Fr. Roger J. Landry
Carmelite Monastery of Our Mother of Mercy and Saint Joseph
Alexandria, South Dakota
Monday of the First Week of Lent, Extraordinary Form
March 7, 2022
Ez 34:11-16, Mt 25:31-46
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided the homily:
- The ultimate purpose of Lent is conversion, turning away from sin, turning toward God, and ultimately and literally turning with him. It’s to be restored in the image and likeness of God, to receive more fruitfully God’s love and help to become holy as he is holy, merciful as he is merciful, and striving to love others as he has loved us first.
- In today’s first reading from the Prophet Ezekiel, we see how God loves. He loves us as a shepherd loves his sheep. He looks after us, tends us, protects us, seeks us out, gathers us and brings us back, leads us out among the people, rescues us, binds our wounds, heals our illnesses, pastures us in rich pastures, gives us rest, and shepherds us rightly. Jesus would at last put a human and divine face to this prophetic description, as he identified himself as the Good Shepherd and showed his care to know his sheep, call each of them by name with his trustworthy, recognizable voice, walk ahead of them so that they might follow him, leave the 99 to go out after the lost, give them eternal life so that they may never perish, and ultimately lay down his life for them.
- The first thing we need to do in Lent and in life is to allow Jesus, the Good Shepherd, to shepherd us, to hear his voice, to follow him, to graze in the pastures to which he leads us. But he also seeks to make us shepherds after his own heart, to assist him in his shepherdly care, to take responsibility for others and share in his feeding, guiding and protecting of others. We see this transformation clearly in the life of St. Peter. After the Resurrection, when Jesus appeared to the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus asked Peter three times: “Simon, Son of John, do you love me more than these?” After each of the three times Peter responded, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” Jesus gave him a commission: “Feed my lambs,” telling him in particular to take care of his young people; “Tend my sheep,” which in the Greek means to guard and guide; and “Feed my sheep.” Jesus, the Good Shepherd, was entrusting the care and nourishment of his flock, young and old, to Peter’s loving solicitude. They would always remain Christ’s sheep — feed mylambs, tend mysheep, Jesus said — but they would be guided by a sheep like themselves, chosen, formed and commissioned. While there is obviously unique aspect to the shepherdly vocation of Peter and his successors, each of us, in having been called to love others as Christ has loved us first, is called to shepherd others as Christ has shepherded us first.
- That brings us to today’s powerful Gospel in which the Good Shepherd makes plain the type of shepherdly care he expects. He tells us that at the General Judgment, he will be like a shepherd separating sheep from goats. Those who have proven to be his good sheep, he will place on his right, and those who have been goats — confused often with sheep at first glance but who have hair instead of wool, tails that point down instead of up, who browse instead of graze, who like to do their own thing rather than stick together, and who have 60 chromosomes instead of 54 — on his left. The sheep will have distinguished themselves by how they shepherded with love those in need, when they found someone hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick or imprisoned. The goats, Jesus says in the image, will be those who did nothing. Because the Good Shepherd identifies with every sheep, because he cares for 100 out of 100, he says clearly that he takes personally whether we love or stiff each person we find in such circumstances. He indicates that the food, drink, welcome, clothing, care and visits we give or fail to give to people in these circumstances, we give or fail to give to him. And he says our eternal destiny will depend on it, not because he’s keeping a ledger of homeless people cared for versus disregarded, for example, but because our eternal life will depend on whether we have in fact been transformed by his shepherdly care to care in turn as a shepherd for others. Some, he says, who may never have heard of him, may in fact have received this transformation, stunned that they were caring for him when they were caring for others. Others, he says, who certainly knew of him and who would never fail to care for him if they knew that’s what they were doing, would only have had a superficial relationship with him and never been sufficiently transformed. That’s why they’ll ask, “When did we see you … and not minister to your needs?” God wants us to feed and tend his sheep and lambs, especially those who are mangled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. And he says everything hinges on it.
- Today, in the extraordinary form of the Latin Rite, the Church celebrates the Memorial of a good sheep and good shepherd, one who heard and followed the Good Shepherd’s voice, grazed on the rich pastures to which the Good Shepherd led him, and then spent his relatively short life trying to nourish the Lord’s flock with truth, generous love and fervent piety. As a teenager, after meeting some of the newly founded members of the Order of Preachers, popularly called the Dominicans after their founder St. Dominic, St. Thomas Aquinas discovered God was calling him to be one of them. But that was very much opposed by Thomas’ family, particularly his mother, who had plans for Thomas to follow her brother as Abbot of the nearby prestigious Benedictine Monastery of Monte Cassino, where St. Benedict and St. Scholastica are buried. She would consent for him to become a priest, but only a type of priest consistent with his worldly nobility. She absolutely and inflexibly didn’t want him to become a priest of a mendicant order that begged for food, since that would lead him to suffer the indignity of being stiffed by those so many who goats of the Good Shepherd. Thomas, therefore, when he reached majority ran away from home, heading to Paris to join the Dominicans. His mother, however, sent his brothers on horseback to capture him and bring him home, where she had him thrown into the dungeon prison of their castle so that he wouldn’t escape. It’s there that they tried to break him from his desire to become a Dominican, his brothers going so far as to send a prostitute into the dungeon to try to have him fall in chastity, a temptation he thoroughly resisted. Eventually he would escape — it seems with the help of his mother, who thought it would be less embarrassing for him to escape and follow his vocation than for the family to concede him permission — and become a Dominican.
