Repentance requires an awareness that you are loved

I don't mind admitting that I often have a difficult time looking on the lighter side of life. This is not to say that I don't have a sense of humor. I do. Humor, too, can be heavy or light. Frankly, I usually prefer heavier humor to the lighter stuff. I also have a difficult time just shaking things off, as it were, putting them into perspective and moving on. To a degree, this is just how I am built, part of who I am. Maybe the reason I am kind of stocky is to carry a heavy load.

Being built for heaviness enables me to appreciate those who live more lightly. Far from resenting such people or denigrating them, I admire them and, at times, even envy their seeming ability to live lightly. I sometimes find myself desiring to live with a lighter touch. Once in a while, for a time, perhaps for a day or two, I succeed.

Introspection, a certain amount of which is necessary for anyone in order to have and maintain a healthy self-awareness, can go from being useful to destructive very quickly. I don't mind admitting that, like many people who tend to view life as a heavy load, I am prone to too much introspection. I have to say, at least for me (this is such an important caveat for so many things!), rather than veer away from meaningful self-examination to keep myself from excessive introspection, I find it helpful to engage in it fruitfully.

The most fruitful way I have found to do this is by engaging in a very old and proven method of self-examination: the Examen. It is the Society of Jesus, popularly known as the Jesuits, who practice and teach the practice of Examen, along with some other useful spiritual practices, to others. Since it is not the purpose of this post to teach the Examen, I will point you to two things that I have found most helpful in both practicing and teaching the Examen. The first is Jesuit Fr. Dennis Hamm's "Rummaging for God: Praying Backwards through Your Day." I distribute this whenever I teach about practicing the Examen. The second is a daily podcast: "The 'Examen' with Fr. James Martin."

As I never tire of asserting that spirituality consists of spiritual practices. The spiritual practices that constitute a spirituality are spiritual disciplines. Disciplines are not ends in themselves but means to the end of loving God with your entire being by loving your neighbor as you love yourself. Another spiritual discipline of which I am a big proponent is lectio divina, which, like the Examen, is fruitful and "doable" on a daily or nearly everyday basis. Both are very simple and easy to learn. What is perhaps most lovely about these time-proven practices is that they require healthy doses of silence.

When we consider what we're living through and our inability to gather and worship together, practicing lectio divina and the Examen, along with spiritual practices, praying the Liturgy of the Hours, at least the so-called "hinge" hours (i.e., Morning and Evening Prayer), along with popular devotions such as the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet, become very important lest you start to feel adrift. For those who undertake these disciplines, I trust that their importance will not fade when the pandemic is over.

If this post is not about the mechanics of praying the Examen then what is it about? It is about the need to engage in the Examen deeply aware that God loves you. Otherwise, the Examen can turn into the unhealthy practice of self-shaming that can lead to self-loathing. To that end, I found this insight by Rebecca DeYoung most helpful: ​

reflec­tion on the vices is one part of the prac­tice of self-exam­i­na­tion, but that prac­tice must first and always be framed by the love of God, which stead­fast­ly holds us. Pro­ceed in the con­fi­dence that when we con­fess our sin­ful nature and die to sin, it is only a pre­lude to God’s cre­ation of a beau­ti­ful new life in us

It is very easy to reduce myself to my mistakes and my vices. When I do this God's love starts to become incomprehensible. I get stuck in the mire of shame. Rejecting God's love makes it difficult if not impossible for me to love others. When I reject or ignore God's love, my ability to love others erodes. "In this is love," we read in 1 John 4, "not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins." Hence, it is important to begin my self-examination, which also includes reflecting on the good things of the day, in the knowledge and with the assurance of God's love trusting that in and through Christ Jesus I am always already forgiven.

Brian Morykon stated this well: "When sin is the focus of our self-examination, despair follows. But when we, guided by the Holy Spirit, look honestly at our sin while maintaining focus on Jesus—on his presence and love toward us—genuine repentance and freedom follows." Genuine repentance, which consists of so much more than contrition for sin, is true freedom. I find practicing the Examen with God's love foremost in mind a very fruitful discipline. It is a way Christ relieves me of the heavy yoke and replaces it with his lighter one.

