Fr Sheety is the Irish Priest whose homily against ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖism was condemned by Ireland's media. Because of this it went world wide. Here is one of his weekly homilies:
Jesus Felt Pity for the Crowd Have you ever seen Michael Angelo’s Pieta? It depicts the placing of Jesus’ dead body in the arms of the Virgin Mary after it was taken down from the cross. The word ‘pity’ comes from the Latin and means feeling sorrow for someone. This Sunday we learn from Matthew’s Gospel ((:36-10:8) that Jesus “felt sorry for the crowd because they were troubled and abandoned like sheep without a shepherd.” He had pity for them just as He had for the women of Jerusalem whom He consoled as He carried His cross to His crucifixion. He said to them, “Weep not for me but for yourselves and your children” (Lk 23:28). He didn’t want them to pity Him but to pity themselves and their children. Why did Jesus feel sorry for the crowd and the women? Because they were lost due to a lack of direction and protection. They needed leaders to show them where to find freedom, justice, love, and peace. Only Jesus Himself could provide such an environment. Seeing the people so lost Jesus called for leadership who would lead the people to Him so that He could save them from their malaise due to sin and ignorance.
Recognizing the people’s need for true leaders, Jesus noted that, “The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to His harvest.” This is why Jesus ordained twelve disciples to lead the people to Him so that He could be their Saviour Shepherd. “He gave the twelve disciples authority over unclean spirits with power to cast them out and to cure all kinds of diseases and sickness.” Then He commanded them to, “Go, therefore, to the lost sheep of the House of Israel … proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven is close at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out devils.” This was what Jesus prescribed for the people so that they would no longer be troubled and feel dejected or abandoned. It was for this reason that Jesus founded His Church to provide the people with what they needed so that they would be at peace and no longer feel lost.
What does it mean to be lost? It means that I don’t know where I am or how to get to my destination. When Jesus speaks about being lost He isn’t talking about geography. He’s speaking spiritually. To be lost spiritually means that I’m in a state of sin and I don’t know how to be freed from its grip. This is where Jesus makes all the difference. First of all He tells us that His mission is “to call sinners” (Lk 5:32) to repentance and seek the freedom of forgiveness. God told Moses (Ex 19:2-6) to tell the people, “if you obey my voice and hold fast to my covenant, you shall be my very own … You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” God gives us an identity by making us members of His kingdom by being baptized into Jesus’ Church. There He makes us His gifted children and gives us a clear destination so that we not only know who we are but also know where we’re headed. That knowledge gives us a clear purpose and a map so that we don’t get lost. With the Psalmist (Ps 99:1-5) we can sing, “We are His people; the sheep of His flock… serve the Lord with gladness … He made us, we belong to Him … He is faithful from age to age.”
St. Paul expresses Jesus’ compassion for us, pitiful sinners, when he wrote to the Romans (5:6-11), “What proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.” Jesus’ death and Resurrection conquered Satan’s grip on us. But to benefit from what Jesus did we must obey His voice and keep His covenant and He will make us His own. In the words of St. Paul, “we boast of God through Our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
The mission of Jesus’ Church is His mission, namely to “feed my lambs … tend my sheep … Feed my sheep” (Jn 21:15-17). The ordained leaders are the Pope, bishops, priests, and deacons. Their mission is to remind the people of what God has done for them by offering the grace of repentance, forgiveness, made possible by His Son as their Saviour. Through preaching the Gospel they nourish and remind the people that “the Kingdom of Heaven is very near” and visible in Jesus’ Church. Many people today are spiritually troubled or lost because of unrepented and unforgiven sin. This is evidenced in depression, worry, loneliness, self-harm, ѕυιcιdє, self-absorption, and an anti-life mentality. The Church, through her leaders, must tell all who are spiritually sick that Jesus wants to give them an identity, a purpose, a bright future, and a family to satisfy their need to belong where they can find a peace that the world can’t give them.
Jesus looked at the crowd and remarked that their misery resulted from a lack of spiritual leadership – they were like sheep without a shepherd, left to their own limited devices. Without a shepherd sheep will stray and end up caught in thorns or fall into ravines or drown in pools. Without spiritual shepherds the people stray, get caught up in the Woke and atheistic culture, become trapped in their own finiteness, or create their own truth and morality which turn out to be false. This is the result of ignorance as to who Jesus is and where He is present offering salvation to sinners. Sin, both personal and communal, is the root cause of much of our mental and emotional problems, which is why they cannot be resolved therapeutically. Sin isn’t a psychological condition; it's an inheritance from the sin of Adam and Eve, from which we need Jesus Christ to save us. It’s the responsibility of the spiritual shepherds to heal the spiritually wounded by bringing them to the Divine Shepherd-Healer, Jesus Christ. He continues to feel sorry for the spiritually sick, lost, and dead and commands those whom He baptizes and ordains through His Church to seek them out and call them to avail of His healing grace.
Do you know someone who is spiritually lost, sick, or dead? Do you feel sorry for him or her? We should. Jesus wants you to do what you can to let them know about what He wants to do for them so that “they might have life and have it more abundantly.” God will hold all of us accountable for not telling others about what Jesus has given us so that they might avail of it too because the Kingdom of Heaven is very near them. (frsos)
Topic: Fr Sean Sheety's weekly homily (Read 640 times)