- But his imprisonment of more than a year was a gift of the Good Shepherd that made this sheep capable of producing rich theological pastures on which multitudes over the past seven and a half centuries have been able to graze. It’s one of the most important things that has happened in the history of theology, because it was during that time that Thomas, to spend his confinement profitably, got a copy of the Latin New Testament and memorized it inside out. For the rest of his life, the words of Christ, the insights of the apostles, were on the tip of his tongue, something that strengthened everything he ever wrote, a contemplatathat was shared with all. Thomas sought to unite revelation to reason, with the help of the recently discovered texts of Aristotle, so that reason would help to deepen our understanding of the faith and faith would purify reason. Since the truths of faith and reason both come from God he knew that they could never truly be in conflict, just apparent conflict, and he began an incredibly prodigious output of writing that has influenced Christian theology and philosophy ever since.
- But as influential as his theological and philosophical corpus has been in the history of Christian thought, I believe his greatest legacy flowed out of his prayerful and shepherdly heart, from his pure conscience and soul. After the Eucharistic Miracle of Bolsena, Pope Urban IV asked him and St. Bonaventure to compose the Office to celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi — the hymns, the lessons, and the prayers. St. Thomas won the competition against his holy Franciscan friend. And we are still very much profiting from the fruits of his contemplation, including on this retreat. He wrote the Tantum Ergoand the O Salutaris we still sing at Eucharistic Adoration, the Panis Angelicus, the Adoro Te Devoteand the Lauda Sion Salvatorem we chant on Corpus Christi. In that sequence, he showed how deeply he related to the Good Shepherd in the Holy Eucharist and wanted us to share that confident love. “Bone pastor,” he wrote, “panis vere, Jesu, nostri miserére: Tu nos pasce, nos tuére: Tu nos bona fac vidére In terra vivéntium.” “O Good Shepherd, Jesus true Bread, have mercy on us. You who pasture us protect us. Make us see the good things [of the Lord] in the land of the living.” He continued, “Tu, qui cuncta scis et vales: Qui nos pascis hic mortáles: Tuos ibi commensáles, Cohærédes et sodáles, Fac sanctórum cívium.” “You who know and judge all things, who pasture us mortals here below: make us your dinner guests, your co-heirs, the fellow citizens of the saints.”He always related to Jesus as his Good Shepherd and wanted to bring all of us to receive that same nourishment and protection from him in the Eucharist, as he eats with us, enriches us with his inheritance and sanctifies us.
- Toward the end of short five decades God gave him on earth, he had two great mystical experiences (we are aware of) that are important for us to ponder. In the first, he was so moved by the presence of the Lord that he stopped writing all together, recognizing everything he had written — some of the most important and penetrating theology anyone has ever written — was “like straw” compared to the experience he had of God in prayer. The second experience was when Jesus spoke to him from the Crucifix about three months before he died at the age of 49, 748 years ago today. Jesus said, “Bene scripsisti de me, Thoma; quam ergo mercedem accipias?” “You have written well of me, Thomas? What reward would you receive? What do you wish that I give you?” Thomas could have asked for anything, like the young Solomon, but he knew well who is treasure was. “Non aliam, Domine, nisi te ipsum,” he replied. “Nothing but you, Lord!” His whole life, his whole treasure, was the Lord. The Lord, the Good Shepherd, was the One he sought in his vocation even against the objections and obstacles of his family. The Lord was the One he sought in his study of Sacred Scripture and all his Sacred Theology. The Lord was the One he loved in all of his Eucharistic hymns. He only and always wanted the Lord as his reward, and now, on this feast day, we rejoice with him that with all the saints he has that “mercedem.”
- At the beginning of this Mass we prayed to God that he would grant us to “understand what [St. Thomas] taught and imitate what we accomplished.” Few of us will ever be able to read and understand all St. Thomas’ theology, but we can understand the most important thing he taught, about the primacy of God, about finding in him our sole reward, about allowing him to pasture us, about responding to his help to become like him. And we pray that we may imitate what he accomplished, doing God’s holy will with abandon as a good shepherd in the image of the Good Shepherd, so that we might be able to enjoy forever what he sang about in the last lines of the Panis Angelicus, words he prayed to God and we could pray to God and to him: “Per tuas semitas duc nos quo tendimus ad lucem quam inhabitas!” Through your footsteps, lead us on the way we are tending, to the light where you dwell!”
The readings for today’s Mass were:
A reading from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel
For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark. I will lead them out from among the peoples and gather them from the foreign lands; I will bring them back to their own country and pasture them upon the mountains of Israel [in the land’s ravines and all its inhabited places]. In good pastures will I pasture them, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing ground. There they shall lie down on good grazing ground, and in rich pastures shall they be pastured on the mountains of Israel. I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal [but the sleek and the strong I will destroy], shepherding them rightly.
Gradual
O God, our Shield, look upon the face of your anointed, O Lord of Hosts, hear my prayer.
Tract
O Lord, do not deal with us as our sins merit, nor requite us as our deeds deserve. O Lord, do not hold past iniquities against us; may your compassion come quickly, for we have been brought very low. (Kneel) Help us, O God our savior, for the glory of your name. O Lord, deliver us, pardon our sins for your name’s sake.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew
Jesus said to his disciples, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
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