“What must we do?!” This is cry of the repentant, the penitent; the cry of the men in our first reading today who were duped by the Temple priests into forming a mob and calling for the death of Christ. S. Peter, who is himself not shy of acknowledging that he had denied Christ (three times, as the Lord had predicted), wants to draw these men to the same tears that he had discovered as he fled from the hall of judgement, and towards the same love and forgiveness that he received from the risen Christ.
“[Peter concluded] ‘…God, then, has raised up this Man, Jesus, from the dead; we are all witnesses of it. And now, exalted at God’s right hand, He has claimed from His Father His promise to bestow the Holy Spirit; and He has poured out that Spirit, as you can see and hear for yourselves. David never went up to heaven, and yet David has told us, The Lord said to my Master, Sit on My right hand, while I make thy enemies a footstool under thy feet. Let it be known, then, beyond doubt, to all the house of Israel, that God has made Him Master and Christ, this Jesus Whom you crucified.‘ When they heard this, their consciences were stung; and they asked Peter and his fellow apostles, ‘Brethren, what must we do?’ ‘Repent,’ Peter said to them, ‘and be baptized, every one of you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, to have your sins forgiven; then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is for you and for your children, and for all those, however far away, whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.’ And he used many more words besides, urgently appealing to them; ‘Save yourselves,’ he said, ‘from this false-minded generation.’ So all those who had taken his words to heart were baptized, and about three thousand souls were won for the Lord that day.”
Acts of the Apostles, 2: 32-41 [link]
In the long and sordid history of antisemitism, we can learn about the many Christians who throughout our history condemned the Jewish nation as a whole for the torture and execution of Christ, and used this as a reason to persecute that nation. Against this behaviour, the teaching authority (or Magisterium) of the Church has always declared that it was not a handful of Jews led by the Temple authorities who obtained the Passion of Christ, but all of sinful mankind. So, if S. Peter is addressing a crowd of people in Jerusalem after the Pentecost event (in our reading), a crowd which may have included some of the malefactors on Good Friday, the Church addresses all of sinful mankind – all of us – mired in sin and rejection of God. And the Church says to all of us, You have obtained the suffering of the Lord… and by it you are now saved!
Such is the wisdom and the generosity of God. Forgive them, He had whispered from the cross, Forgive them for they know not what they do. And they didn’t. And we still don’t, when we commit the sins we do. A little harmless sin there, we say to ourselves, we’re not hurting anyone, it’s not as if we’ve killed somebody, is it? A little venial sin here, a little uncharity there. Nobody need even know. But He felt it on that cross, two thousand years ago. Oh the guilt of it! The modern world doesn’t like this guilt. They make fun of the Catholics, and the great work of schooling that our religious Sisters and others have done for so long. Their religion, they say, is all about guilt and feeling bad, not being able to enjoy life. But there must come a time when every one of them – and every one of us – is convicted of sin. A churchman like S. Peter may do it with an inspired outburst, a bishop possibly could, a priest in the confessional perhaps, an irate parent or grandparent more likely.
And it drops upon us with a crash. That little harmless sin may have caused misery to somebody; well to Christ, yes, but perhaps also to somebody we know, perhaps to ourselves. What are we to do, Peter? Repent! says the man who had to repent himself, who must have fallen at the feet of the Blessed Virgin on Good Friday and wept and said, I have betrayed your Son (three times, dear Mother). So let us repent, for it’s never too late to repent and save yourselves from a perverse generation (as the Apostle says in the reading above), a generation that sins and refuses to acknowledge it, that destroys the lives of men and women and pretends that evils like abortion, euthanasia, etc. are good things.
This Sunday is customarily called Good Shepherd Sunday, and we see that in the readings. The Church is not as inclusive as many people want it to be, I suppose. We often hear from churchmen who say it is. Open to all, they say. There’s this modern song that is sung in some church with a refrain that says, All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place. It is a rather hopeful idea, that all people are of good will, and want the best for everybody else. Nobody can accuse us Catholics of not being hopeful. But as we can see in this reading, the sheepfold of the Church is enclosed by a fence with a gate, for the protection of the sheep, and there is a gate-keeper, probably the Successor of S. Peter. And there are predators (thieves and robbers) seeking to climb the fence.
“‘Believe me when I tell you this; the man who climbs into the sheep-fold by some other way, instead of entering by the door, comes to steal and to plunder: it is the shepherd, who tends the sheep, that comes in by the door. At his coming the keeper of the door throws it open, and the sheep are attentive to his voice; and so he calls by name the sheep which belong to him, and leads them out with him. When he has brought out all the sheep which belong to him, he walks in front of them, and the sheep follow him, recognising his voice. If a stranger comes, they run away from him instead of following him; they cannot recognise the voice of a stranger.’ This was a parable which Jesus told them; and they could not understand what He meant to say to them. So 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.”
Gospel of S. John, 10: 1-10 [link]
We do have to be realistic, and if past popes have spoken about ‘enemies of the Church,’ that did not cease to be a reality after the magical days of the 1960s. If S. Peter warned Jerusalem about a perverse generation of worldly men in our first reading, the theme is reiterated throughout the NT, and the Good Shepherd of the gospel reading tells us that there are spiritual thieves and brigands. We know from the history of the Church the heretics and schismatics (often ordained priests) who have torn the Church apart, particularly in these our own lands. We may fault particular monarchs for the damage, but if they could not have their way with the Roman authority they had to find conniving priests to help them. Thieves and robbers for hire.
We Catholics are to be wily as serpents but gentle as doves, as Christ has said elsewhere, and we should seek to discern the spirits, as S. Ignatius of Loyola used to say. We should then be able to recognise the voice of the Master and distinguish it from the whisper of the serpent, as Christ says in this reading. If there truly are predators even within the sheepfold, and we have heard extraordinary stories of wicked priests and bishops in the last half-century, we should be vigilant and pray hard.
And we are not to worry, for the Good Shepherd is still about and He will bring good out of every evil.
“As in honour pledged,
Psalm 22(23) [link]
by sure paths He leads me;
dark be the valley about my path,
hurt I fear none while He is with me;
Thy rod, Thy crook are my comfort.”
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 