16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle B) – July 19, 2009

Scripture Readings
First Jeremiah 23:1-6
Second Ephesians 2:13-18
Gospel Mark 6:30-34

Prepared by: Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P.

1. Subject Matter
• The gift of the priesthood during this Year for Priests.

2. Exegetical Notes
• “I will appoint shepherds so that they need no longer fear and tremble; none shall be
missing:” “This word of hope declares that the future beyond judgment is so fraught with
redemptive possibility that the God who brings it about will be known primarily by that saving
work. (New Interpreter’s Bible)
• “You have become near by the blood of Christ; Christ broke down the dividing wall of enmity
through his flesh:” “In the Old Testament the Jews were brought near to God through the
blood of sacrifice (Ex. 24:8). In the New Testament people are brought near to God in a
covenant of brotherhood through the sacrifice of Christ.” (JBC)
• “His heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd:”
“Jesus’ compassion has already been referred to (Mk 1:41) and will be mentioned again in
the feeding of the four thousand (Mk 8:2). In the latter instance it is due to the crowd not
having eaten for three days. Here it is due to their lack of a shepherd to guide them: ‘for they
were like sheep not having a shepherd.’ This recalls numerous Old Testament allusions to
Israel’s need of a shepherd to lead them: Num 27:17; 1 Kgs 22:17; 2 Chron 18:16; Jer 31:10;
Ezek 34:5, 8; Zech 10:2; 13:7.” (Robert H. Stein)

3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

• 1564 "Priests are consecrated in order to preach the Gospel and shepherd the faithful as well
as to celebrate divine worship as true priests of the New Testament."
• 1442 Christ has willed that in her prayer and life and action his whole Church should be the
sign and instrument of the forgiveness and reconciliation that he acquired for us at the price
of his blood. But he entrusted the exercise of the power of absolution to the apostolic ministry
 which he charged with the "ministry of reconciliation." The apostle is sent out "on behalf of
Christ" with "God making his appeal" through him and pleading: "Be reconciled to God."
• 1468 "The whole power of the sacrament of Penance consists in restoring us to God's grace
and joining us with him in an intimate friendship." Reconciliation with God is thus the purpose
and effect of this sacrament. For those who receive the sacrament of Penance with contrite
heart and religious disposition, reconciliation "is usually followed by peace and serenity of
conscience with strong spiritual consolation."
• 845 To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the
whole of humanity together into his Son's Church. The Church is the place where humanity
must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is "the world reconciled." She is that bark
which "in the full sail of the Lord's cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in
this world."
• 1465 When he celebrates the sacrament of Penance, the priest is fulfilling the ministry of the
Good Shepherd who seeks the lost sheep, of the Good Samaritan who binds up wounds, of
the Father who awaits the prodigal son and welcomes him on his return, and of the just and
impartial judge whose judgment is both just and merciful. The priest is the sign and the
instrument of God's merciful love for the sinner.

