Homily for the Morning Mass on the Fourth Sunday of Easter
Acts 2:14.36-41; Psalm 22; I Peter 2:20-25; John 10:1-10
I wonder if you’ve ever heard of Fr Jacques Mourad? He was the superior of the Monastery of Mar Elian in the Syrian town of Al Qaryatayn, about 60 miles southeast of Homs. A monastery which was a living symbol of reconciliation between Christians and Muslims. In 2015the monastery was destroyed by Islamic State and Fr Mourad was held for 84 days. He was tortured and asked to convert to Islam. Refusing to deny his Christianity his fate seemed sealed. And yet he was able to make friends with some of his captors. He spoke of his unshakeable commitment to peace, to justice, to reconciliation. After several months he was transferred first to a prison alongside other Christians and then back to his monastery where he was placed under house arrest. There he was permitted to celebrate the Eucharist. Eventually he was freed. It is a strange and unusual story not often told amid the many of heroic saints and martyrs for the Christian faith of more recent times. Of course it goes without saying that he was very blessed to find he did not become yet another victim of the savagery of the Islamic extremists who have decimated the Christian presence in the Middle East. But for me Fr Mourad’s enduring inspiration is his witness to what the Good Shepherd is about: in his very self so embodying what God is about that he attracts all to himself. He prayed for his captors, firm about his Christian faith and in equal measure modelling Christ’s care for all peoples; attracting the sheep into his true fold where in the darkest of times we embrace reconciliation, dialogue, mercy; where we discern the voice which speaks the truth of integrity and behold the human face of God.
This is also ‘Vocations Sunday’, the Sunday set aside every year to pray for vocations in their various forms. We rightly focus on promoting and praying for more younger and not so young men too perhaps to respond to the call to be priests; we pray for more to respond to the call to religious life. We need good shepherds to lead us and good women and men to model prophetic lives of contemplation and action. We need these vocations badly. But Good Shepherd Sunday invites us to think much more broadly. Because the Good Shepherd’s attraction is that he wants to draw us all into the fold. The Church is a living communion in which every individual made in his image is called to, as our newest saint John Henry Newman would have it, a particular service. And that is what we are called to discern.
During this time of lockdown we have been busy at Farm Street doing some planning. And, responding to a request which came out of the Parish Forum last year, we are offering some time in the autumn – we hope and pray government directives will permit us to be back fully open then – to focus on discernment of personal call in life. Many have been saying to me they have been moved to spend more time in contemplation, thinking, reflecting, praying, on where I, we are going in life. Life will be different after the lockdown is lifted is an obvious refrain and we need to prepare. And the encouragement of Pope Francis to rekindle the gift of contemplation and ask ourselves where we are going as the human race is touching nerves.
So in the autumn we will be offering a week called ‘Where are you going?’ which invites us to reflect on the various ways we commit, we respond, we just are living out our Christian witness. Reflecting on living out Christ’s call in the workplace, in married life, as priests, deacons, in the religious life, in new religious communities such as CheminNeuf and the Emmanuel Community where there are new exciting ways of committing. The single life too we will focus on – is it a calling or is it a step on the road? So many who come to our church, so many in London are living out Christian witness unmarried, not in religious vows, and can too easily be forgotten. The Good Shepherd calls us as we are. That’s why the sheep hear that distinctive voice. It is a voice of heart speaking to heart. A voice which represents an intimate personal call to every one of us.
I believe that responding to that voice and not responding to the voice of the stranger, the bad spirit which wants to throw us off course, is harder than ever in our world. I believe that to be a Christian is harder than ever. Not because of religious extremism and terrorism, not because of the rise of secularism – yes, they are factors but the secular can be positive and good. Rather the voice which beckons us into the one true fold is through a very narrow gate which requires us to be committed. This may not involve promises of obedience and celibacy or religious vows but the gate is narrow and the call harder to discern amid the many calls there are from other more compelling inner and external voices. To embrace the truth when the truth is not so much about professing a creed or undertaking religious practices and habits but a truth which is a new integrity. Integrity is I think the new truth for our society and we are being called to embrace it wholeheartedly if we are to respond to the vocation we, each one of us, have. If we are to be a Church which truly takes its place at the heart of society and calls it to account.
Generous commitment. I see that all around me here in central London. In the last few weeks we have seen so much generosity. However deeply tragic and difficult the COVID-19 crisis is we are seeing good come out of it. I have witnessed nurses putting themselves on the line to save lives, the huge number of volunteers stepping in to save the lives of the homeless, and I’m sure where you are you are seeing similar acts of great generosity. I sense also how many are more and more restless with the current situation. I for one can’t wait until the church can reopen. We are being people-starved and that’s not good. But as Pope Francis reminds us we are being given a gift too of time for contemplation, time for discernment, time to ask ourselves, myself “Where am I going?” And discernment according to St Ignatius is not just about what makes me happy or how I use my gifts but about a radical choice to say I am generously going to listen to the true voice of the Good Shepherd and commit to follow him in the best way I can to build up his kingdom on this earth.
So “where are we going?” “Where am I going?” “Where are you going?” The Church chooses this Sunday on which we hear the Gospel of the Good Shepherd for a very good reason, namely because it shows us how truly radical the Christian vocation is. Will I this week take time to really listen carefully to the voice of the Good Shepherd? What more is he, who gave himself up for me, asking me to commit? Far from an easy one to answer especially in such uncertain times as these but this crisis will be over and we will move into a new world inviting us to commit generously to following him.
The gate is open and the Shepherd is calling. His voice is distinctive and personal to each one of us. Listen to it carefully. He’s calling me; he’s calling you. How are we going to respond in a world which is crying out for a new truth, a new integrity, a new humanity?
Fr Dominic Robinson S.J