Shepherding Shepherds

Praying Jesus leads and guides the Church

8/11/2021

Mt 18:15-20 Jesus said to his disciples: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell the Church. If he refuses to listen even to the Church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

I need to ask your prayers today because I have been invited to give the annual retreat at my old seminary, Mt. St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, MD. I must admit I feel both honored but also intimidated. Why? Well, it is one thing to prepare a five minute daily Mass homily but it is an entirely different matter to prepare 9 talks over the course of five days. What’s more, I am not speaking to lay people but to the future leaders of the church.

This retreat is getting dangerously close to being a bishop. How so? Well, it is a lot easier to shepherd the sheep than to shepherd the shepherds; and that for one reason: the shepherds think they already know everything. It is a lot easier to teach students than to teachers. It is infinitely easier to doctor patients than to doctor doctors. By the way, I have been taking care of Fr. Daniel’s dog, Lola, this week while he is on retreat. She is a German shepherd. So, maybe shepherding seminarians will be as easy as shepherding this German shepherd. But I kind of doubt it.

One of the main themes of the gospel of Matthew is to make Jesus appear as the new Moses. And the life of Moses is a portrait of church leadership. If you want to be a good shepherd, just study the life of Moses. And Matthew’s main point is that Jesus walks in the footsteps of the meekest man on earth and is therefore the Good Shepherd par excellence. In other words, I should just tell the seminarians, if you want to be a good shepherd, just read the gospel of Matthew; that is the manual to be like Moses.

According to tradition –although modern scholars deny it – Moses is said to have authored the first five books of the Bible, also known as the Torah, from Genesis to Deuteronomy. In fact, the Torah (or Law) is often called “the five books of Moses.” Matthew structured his gospel, therefore, with five great discourses that Jesus delivers during his ministry, to parallel the five books of Moses.

And today, we hear from the fourth great discourse, or the Ecclesial Discourse or the Discourse on the Church. In other words, Jesus is offering his future pastors a “manual for shepherds,” and how to lead a church community. He teaches them how to settle disputes, how to manage indulgences, and how to pray together. Matthew is showing us how Jesus would shepherd the shepherds.

My friends, if you had to give a retreat to seminarians, what sort of advice would you give them about being a good priest and pastor? In the church office we often lament that new priests have very little administration ability, and thus they make mistakes. If you work with Catholic schools, you will want future priests to make Catholic school their priority. If you have a heart for the homeless, you want priests to dedicate themselves to the poor and social work.

If you worry about the moral decay of our society, you want priests to champion the moral law and punish politicians who get out of step with church teaching. If you love the liturgy and the sacraments, you want the priests to celebrate the Mass and hear confessions as if he were St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests. In short, we human priests can never live up to everyone’s expectations.

A parishioner recently gave me a book to read called “The Priests We Need to Save the Church.” I was not sure if that was intended to be a compliment or a criticism. Perhaps the person was saying, “Fr. John, why don’t you try to be a little more like this?” We all want to try our hand at shepherding the shepherds.

Folks, pray for our priests and pray for me as I try to think of something to say to those seminarians, who already think they know everything. May we all attentively keep our eyes on Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who alone knows how best to shepherd the shepherds.

Praised be Jesus Christ!