Monday Fifth Week of Easter

Readings: Acts 14:-18; Ps 115:1-4.15-16; John 14:21-26

In our first reading, taken from Acts, the witness of Paul and Barnabas is irrepressible. Despite the threat of violence against them, they could not help but continue to proclaim the good news to others. Our reading also puts an aspect of early Christianity into bold relief: that the good news spread more easily in cities than in the countryside. In fact, it was in the countryside of the ancient Roman Empire that paganism maintained a stronghold for a number of centuries. It was in the urban centers of the ancient empire that the early Church took root and began to flourish.

What is interesting to note in this reading is that even after Paul and Barnabas tell the villagers emphatically they are not Zeus and Hermes, the people of the village remain determined to make a sacrifice to them. It is also important to point out that even after the miraculous healing Paul accomplished, the villagers were not converted en masse. I think this demonstrates how ineffectual miracles usually are in bringing people to faith.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, in his sublime novel, The Brothers Karmazov asserted:

miracles are never a stumbling-block to the realist…The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact… Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith¹

Of course, the villagers in our reading from Acts are not modern skeptical realists. They are ancient, rural pagans. But like the modern realist and, indeed, all human beings, they labor under their preconceptions. Our preconceptions bound what we conceive as possible, desirable, right and proper. A preconception, you might say, is a conceptual rut in which you are stuck. Christians are certainly not exempt from having preconceptions. Many of these preconceptions hamper and handicap our mission to evangelize, impeding the spread of the Good News.

Perhaps nothing brings the preconceptions of many Christians to the fore like Jesus’s insistence in today’s Gospel on keeping his commandments. When it comes to commandment-keeping, our tendency is almost always to start making lists of things we must not do and things we must do. In all honesty, many of us never make it to the list of things we must do because we become so caught up in all the proscriptions, all the perceived prohibitions. This turns the good news in to the great "NO!"

Priest of Zeus Sacrificing to Saint Paul, by Raphael

Strict adherence to what many people mistakenly believe to be the checklist of holiness, results in a gloomy, stern, self-righteousness that is devoid of the Spirit. Instead of life-giving, it is soul-sucking. Such an approach smacks of the very thing Jesus constantly challenged and rebuked during his public ministry. For people who practice and advocate for this, the Lord becomes one who enslaves instead of the one who sets us free. In his Letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul exhorts concerning this rule-bound view of discipleship: “For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.”²

In what, then, does keeping Jesus’s commandments consist? In the chapter before the one from which our Gospel reading for today is taken, which is also from John’s Last Supper Discourse, the Lord says to his disciples:

I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another³

In response to Judas’s question about God revealing himself only to the chosen few, Jesus says that the Father will dwell in the one who keeps his commandment: the commandment to love. And so, it is by loving others as Jesus loves us, which is not easy, that God is revealed and Jesus is made present. This sounds lovely. But in the nitty-gritty of life, loving others as God loves us through Christ is very hard.

How do we love others? By forgiving those who’ve trespassed against us. By loving and praying for our enemies. Remember, an enemy is someone who actively opposes you, someone who is hostile toward you, speaks of ill of you, seeks ways to “get” you, plots your demise, etc. In other words, someone who, for whatever reason(s), gives you a hard time and who often seeks to make your life miserable. It’s important to briefly note that there is a difference between bearing a wound and bearing a grudge. Love is what prevents wounds from turning into grudges.

Our challenge as followers of Jesus, who died and rose for love of us, is to make ourselves neighbors and not enemies. To be a Christian, your neighborliness must extend even to your enemies. Talk about overcoming a preconception! In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus himself teaches:

if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?⁴

Our unwillingness to live in this new way puts us in a far worse state than than the well-meaning pagans who wanted to sacrifice oxen to Paul and Barnabas.

