The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Christ the good shepherd knows His sheep and His sheep know Him. There is only one fold to which all of mankind is called to join, and that fold is the Catholic Church. Outside of that fold there is no salvation.

We are compared to sheep as Christ is our shepherd. It would do us well then, to consider the characteristics of sheep to be sure that we strive to obtain those good qualities that will make us true sheep in this one fold.

One of the first characteristics of sheep is that they have no means of self defense, but are always dependant upon others for their protection. There is a fable that says when God created the sheep, they complained because all the other animals were given weapons for their own protection, but they were given nothing. They do not bite, kick, butt, they do not poison or sting. But, God told the sheep that their weapon was to be their meekness. And Christ Himself tells us in the Eight Beatitudes that the meek shall inherit the earth.

And oftentimes Catholics are forced to admit that others often have an unfair advantage over us. We must fight with both hands tied behind our backs. We cannot use the ways of those in the world: lying, cheating, stealing, backbiting, slander, and calumny. Though the world use all these evil means against us, we must on the contrary remain meek and humble. Our Good Shepherd has given us the perfect example of how we are to behave. He went to His death meekly without complaint or resistance.

This by no means suggests that we must bow down to the evils of the world or must compromise with the world. It only suggests that we choose rather to submit to the persecutions of the world and the devils rather than offend God in the least way by doing evil to anyone _ even our enemies. We are commanded rather to love our enemies, and to do good to those who persecute us. We must have the meekness of lambs or in other words the meekness of Christ. We must not render evil for evil, but rather good for evil. We must overcome evil with goodness.

And if this should mean that we will have to die at the hands of an evil world or evil men then we must be like the martyrs willingly and eagerly ready to lay down our lives rather than offend God in the least. And we must pray for our enemies as Christ prayed as He hung upon the cross: "Lord forgive them for they know not what they are doing."

Such sacrifices and offerings of ourselves are not useless but are on the contrary overly abundant with fruit. Christ's sacrifice obtained the forgiveness of our sins and opened the gates of heaven to us, etc. The blood of the martyrs brought about the conversions of many. It is said that the Church grew from the blood of these martyrs. We know well enough that it was the shedding of St. Stephen's blood that brought the grace of conversion to St. Paul.

Our greatest strength is not in worldly weapons or power, but in humble meekness. We cannot resist the world with a force of arms or rebellion, but with Charity, peace, humility, meekness, etc.

We are sent out as soldiers of Christ like lambs among wolves. We have no chance if we rely upon ourselves, but with Christ all things are possible. Therefore we must place all our hope and trust in Him.

As we stand defenseless in the weapons of the world we soon realize that it is only the cowards and the weak who strike the defenseless. And these cowards and the week need to be prayed for because truly they do not know what they are doing. Those who are not cowards or week will not strike those whom they realize are without defense even if they disagree with them as there is no glory in overpowering those who will not or cannot defend themselves.

Such meekness and bravery in the face of threats, pain and suffering, will often cause them to pause and consider what the meek have that they do not have. They will wonder where the meek receive such inner strength and convictions. They will become envious of the undisturbed peace that the meek maintain. And then they can be converted. Then we may make out of the hardest of sinners the greatest of saints. All without force or weapons other than the loving example of peaceful meekness.

In this the sheep not only know their Master but become like Him.

Franciscan Benefactor Seraph Subscription Vocations Have you remembered God?