Homily Thoughts - E4-C

Last year at this time, the "Good Shepherd" reading for the season of Easter was a few days after the 100th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic.  The Catholic News Agency, the journalism arm of the USCCB published an article and produced a YouTube video recounting the ministry of three priests abort the ship, who themselves died ministering to those doomed that horrible night:

 

 

 

All three were from Europe, journeying to the States for different ministerial reasons:

• Fr. Jouzas Montvila, a Byzantine Catholic priest, was an outlaw priest ministering in Lithuania (the Russian Empire) during their period of persecution and revolution.  He was, essentially, a political exile.
• Fr. Josef Perchitz, OSB, was travelling to the States to become the principal of a Benedictine high school in Collegeville, MN.
• Fr. Thomas Byles was travelling to the United States for his brother's wedding.  He was noted by Pope Pius X as a 'martyr', sacrificing himself to a 'heroic death in the disaster... earnestly devoting his last moments to the religious consolation of his fellow passengers."

These men, these priests, would forgo positions on the lifeboats, and according to surviving eyewitnesses, lead passengers in the recitation of the rosary, and "aroused those condemned to die to say acts of contrition and prepare themselves to meet the face of God."  They were "engaged continuously giving general absolution to those who were about to die."

The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons them and runs away. The wolf then attacks and scatters the flock. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep....
 

My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.

On this "Good Shepherd Sunday" and this World Day of Prayer for Vocations, we pray for priests who lay down their lives for their flocks... literally, figuratively, and spiritually.  We also pray that the Lord may provide many worthy servants to minister in the footsteps of the "Good Shepherd".