What delightful and consoling words are communicated to us in the Gospel. Do not live in fear, little flock. The Lord had such great tenderness and solicitude for us.
He desires that we be preserved from the fear that threatens to separate us from Him and His salvation. He also calls us by a name which conveys his all embracing love. We are his little flock.
Little, for in some times and places a not so very grand or important group as the world might judge. Little also for the reason that we are like tender lambs, weak and in need of a shepherds protection and care against the wickedness and snares of the devil, who, with his minions, are as wolves who seek to devour the flock.
So we learn thus to look with trust upon Jesus Christ, our true shepherd, and to follow his voice faithfully. He will lead us out to pasture and feed us, and likewise lead us back into the sheepfold for safekeeping.
We learn, too, that there is but one flock which has been formed and belongs to this one shepherd, Christ. This one little flock addressed with such tender devotion by the Shepherd, is the Church. As the place where the sheep of the Lord are gathered safely, the Church is the true sheepfold.
“The Church is, accordingly, a sheepfold, the sole and necessary gateway to which is Christ. It is also the flock of which God himself foretold that he would be the shepherd, and whose sheep, even though governed by human shepherds, are unfailingly nourished and led by Christ himself, the Good Shepherd and Prince of Shepherds, who gave his life for his sheep. (CCC 754)
Jesus Christ is shepherd of the one flock, his Body the Church, whose members we are. This one Church of Christ “subsists within the Catholic Church” (Lumen Gentium, Second Vatican Council.). The Church, the one flock, makes visible the kingdom of God.
“This Kingdom shines out before men in the word, in the works and in the presence of Christ.” (Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium 5)
To welcome Jesus’ word is to welcome “the Kingdom itself.” ( LG 5) The seed and beginning of the Kingdom are the “little flock” of those whom Jesus came to gather around him, the flock whose shepherd he is. (Lk 12:32; cf. Mt 10:16; 26:31; Jn 10:1-21.)
They form Jesus’ true family. (Cf. Mt 12:49.) To those whom he thus gathered around him, he taught a new “way of acting” and a prayer of their own. (Cf. Mt5:6) (CCC 764)
In the Church, the one flock the Lord feeds and protects His sheep through the ministry of the shepherds who stand in his Person, in persona Christi.
Priests, bishops and the Holy Father, our Pope (Papa in Greek) enable us to live without fear because we are in intimate contact with our Shepherd through the preaching and teaching of the Scripture and tradition and the grace of sacramental life. In the ecclesial service of the ordained minister, it is Christ himself who is present to his Church as Head of his Body, Shepherd of his flock, high priest of the redemptive sacrifice, Teacher of Truth.
This is what the Church means by saying that the priest, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, acts in persona Christi Capitis: It is the same priest, Christ Jesus, whose sacred person his minister truly represents. Now the minister, by reason of the sacerdotal consecration which he has received, is truly made like to the high priest and possesses the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself (virtute ac persona ipsius Christi).
Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ. (CCC 1548)
The ministry of our shepherds in the priesthood of Christ was founded upon and handed down by the Apostles. He is present among us through their ministry by the power of the Holy Spirit, in particular as they exercise their priesthood in the Holy Mass and all the sacraments.
Christ himself chose the apostles and gave them a share in his mission and authority. Raised to the Father’s right hand, he has not forsaken his flock but he kee ps it under his constant protection through the apostles, and guides it still through these same pastors who continue his work today. Thus, it is Christ whose gift it is that some be apostles, others pastors. He continues to act through the bishops. (CCC 1575)
In particular it is the priest and bishop, who stands in the place of Peter, who acts as principal shepherd of the flock of the Church.
The Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the rock of his Church. He gave him the keys of his Church and instituted him shepherd of the whole flock.
The office of binding and loosing which was given to Peter was also assigned to the college of apostles united to its head. This pastoral office of Peter and the other apostles belongs to the Church’s very foundation and is continued by the bishops under the primacy of the Pope. (CCC 881)
We, the little flock of the Lord, need never live in fear if we faithfully feed at the true source of the graces of redemption and remain in the sheepfold of the Ch urch.
See also nos. 763, 765, 766, 2849 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Meeting Christ in the Liturgy www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/
Let’s pray for each other until, together next week, we “meet Christ in the liturgy”, Father Cusick