---

1 Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Book I, Chapter 5, “The Elders.”^↩
2 Galatians 5:1.^↩
3 John 13:34-35.^↩
4 Matthew 5:46-47.^↩

A few extraneous reflections on Sunday

I don't know about where you live, but here in Northern Utah, we've been enjoying a relatively cool if quite dry Spring. Today, however, the temperatures have reached the mid-80s, which is not unusual for this time of year but quite a bit warmer than it's been so far this year. I had to chuckle as I thought in a month or so mid-80s, which felt downright hot on my afternoon walk, will feel relatively cool.

As I was reading the Gospel at the early Mass this morning, I was suddenly very struck by John 14:8. It is the verse in which Philip says to Jesus, "Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us." It's like asking, "Show us the ineffable." Or, stated another way, "Eff for us the ineffable." To extend this more: Show us the unshowable; Describe for us the indescriable; Here, put the infinite in this bucket, etc.

As I pondered Philip's request between Masses, I thought it was almost laugh-out-loud funny. But considering the matter more seriously later, it became clearer to me. At least for Christians, it is a given that Jesus is the "refulgence" of God the Father. "Refulgence" is how the New American Bible translates the Greek noun ἀπαύγασμα, which transliterates into English as apaugasma. This is the word used in Hebrews 1:3 in describing the relationship of the Son of God to God.

Any New Testament concordance will tell you that in the first instance, apaugasma means "reflected brightness." Therefore, Jesus Christ perfectly reflects the image, the majesty, splendor of God. In Jesus, as Scripture tells us elsewhere, "all the fullness was pleased to dwell." (Col 1:19). It seems that these are ways of theologically articulating what Jesus tells Philip, namely, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9).

Saint Philip, by Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1611

Upon further reflection, it seems to me that Philip's seemingly funny and, perhaps at first glance, even absurd request is from the bottom of his heart. His request articulates not only his deepest desire but mine too. Perhaps it is this desire is what constitutes our humanity at its core. Our desire is ineffable and it can only be satisfied by the ineffable. Keep in mind, Jesus is the way and the gate to the transcendent. It has been noted that Jesus is the immanent transcendent- the (im)possible existent.

As I was preparing things for Sunday Mass last Friday afternoon, I was also very struck by the beauty of the Collect for the Fifth Sunday of Easter. I think it is expressive of much the same desire as Philip's:

Almighty ever-living God,
constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us,
that those you were pleased to make new in Holy Baptism
may, under your protective care, bear much fruit
and come to the joys of life eternal.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Peace of Christ to you this Sunday evening. Stay safe, place your hope in Christ through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Be kind and loving to everyone. We're all living through a difficult time.

"a royal priesthood"

Readings: Acts 6:17; Ps 33:1-2.4-5.18-19; 1 Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12

Because I am a deacon and my blog is "Catholic Deacon," it would be strange not to reference the first reading. This reading comes from the beginning of the sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. According to a tradition going back at least to Ireneaus of Lyons, a Doctor of the Church who was one of Christianity's earliest systematic theologians (ca.AD 120,/140-200,/203), this passage tells of the institution of the diaconate in the earliest Church.

What is curious about this passage is that while the word diakonia and its appropriate variants are used several times, not once in this passage or in any subsequent passages are the seven wise and Spirit-filled men referred to as "deacons," either collectively or individually. The task that requires selecting them- the daily distribution of food to the community's widows- is diakonia. In verse 2 the Greek word translated into English as "serve at table" is diakonein. Finally, the "ministry" of the word the apostles want to be free to engage in is diakonia.

In all likelihood, the earliest reference to the diaconate as an office can be found in the first verse of the first chapter of Saint Paul's Letter to the Philippians (Phil 1:1- "overseers" is a translation of episkopois and "ministers" is a translation of diakonois). In this verse, deacons are referred to along with bishops. Before bishops came to oversee multiple communities in a region, each community was led by a bishop who was assisted by deacons. Hence, one can make the argument that the diaconate is older than the presbyterate, at least as we understand it today and not as the "elders" of the Pauline communities.

