“…just as all have died with Adam, so with Christ all will be brought to life. But each must rise in his own rank; Christ is the first-fruits, and after Him follow those who belong to Him, those who have put their trust in His return. Full completion comes after that, when He places His kingship in the hands of God, His Father, having first dispossessed every other sort of rule, authority, and power; His reign, as we know, must continue until He has put all His enemies under His feet, and the last of those enemies to be dispossessed is death. God has put all things in subjection under His feet…”
First letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 15: 22-27 [link]
‘…those who belong to Him, those who have put their trust in His return.‘ Those, that is, whose hearts are reigned over by Him. Today we celebrate the sovereignty of OLJC over all things, recalling how at the end of the gospel of S. Matthew, He declared that all power in heaven and upon earth has been given Him, before sending His Apostles out to build the Church up beyond measure. As S. Paul says in our second reading this weekend (above), that rule of Christ is not yet complete, rather it is extending gradually through the work of the Church, and will be ended with the Second Coming of Christ, when His kingdom will be handed over to God the Father, every other competing force finally removed.
“A word, shepherds, for your hearing, a message from the Lord God: ‘Out upon yonder shepherds! I will hold them answerable for the flock entrusted to them, and they shall have charge of it no more, feed themselves out of its revenues no more. From their greedy power I will rescue it; no longer shall it be their prey.’ This is what the Lord God says: ‘I mean to go looking for this flock of mine, search it out for Myself. As a shepherd, when he finds his flock scattered all about him, goes looking for his sheep, so will I go looking for these sheep of Mine, rescue them from all the nooks into which they have strayed when the dark mist fell upon them. Rescued from every kingdom, recovered from every land, I will bring them back to their own country; they shall have pasture on the hill-sides of Israel, by its watercourses, in the resting-places of their home.”
Prophecy of Ezechiel, 34: 9-13 [link]
My favourite chapter of the prophecy of Ezechiel is presented in part as our first reading this weekend (above). Remember that the reign of Christ over the hearts of men and women is a gentle one, a quiet one, one that slips under the noses of politicians like the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and the several kings Herod, but a reign that brings forth intense hatred from religious figures like certain of the pharisees and the Temple priests who tried to end it with the crucifixion. They knew the prophecy of Ezechiel too, and they could hear in Christ’s denunciation of them, the voice of the prophets of old. The reign of Christ is the result of an extraordinary attraction that the God-man has to the men and women who end up calling themselves His sons and daughters. To summarise chapter 34 of Ezekiel – the Holy One berates the Hebrew priesthood of the prophet’s time (some 600 years before Christ) for betraying His trust and the trust of the people, of being bad shepherds. Now, God says through the prophet, the solution, long-conceived of, is finally upon you. The chosen people shall not be left to the likes of worldly priests. Rather God Himself would descend to look after His flock. This makes this chapter of Ezekiel into the Good Shepherd chapter of the Old Testament, to match the Good Shepherd chapter of the New Testament, the 10th of the Gospel of S. John, where Christ declares that He is the Good Shepherd, whose sheep follow Him everywhere because they know His voice.
“Jesus spoke to them again; ‘Believe me,’ He said, ‘it is I Who am the door of the sheep-fold. Those others who have found their way in are all thieves and robbers; to these, the sheep paid no attention. I am the door; a man will find salvation if he makes his way in through Me; he will come and go at will, and find pasture. The thief only comes to steal, to slaughter, to destroy; I have come so that they may have life, and have it more abundantly. I am the good Shepherd. The good Shepherd lays down His life for His sheep, whereas the hireling, who is no shepherd, and does not claim the sheep as his own, abandons the sheep and takes to flight as soon as he sees the wolf coming, and so the wolf harries the sheep and scatters them. The hireling, then, takes to flight because he is only a hireling, because he has no concern over the sheep. I am the good Shepherd; My sheep are known to Me and know Me; just as I am known to My Father, and know Him. And for these sheep I am laying down My life.
Gospel of S. John, 10: 7-15 [link]
Through Ezechiel, God said that He would Himself care for the sheep, rule their hearts, draw them to Himself. And He would judge between the sheep that are for Him and those who are ranged against Him. In the gospel message this weekend, Christ describes Himself as returning victorious – as the divine Shepherd-king of the first reading – making the judgement that Ezechiel long ago mentioned.
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit down upon the throne of His glory, and all nations will be gathered in His presence, where He will divide men one from the other, as the shepherd divides the sheep from the goats; He will set the sheep on His right, and the goats on His left. Then the King will say to those who are on His right hand, ‘Come, you that have received a blessing from My Father, take possession of the kingdom which has been prepared for you since the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me food, thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you brought Me home, naked, and you clothed Me, sick, and you cared for Me, a prisoner, and you came to Me.’ Whereupon the just will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw Thee hungry, and fed Thee, or thirsty, and gave Thee drink? When was it that we saw Thee a stranger, and brought Thee home, or naked, and clothed Thee? When was it that we saw Thee sick or in prison and came to Thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Believe Me, when you did it to one of the least of My brethren here, you did it to Me.”
Gospel of S. Matthew, 25: 31-36 [link]
What is the matter of the judgement? Charity! Love! Did you show love for the poor, the hungry, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned? He asks us. In their faces, He implies, you should have seen My own. Recall His condemnation of the Hebrew priests of Ezechiel’s time for their inability to love the people in their care; recall His condemnation of the scribes and the pharisees of first-century Jerusalem for their inability to love the people in their care. Now, He asks us His Christians to demonstrate our love to the people He now places within our circles of influence, to be Christs to them. If He truly rules our hearts, if we are thus living in the Lord’s own house (in the words of our psalm), we should be His arms and His feet in this world, for our works of charity are actually acts of love towards Him.
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 