4. Patristic Commentary and Other Authorities

• St. Jerome: “Just when God seems to be furthest from the Ephesians, he was coming close
to them by the blood of Jesus.”
• Ambrosiaster: “Paul reminds us that we were brought close to God by the blood of Christ in
order to show how great is God’s affection toward us, since he allowed his own Son to die.
We too, enduring in faith, should not yield to despair in any of the agonies inflicted on us for
his sake, knowing that what he deserves from us exceeds all that our enemies can bring
upon us.”
• St. John Chrysostom: “The shepherd needs great wisdom and a thousand eyes, to examine
the soul’s condition from every angle…The priest must not overlook any of these
considerations, but examine them all with care and apply all his remedies appropriately, for
fear his care should be in vain. The shepherd of sheep has the flock following him wherever
he leads; or if some turn aside from the direct path and leave the good pasture to graze in
barren and precipitous places, it is enough for him to call more loudly, drive them back again,
and restore to the flock those which were separated. But if a man wanders away from the
right faith, the shepherd needs a lot of concentration, perseverance, and patience. He cannot
drag by force or constrain by fear, but must by persuasion lead him back to the true
beginning from which he has fallen away. He needs, therefore, a heroic spirit, not to grow
despondent or neglect the salvation of the wanderers.”
• St. Thomas Aquinas: “After you have been converted to Christ, you are in Christ Jesus,
intimately united to him through faith and love. You, I say, who some time were afar off,
severed from God, not by space but by what you deserved since ‘salvation is far from
sinners’ (Ps 118:155), as well as from association with the saints and a share in the
covenants. Now you are made nigh to God and to his saints and covenants. You are made
nigh by the blood of Christ, that is, through is blood by which Christ draws you: ‘And I, if I be
 lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself’ (Jn 12:32). This was on account of his
vehement love which most forcefully revealed itself in the death of the cross.”
• St. Norbert: “Oh Priest, who are you? Not through yourself, since you are from nothing. Not
for yourself, since you are mediator of men. Not to yourself, since you are the spouse of the
Church. Not yours, since you are servant of all. Not yourself, since you are God. Who are
you then? You are nothing, and all.”
• St. John Marie Vianney: “A good shepherd, a pastor after God’s heart, is the greatest
treasure that the good Lord can grant to a parish, and one of the most precious gifts of divine
mercy.”
• Some insights from Pastores Dabo Vobis, Pope John Paul II:
• “After having called the Twelve to follow him, Jesus kept them at his side and lived
with them, imparting his teaching of salvation to them through word and example, and
finally he sent them out to all mankind” (#14).
• “Priests are called to prolong the presence of Christ, embodying his way of life and
making him visible in the midst of the flock entrusted to their care” (#15).
• “The priest is a servant of the Church as communion because he builds up the unity of
the Church community in the harmony of diverse vocations, charisms, and services”
(#16).
• “Priests are there to serve the faith, hope, and charity of the laity. They recognize and
uphold, as brothers and friends, the dignity of the laity as children of God and help
them to exercise fully their specific role in the overall context of the Church’s mission”
(#17).
• “Priests have become living instruments of Christ the eternal Priest so that through the
ages they can accomplish his wonderful work of reuniting the whole human race with
heavenly power” (#20).
• “The service of love is the fundamental meaning of every vocation, and it finds a
specific expression in the priestly vocation. Indeed, a priest is called to live out, as
radically as possible, the pastoral charity of Jesus, the love of the Good Shepherd who
‘lays down his life for the sheep’ (Jn 10:11)” (#40).
• “The priest should be able to know the depths of the human heart, to perceive
difficulties and problems, to make meeting and dialogue easy, to create trust and
cooperation, to express serene and objective judgments” (#43).
• “Through is daily contact with people, his sharing in their daily lives, the priest needs
to develop and sharpen his human sensitivity so as to understand more clearly their
needs, respond to their demands, perceive their unvoiced questions, and share the
hopes and expectations, the joys and burdens which are part of life: thus he will be
able to meet and enter into dialogue with all people” (#72).
• “All the difficult circumstances which people find in their path as Christians are
fraternally lived and sincerely suffered in the priest’s heart. And he, in seeking
