13 Jan 24 – A Shepherd’s Voice, Episode 1

“A Shepherd’s Voice” Let us begin in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Thank you for joining me for this first episode of “A Shepherd’s Voice.” I thought it was good to begin with the “Glory Be” - a simple but beautiful prayer that reminds us of what we are here for, what our life is about – to give glory to God. Probably many of us are familiar with the initials “AMDG.” It stands for “Ad majorem Dei gloriam” (“For the greater glory of God”).  I would like to dedicate this small work as a shepherd to exactly that - that we will learn and seek to give glory to God in all that we do. I have prepared some written thoughts. I thought it would be the most appropriate way to begin this presentation of “A Shepherd’s Voice” that I plan to do weekly to help us all to rejoice and to live in the Lord in difficult and challenging times. So I will turn now to more or less reading this written script to hopefully clearly say why I am here – why I am doing this – as a shepherd – and hopefully helping all of us to give glory to God in greater ways. My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Today I come to you with the first episode in a web series that I am calling “A Shepherd’s Voice.” On March 12, 1933, our country was in a time of crisis, and the 32nd President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, began what came to be known as The Fireside Chats in which he talked to the people of the United States as though he was sitting in their living room having a chat with them.  These fireside chats served as the means for the president to directly communicate with the American people during a time of crisis, particularly the Great Depression and World War II. It was a way to reassure and comfort the people in a time of great hardship and uncertainty. So that idea of the fireside chat is part of what I hope, informally but clearly founded on the truth that is our Catholic faith, on Jesus Christ who is Truth Incarnate, to chat with you on a weekly basis, to just help all of us, myself included, to be stronger in faith, and to recognize that I am simply a shepherd, but I joyfully embrace this challenge and this call to be a shepherd’s voice. Today we find ourselves in the midst of a very great crisis in our Lord’s Church. You have no doubt heard the saying, “As goes the Church, so goes the World.” This saying is very true when we are talking about the Catholic Church because we know that she is indeed the Church that Christ instituted, and therefore everything that happens involving the Church has great eternal significance. We can better understand this if we realize that the sacraments found within the Church were instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church as efficacious signs of grace, and that they are indeed necessary for salvation as they are the means by which divine life is dispensed to the faithful. (CCC 1131). Therefore, the crisis we find ourselves immersed in within the Church is not only a crisis of the Church, and not only a crisis in our own nation, but is indeed a crisis within the entire world. As I prayed about this series that I was to begin, I was prompted to read the transcript of the first fireside chat Roosevelt gave which was about the banking crisis that was currently occurring in the country. Towards the end of that first chat, he said, “We had a bad banking situation. Some of our bankers had shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people’s funds. …” And he talked about how these actions had shocked the people for a time into a sense of insecurity. He said, “You people must have faith”…. and he concluded with these words, “It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail.” I come to you today, my beloved brothers and sisters, to tell you that we have a bad situation in Our Lord’s Church, and that some of the shepherds have shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest, and this has shocked a lot of you into a sense of insecurity. But I can echo President Roosevelt when I say that this is indeed your problem no less than it is mine. Roosevelt promised the people “we cannot fail,” but he had nothing really with which to back up that claim because governments can and do fail. But I can tell you unequivocally today, brothers and sisters, that Our Lord’s Church indeed cannot and will not fail, and we have our Lord’s own words to confirm this. He said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matt 16:18). We are all very familiar with that verse from Sacred Scripture. St. Peter also says when the Lord asks him if he will leave like so many others are leaving at the challenging words of the Son of God, of Jesus Christ - “Lord, to whom shall we go?” I emphasize that, from my own shepherd’s heart, because we must remember St. Peter’s words. We must be strong – in staying close to Christ and His Church no matter what storms may embattle us because there is no other place to go – this is the Church that Christ established  - with all her flaws and human failings - she is the Church that Christ ordained for all time, and we cling to her, as we cling to Christ. Therefore, I begin this weekly series, “A Shepherd’s Voice,” for two reasons. The first reason is to reassure you brothers and sisters that, despite all that is occurring within the Church at this time, she will not fail. We must remember that we have the ultimate Good Shepherd, Our Lord Jesus Christ, who lays down His life for the sheep as Our Head. And the second reason is to bring the words of a bishop (a shepherd) to you, the faithful. Pope John Paul II, in his apostolic exhortation Pastores Gregis (“Shepherds of the Flock”) highlighted the bishop’s duty to emulate Christ the Good Shepherd. He stated that bishops are “called to be living images of Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd.” I have a long way to go to meet that standard, but I strive daily to move more into the Sacred Heart of Christ that I might indeed serve as the shepherd I am called to be. I am just a shepherd, but because I have been consecrated as a bishop in the Church that Christ established, a successor of the apostles, I take on this tremendous responsibility in all my frailty and weakness and sinfulness because I must be a shepherd’s voice to the best of my ability. And so I do so with great recognition that I must do so humbly, as one of the humblest voices of shepherds, but I know Christ and I know His Church, and I know that He is Truth Incarnate. St. John Chrysostom frequently wrote about the responsibilities of bishops as shepherds. In one of his homilies he said: “The care of the shepherd is great and continuous. He must oversee, warn, and lead his flock with wisdom, for if one sheep strays, the whole flock is at risk.” Therefore, this is my attempt, at heaven’s prompting, to fulfill that role. During these chats, brothers and sisters, I want to discuss with you the nature of this crisis, and to call you to stand firm, and to help you walk through it without being scathed by the fire. To the best of my ability, I want to be the shepherd that Christ has called me to be. I will be having a “chat” with you every Monday about things that are of extreme importance, and we will walk through this together. I am going to use the framework of the Ten Commandments to start with as I cannot think of a better framework to discuss what is now going on in Our Lord’s Church and in the world. Let me emphasize how important it is to go back to the basics, to the fundamentals of our faith. When things are shaking, we go back to the foundation. Of course, Jesus Christ is the foundation, the cornerstone of our Catholic faith. But the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, coming from the Old Testament Scriptures, described how Moses received them, they are foundation to life in Christ. He makes it clear that He came not to eliminate the commandments, but to fulfill them and to help us see more deeply how important they are. So hopefully focusing on the Ten Commandments will help all of us to go back to these basics, to these fundamentals, that are essential for navigating the confusing time in our world and in our Church. Let’s start, therefore, with the first commandment: “I am the Lord your God. You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.” Let me repeat those familiar words: “I am the Lord your God. You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.” As we look at this first commandment, some might ask the question – is not the Trinity a belief in three gods? No, the Catholic faith is monotheistic, affirming that there is only one God. God’s divine nature is indivisible and eternal. There are three crucial truths we must understand: (1) The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, (2) each Person is fully God, and (3) there is only one God. We can better understand this if we understand that the three persons are not each a part of God – they are each fully and equally God. They are in fact the unfolding of the essence of God, who is undivided. I love that phrase – “the unfolding of the essence of God.” Hopefully it reminds us that we will never fully fathom the wonder of God – the majesty and the mystery that is our God – and that hopefully that enlivens us and makes our hearts burn with joy and hope in this wondrous God whose essence is constantly unfolding for us in our weak humanity – that He has revealed Himself to us ultimately in His Son who is the revelation of God – the revelation of Truth Incarnate. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 253) states: “The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three Persons, the ‘consubstantial Trinity.