, that the ordination to the holy orders can be recalled at will, they make mockery of such a holy estate and persist in their foolhardiness, for they have no clue of what it calls one for. The role of a shepherd can never ever be compromised, sidelined, bought off, having other preferential option, not even the secular job that we have for livelihood, for it’s a call from above: Feed my lamb, feed my sheep. Only if they feared their conscience and remembered the day they made their vows to the Lord on the day of their ordination, there will be so much of integrity and incessant work for God’s glory and His Kingdom. The Lord refers to the hireling; they are the ones only concerned about their welfare, their benefits, and their retirement. Matthew Henry very aptly comments on this concept of a 'hireling', “How basely the hireling deserts his post; when he sees the wolf coming, though then there is most need of him, he leaves the sheep and flees. Note, those who mind their safety more than their duty are an easy prey to Satan's temptations. (b.) How fatal the consequences are! the hireling fancies the sheep may look to themselves, but it does not prove so: the wolf catches them, and scatters the sheep, and woeful havoc is made of the flock, which will all be charged upon the treacherous shepherd. The blood of perishing souls is required at the hand of the careless watchmen. “
The call to the Holy Orders is a call from God to take care of the souls that are very dear to Him. And the accountability is going to be grave on the Day of Judgment, make no mistake about it. And our process of discerning the vocation is through prayers and the internal disposition of the candidate and of course one’s seminary training coupled with their on the job training in a pastoral setting. The twelve apostles sat and learnt at the school of Jesus. They heard him speak and teach, saw him do great works and saw his zeal for the poor and the down trodden. At the synagogue, Jesus got up and read the following: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.' And He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him. And He began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'"
Resonating the very words of our Lord in the synagogue, for his ordination motto, Deacon John has chosen the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 10 verse 8 "Freely ye have received, Freely Give" He told me, “I prayed over this for a long time and I feel it sums up my calling well. I truly love working with those who have nothing, it is why I originally was drawn to the prison ministry and hospital chaplain.” We need to feel aglow with the zeal for His Kingdom and therein lies the call to be His heart, hands, eyes and feet.
It is a call to servitude. I believe that the washing of the feet is not confined to Maundy Thursday alone; in the case of every priest and deacon and bishop, we are called to serve. It is in giving that we receive. St. Francis of Assisi said so beautifully remembering the words of our Lord: the measure with which you will give is a measure in which you will receive. We wish Fr. John well and hope that he keeps his promise and vow that he will make in the assembly of this congregation and commit Himself to the cause of His sheep in the footsteps of the Good Shepherd.
Posted by frleo at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)