answers for others, is constantly spurred on to find them first of all for himself” (#78).
• “People need to come out of their anonymity and fear. They need to be known and
called by name, to walk in safety along the paths of life, to be found again if they have
 become lost, to be loved, to receive salvation as the supreme gift of God’s love. All
this is done by Jesus, the Good Shepherd—by himself and by his priests with him”
(#82).
• Fr. Samuel Mazzuchelli, O.P.: “By virtue of the cross alone must the priest-apostle, with the
lively faith of Saint Peter, let down his net into the troubled sea of this life, certain that sooner
or later the divine Master will make him an instrument of salvation to many.”
• Fr. John Baptist Henri Lacordaire, O.P.: “To live in the midst of the world with no desire for its
pleasure…. To be a member of every family yet belonging to none…. To share all sufferings;
to penetrate all secrets; to heal all wounds…. To go daily from men to God to offer Him their
petitions…. To return from God to men to offer them His hope…. To have a heart of fire for
charity and a heart of bronze for chastity…. To bless and be blest forever, O God, what a life
and it is yours, O Priest of Jesus Christ!”
• Msgr. Luigi Giussani: “To be a good priest, you first of all have to be a man. If you are men,
you feel what men feel, the needs and problems typical of men; you live the relationship with
everything that becomes present to you. In your efforts to respond to all this, you learn the
truth in all these things, that is, you learn that truth of God which makes the truth of men real.
Be human; live the truth of your humanity. Your humanity is how God made you by giving you
life in the womb of your mother. Even now you are all of a sudden becoming small and
simple. Cry because you need to cry – it is natural to cry; or you are afraid, because the
problem is difficult and you feel the inadequacy of your strength. Be human! Live your
humanity as an aspiration, as a sensitivity to the problems, as so many risks to face, as a
faithfulness to whatever is urgent to you in your soul, what God makes urgent to you in your
soul from the very beginning. In this way, reality will appear to your eyes in a true way.”
• Msgr. Massimo Camisasca: “We see in our time, as in perhaps no other epoch of history, the
truth of Jesus’ words when he compared people, worn out from the lack of guidance, to
sheep without a shepherd. The sheep wander about in search of grass that can satisfy their
hunger and water that can quench their thirst, but, since they are not guided, they often travel
along paths where the grass is scorched, paths that do not lead to refreshing streams. They
move in circles, along ways that lead nowhere, and finally tire out, fall, and despair. The glory
of Christ is his passion for the human person. One cannot be fruitful without a living,
conscious, active, and passionate belonging to the Church. Not a single one of us priests has
been chosen because of merit. Rather, each has been chosen for a purpose and is
continually being filled with gifts, which are granted in order to be given away. We are called
in order to be filled with something that does not come from us and that does not belong to
us” (from Together on the Road: A Vision of Lived Communion for the Church and the
Priesthood, Pauline Books, 2005).
.
5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars
• BLESSED JUNIPERO SERRA (JULY 1): “With a keen awareness of the possible mistreatment of
the Indians by the Spanish military and by others migrating among them, this Franciscan
missionary studied the writings of Bishop Bartolome De Las Casas, OP, who earned the title
‘Protector of the Indians.’ He also acquainted himself with the Laws of the Indies of the
Spanish Crown so that he would be ready to take legal action in defense of the Native
people, should it ever be needed. Sad to say, it was! When abuse did occur, without
hesitation, in 1773, Fr. Serra made a dramatic appeal to the viceroy, traveling at great
 personal cost to his health all the way to Mexico City to present his carefully documented
‘representación.’ So effectively did he present his case that it resulted in a kind of ‘bill of
rights’ for California Indians, the first significant legislation ever to address the question of
human rights in California” (Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted).
• SAINT AUGUSTINE ZHAO RONG (JULY 9) was a Chinese diocesan priest who was martyred with
his 119 companions in 1815. Among their number was an eighteen-year-old boy, Chi Zhuzi,
who cried out to those who had just cut off his right arm and were preparing to flay him alive:
"Every piece of my flesh, every drop of my blood will tell you that I am Christian"—(“You who
once were far off have become near by the blood of Christ”).