In today's Gospel, when Jesus speaks of his disciples (there are no apostles in the fourth Gospel) doing works as great and even greater than those he has done, he seems to imply that this power will result from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, who seems to be able to come because Jesus goes to the Father. I don't think it's too much to assert that this points to something that might be called "the diakonia of all the baptized." Is not this service driven by the same Spirit that filled the seven men called forth not only hand out food but to heal a rift in the earliest Christian community? Alms-giving can be viewed as diakonia. Diakonia points to the concrete ways of loving your neighbor as you love yourself.

First Peter is the source of our epistle readings for the Sundays of Easter this year. While "the diakonia of all the baptized" may be a phrase with which you are unfamiliar, the phrase "the priesthood of all the baptized" should not be utterly foreign to you. In the Rite of Baptism for Children, shortly after an infant in baptized, s/he is anointed with chrism as "priest, prophet, and king." When an adult, that is, anyone over the age of reason, is baptized s/he is confirmed immediately afterward.

In confirmation we are anointed with chrism, our baptism is "sealed," and hands are laid on us. Due to the anointing with chrism and the laying on of hands, it has been observed that both of these liturgical actions amount to a kind of priestly ordination. While the priesthood of the baptized and the ministerial priesthood can and must be distinguished one from the other, they are not separate and unrelated realities.

In 1 Peter we are told that the Church of God, is made up of living stones (i.e., us), is "a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5). In one his very popular radio addresses, Saint Óscar Romero, the greatly venerated martyr-archbishop of San Salvador, once taught:

How beautiful will be the day when all the baptized understand that their work, their job, is a priestly work; that just as I celebrate Mass at this altar, so each carpenter celebrates Mass at his workbench, and each metalworker, each professional, each doctor with a scalpel, the market woman at her stand, is performing priestly office! How many cabdrivers, I know, listen to this message there in their cabs; you are a priest at the wheel, my friend, if you work with honesty, consecrating that taxi of yours to God, bearing a message of peace and love to the passengers who ride in your cab.

Finally, in our present circumstances, I cannot think of a better Psalm for our responsorial than Psalm 33. Let our antiphon for today's reponsorial be our prayer as move forward into this new Easter week exercising the diakoinia of our priestly calling: "Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you."

"When will I ever learn?": Another dispatch from distraction

Towards the end of the second week of the pandemic, I more or less discontinued my use of social media. This time that included blogging. I actually did not know how to deal with what was happening. It wasn't until I remotely participated in Pope Francis's Urbi et Orbi: Extraordinary Moment of Prayer that I started to regain some equanimity and make some peace with what we're all experiencing.

Like previous such breaks, I have to say my early pandemic breather was as refreshing as it was revivifying. As I was thinking about all of this early today in the wake of a couple of very unpleasant social media interactions yesterday, my mind drifted back to something I posted more than three years ago: "'Why do you come here?': Dispatch from distraction." In re-reading that post, I began to wonder why I didn't stick with my determination then to discontinue using platforms that often make me miserable. I am referring specifically to Facebook and Twitter, but mostly Facebook, a platform for which I seem to have a very unhealthy, that is, sick affinity.

I need to point out that I am not claiming victim status. Neither am I inviting you to dig how sensitive and introverted I am. On the contrary, when it comes to arguing and provoking, in too many instances, I give as good or better than I get. Therein lies the problem. Arguing online has peculiar nastiness all its own. It seems to bring out the worst in virtually everyone. It certainly brings out the worst in me. Maybe this is because of the fact that you can't punch someone over the internet or perhaps because we cannot see the effect our cruel words have the other person. It would be dishonest of me to ignore the fact that I have, at times, been attacked quite savagely by people I barely know. These people were not content to correct me or express a contrary opinion and simply argue the point. They felt the need to denigrate, insult, and accuse me of things that are so bizarre and irrelevant to the point of dispute that I am left questioning their sanity or wondering about the deep source of their hostility towards someone they barely know.

I don't mind reiterating here that I suffer from depression. As a result, I have to look after myself. I realize that no amount of "self-care" will keep the black dog at forever. He will turn up again sooner or later. On a side note a friend of mine, one of those with whom I will miss interacting, who is a priest for the Church of England, recently wrote a pastoral letter to his parishes on depression: "Black Dog."

I don't mind admitting that even in my mid-50s I often struggle with being impetuous and imprudent. I mention my age because I can remember thinking at times that these things would "naturally" moderate as I grew older. In reality and to some extent, it's who I am. I also realize that I need to keep a check on myself and enlist the help of trusted others to help me. I've found over way too many years that certain forms of social media exacerbate these tendencies. That said, I find it far easier than I used to accept correction and criticism. Like most people, however, it helps if the person criticizing and/or correcting me does so respectfully and charitably. This seems like a good place to mention that what precipitated my 2016 post was reading an article by Andrew Sullivan: "I Used To Be a Human Being."

I am a slow learner. I don't just type that as a way to be charmingly self-deprecating. I am truly slow. To give you an example: back in the summer of 2000, during a season of very intense prayer driven by some unsettling circumstances happening in my life, it became clear to me that I should stop drinking alcohol. At that point, apart from occasionally overindulging, my use of alcohol wasn't terribly problematic. As a result, I quit for a few months and then picked it up again. Five years later and for the next 5-6 years after that, my drinking became problematic. For the following 4-5 years, while I tapered off a good deal, drinking was still something I should not have been doing. I successfully quit for about a year but then convinced myself I could moderate. While it didn't reach the problematic levels it had previously, I was still dogged by it.

Lest I exaggerate, at no point did my drinking rise to the levels most people associate with problem drinking. Because the word "alcoholic" is misunderstood by most people, I don't use the word to describe myself. Why? Because, as John Waters pointed out: to most people "an alcoholic is someone lying in the gutter clutching a bottle of wine wrapped in a newspaper." It was never like that for me, not even close. What was it like? Well, at least for now, that's something I prefer to keep to myself. I think it would surprise most people ("most" does not mean "all") to know that it was ever a problem for me. Finally, on the day after Christmas 2018- the feast of my patron saint, Stephen, the patron of this blog (Pray for us!)- I determined to quit for good. As of yesterday, I am 494 days alcohol-free. Well, I do receive communion but that doesn't present any difficulties for me. Hey, it only took 18 and-a-half years!

Based on: Hotel Room, by Edward Hopper (1931). Photo: Kim Dong-kyu from New York magazine- same picture I used for my first dispatch

My social media use isn't that different from my alcohol use. No matter how many times I think I can moderate my use of it, I find myself back in the same disparaged state. Because I am a passionate person, which is neither good nor bad, it's just part of who I am, and so it can be either depending on how I employ it, I am someone for whom half-measures do not to work. I have always admired people who seem to be possessed of a natural and healthy moderation. In light of what I shared above, a three-and-a-half-year turn around isn't too bad!

Re-reading "'Why do you come here?': Dispatch from distraction" was one of those experiences when I realized that sometimes after gaining some wisdom and insight I become stupider. The past three or so years have demonstrated that amply. Anyway, all of this is to say that, like 26 December 2018, today marks a turning point for me. My real life, as opposed to my virtual non-life, is not only rich and full but very demanding, especially as I take on the responsibility of directing the diaconate of my diocese in addition to being a husband, father, serving my parish community, and my full-time job.

I plan to keep blogging with at least the same regularity I've been doing it for the past few years. My reason for this is that, unlike other things, I find value in blogging. Over the past 5 or so years, I have been successful in moderating this activity. I guess I have to type this for because, internally, I am brutal with myself: comments remain open albeit moderated. I am not willing to let all manner of hell break loose in this tiny bit of cyberspace to which I've laid claim. And so, while blogging is not a way of avoiding being criticized or corrected, I will ensure that these things are done constructively and charitably. Καθολικός διάκονος is- I'll use the term- a safe space for myself and for others. Blogging is a way for me to express my thoughts and opinions on matters that interest me. I make no claim to be infallible. I'll also note that I enjoy hearing and reading other points-of-view. But if you just can't tolerate what I have to say, feel free to ignore me and move on. It will be better for us both, trust me. Feel free to ignore me with my blessing

Farewell Twitter and Facebook! It hasn't been real. It's been virtual but too often really awful. This decision is the result of my own judgment on myself and not on anyone else. Just because I can't enjoy it in moderation due to my own proclivities and sensitivities, doesn't mean others can't and very often do make good use of it. I still plan to post the odd photo on Instagram, to post here and to link to these posts via various platforms. Those who know me well enough have my email and/or phone number. For those close enough and who know me quite well, I am usually up for a conversation over a cup of coffee.