6. Quotations from Pope Benedict XVI

• “The holiness of the priest consists in this process of becoming spiritually poor, of decreasing
before the other, of losing himself for the other: for Christ—and, in Christ, for others: for those
whom the Lord has entrusted to him.”
• “The first thing priests need to learn is the complete identification of the man with the
ministry. In Jesus, person and mission tend to coincide: all Christ’s saving activity was, and
is, an expression of his ‘filial consciousness’ which from all eternity stands before the Father
in an attitude of loving submission to his will. In a humble yet genuine way, every priest must
aim for a similar identification.”
• “The priest is called to be expert [in divine intimacy] so that he may be able to lead souls
entrusted to him humbly and trustingly to the same encounter with the Lord…. As Church
and as priests, we proclaim Jesus of Nazareth Lord and Christ, crucified and risen,
Sovereign of time and of history, in the glad certainty that this truth coincides with the
deepest expectations of the human heart.”
• “The apostle, and therefore the priest, receives his ‘name’, his very identity, from Christ.
Everything he does is done in his name. His ‘I’ becomes totally relative to the ‘I’ of Jesus. In
the name of Christ, and most certainly not in his own, the apostle may perform acts of
healing for the brethren, may help the ‘crippled’ to rise again and take their path (cf. Acts 4:
9-10).”
• The apostle, like the priest, experiences in turn the cross, and only through this can he
become truly useful to the building of the Church. God loves to build his Church with people
who, following Jesus, place their entire trust in God.”
• “Jesus declared: ‘I give my life for the sheep’ (cf. Jn 10: 15,17,18). To become priests in the
Church means to enter into this self-donation of Christ through the Sacrament of Orders and
to enter with all of one's being. Jesus gave his life for all, but in a special way he consecrated
himself for those the Father had given to him, that they may be consecrated in truth, that is in
him, and could speak and act in his name, represent him, continue his saving actions:
breaking the Bread of life and remitting sins. Thus, the Good Shepherd offered his life for all
the sheep, but he gave it and gave it in a special way for those that he himself, ‘with a feeling
of favor’, called and calls to follow him on the path of pastoral service.”
• ”The priest who prays a lot, and who prays well, is progressively drawn out of himself and
evermore united to Jesus the Good Shepherd and the Servant of the Brethren. In conforming
to him, even the priest ‘gives his life’ for the sheep entrusted to him. No one takes it from him:
 he offers it himself, in unity with Christ the Lord, who has the power to give his life and the
power to take it back not only for himself, but also for his friends, bound to him in the
Sacrament of Orders. Thus the life of Christ, Lamb and Shepherd, is communicated to the
whole flock, through the consecrated ministers.”

7. Other Considerations
• Christ’s heart is moved with pity when he sees the vast crowd because the people were like
sheep without a shepherd. That is, something crucial was missing from their
lives…something they could not supply themselves. We cannot be completely human without
someone to follow. Christ gives us priests so that we will have a face, a voice to follow. The
priest/shepherd, in a God-like way, does not simply “bring them back to their meadow.” In the
company of the shepherds whom God appoints, notice that the sheep “need no longer fear
and tremble.” Why? Because there is something different about priest/shepherds, configured
as they are to Jesus Christ. In them God’s sheep are given someone who imbues them with
total certainty. The priest is called “Father” because he generates a Love that defeats all
doubt, sorrow, cynicism and distress. The presence of a shepherd does not mean that the
wolf no longer exists; just the opposite. The wolf is out there, but we no longer fear or
tremble, because in the ministry of the priest, we have everything—we know that we belong
to Jesus Christ. Jesus has taken possession of our lives. He is protecting us from unseen
and insidious enemies. In the closeness we share with him, we are secure. We who were
once far off—because of our fear, our resistance, our alienation, our rebellion, our self-
absorption, our neglect, our excuses, our self-reliance, our sins—have become near by the
blood of Christ. Where did we encounter that blood? In the hands of the priest in the
Eucharist. And that nearness only increases every time the priest says, “This is the cup of my
blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant.” The key to being good sheep is
staying close enough to hear those words. In that communion we share—the Church—we
will “increase and multiply.” The original desire of God personally to be our Shepherd—“I
myself will gather my flock”—never ends: it is kept alive forever in miracle of the priesthood.

Recommended Resources

Benedict XVI, Pope. Benedictus. Yonkers: Magnificat, 2006.

Biblia Clerus: http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerus/index_eng.html

Cameron, Peter John. To Praise, To Bless, To Preach—Cycle B. Huntington: Our Sunday

Visitor, 1999.

Hahn, Scott:
http://www.salvationhistory.com/library/scripture/churchandbible/homilyhelps/homilyhelps.cfm.

Martin, Francis: http://www.hasnehmedia.com/homilies.shtm