As with my 2016 post, I'll end this with an appropriate song, from the lyrics of which the title is taken. While it's a Van Morrison song, I really like Phil Keaggy's version of it. Of course, as no less than my own pastor let me know when I expressed this opinion, it's okay by me if you prefer listening to the original artist perform it.

"But lay down your fears, come and join this feast"

Well, it's been a while since I've posted a Friday traditio. I wasn't sure I was going to do it today but I realized that after my flurry of posts in April I haven't posted much yet in May. Besides, I like the traditio, which is why I do it. Believe me, I don't think the world suffers at present from a lack of blog posts or podcasts. Therefore, I realize I probably do this to satisfy some weird need on my own part. You know what? That's okay.

These daze about the only posts in which I write spontaneously, "from my heart," as it were, are these Friday posts. I don't know about where you live, but here in Northern Utah we're in the process of "re-opening." Here in my county, which is just north of Salt Lake City, we never really closed. We scaled back on a lot of things. Like a lot of people, I waiver between just being nervous about lifting restrictions and being downright dubious about it. The reason for both my nervousness and my dubiousness is that there are still many unknowns concerning sars-cov-2 and the disease it causes: COVID-19. Over and above that, we still don't have a very widespread testing capability. Serum tests, which can detect antibodies, are just starting to be available. Even the ability to determine if someone has been exposed by administering a blood test, while a promising development, isn't that useful until we determine what exposure and the presence of antibodies means in terms of immunity.

In short, the lifting of restrictions is a movement into the unknown. I think anybody who pays any attention to this is aware that it was the second wave of Spanish Flu a hundred years ago that was so devastating. By pointing this out, I am not making a prediction. I just hope that as restrictions are lifted, if things start to go south, there won't be a great deal of hesitation about re-imposing them. I also hope and even pray that as we make the transition we can incorporate many of the positives that can be discerned from our collective experience over the past two months into the so=called "new normal." In other words, I hope the "new normal" is better than the old normal, to which a lot of people have no desire to return.

Yesterday, I spent the evening listening to music. It was a tonic. This morning, the song that sticks with me is Rich Mullins's "Peace (A Communion Blessing from St. Joseph's Square)." It's such a beautiful song. It's off his album A Liturgy, A Legacy, & A Ragamuffin Band, a work I cherish.

Year A Fourth Sunday of Easter

Readings: Acts 2:14a.36-41; Ps 23:1-6; 1 Peter 2:20b-25; John 10:1-10

As you might’ve guessed, this Fourth Sunday of Easter is Good Shepherd Sunday. As a result, we typically hear a lot of pastoral references, similes, metaphors, and allegories. But in reality, these don’t make a lot of sense to most people today. This is not to assert that these things are incomprehensible to most of us. It’s just to say that unlike the people of the early first century Levant, such things are not part of our everyday experience or even part of many of our life experiences.

In thinking about Good Shepherd Sunday this week, I became very aware that being designated as “sheep” is not very flattering. Sheep are docile, easily led, seemingly not capable of independent thought. Now, this is not to say that the point of any passage from the scriptures is meant to flatter to us. I guess my point here is that the People of God are not called to be “sheepeople,” as it were. On the contrary, Jesus's call to follow him is a call to intentional living and responsibility.

Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas insisted “that it is only through responsibility for others, only through caring for the needy and even one’s enemies that human existence advances and grows.”¹ What Levinas dubbed diakonia has been described as “responsibility and care for others.”² Responsibility, then, constitutes “the heart of what it means to exist as a human being and to transcend the isolation and trap of one’s own ego.”³

Each year, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations falls on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, that is, Good Shepherd Sunday. I think this year especially, it is important to point out that all of us who are baptized have received a vocation, a calling from God. To quote Jake Blues, by virtue of our baptism, we’re on a mission from God. The vocation each of us received at baptism is to follow Christ. All other vocations, whether to orders, matrimony, religious or single life, are the different ways of living out our baptismal vocation.

Baptism, not ordination, is the fundamental sacrament of the Christian life. Our dying, being buried, and rising with Christ to new life is our rebirth as children of God, the means by which we become “a new creation.”⁴ For proof of this we need look no further than our first reading today, taken from the Acts of the Apostles.

As a result of Peter’s preaching on that first Christian Pentecost, many people responded with faith and were baptized. The phrase “filled with the Spirit” is used many times in the early chapters of Acts. Lest we forget, Saint Paul teaches us what the gifts of the Holy Spirit are: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”⁵ A few verses earlier, the apostle insists: “the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”⁶ Following Christ means making yourself a neighbor to others, especially the person who needs your help.

All of this ties in with our epistle reading, which once again comes from 1 Peter. Our passage begins by stating that it “is a grace before God” to suffer for doing what is good.⁷ In taking responsibility for the other, especially those who are outcast and looked down upon, it is often the case you are reviled rather than rewarded.

The inspired author of 1 Peter goes so far as to say that it is our vocation as Christians to suffer doing good following the Good Shepherd, who, “When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten; instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly.”⁸ Jesus calls his followers to do the hardest things imaginable. This is rolled up into the Spiritual Work of Mercy that bids us suffer wrongs patiently, trusting in the one who is returning to “judge the living and the dead.”⁹

We suffer for doing good when we feed the hungry on the street despite city ordinances that seek to prohibit this, or are arrested and brought to trial for leaving water in the desert so immigrants, many of whom are actually refugees fleeing for their lives, don’t die of dehydration, or standing up for the dignity of human life across many issues: abortion, euthanasia and suicide, the death penalty, firearms, etc., or affirming the rights and dignity of those who are incarcerated. Sadly, you run the risk of being denigrated by fellow Christians for speaking up on behalf of and reaching out to LGBT people, as Pope Francis did this past week, giving much-needed financial aid to a group of transgendered people in Italy, who approached the priest of the parish in which they live for assistance.¹⁰ Very often, no good deed goes unpunished.

In one of Isaiah’s Servant Songs, it is said that Israel’s deliverer, rather than vanquish their enemies violently, would be “Like a lamb led to slaughter.”¹¹ But unlike sheep, we are all-too aware of what happens to us when life takes an unpleasant turn, especially when this rises to the level of suffering. Rather than being like a sheep that has no idea it is about to be slaughtered, our experience or anticipation of suffering makes us hyper-aware. To endure this gracefully, we must embrace it intentionally, like those who form the great cloud of Christian martyrs down through the ages of the Church.

Instead of the bliss of ignorance, you must decide whether to follow the Good Shepherd, to be obedient to the call he has given you, to enter through the narrow gate, or choose another road. Remember, “obedience” comes from the Latin verb obidere, which means to listen. Three times in today’s Gospel reading Jesus is quoted as saying his followers, each of whom he calls by name, as you were in baptism and confirmation, recognize his voice and follow him. Later in the same chapter from which today’s Gospel is taken, Jesus says: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”¹²

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1 William T. Donovan, The Sacrament of Service: Understanding Diaconal Spirituality, 22.^↩
2 Ibid.^↩
3 Ibid.^↩
4 2 Corinthians 5:17.^↩
5 Galatians 5:22-23.^↩
6 Galatians 5:14.^↩
7 1 Peter 2:19.^↩
8 1 Peter 2:23.^↩
9 Roman Missal, "The Order of Mass," sec. 19.^↩
10 See “Pope gifts funds to transgender community.”^↩
11 Isaiah 53:7.^↩
12 John 10:27.^↩