OLPH School Homily 6/04/2021

 

 

 

 

Today we are celebrating and thanking Msgr. Sacks for his service as our pastor.

He asked me to preach today for an hour and a half, so the celebration of his time here as pastor would be prolonged, but I won’t do that so we you can honor him and get back to school.

 

Because today is a special day our first reading is from Ezekiel [34:11-16] and it reminds us of what a good shepherd does, gives us Hope, Prays for us and Delights when we are happy.  Many times, when a pastor is put out to pasture, he fades away, but we are blessed our pastor is staying with us.  He will move down the hall in the rectory, canonically he will not be our pastor, but spiritually he will still help guide us.  Fr. Marty will be our pastor, our shepherd, and he will be a good one.

  

The first reading [regularly] assigned for today is from Tobit [11:5-17] and he lived in exile and struggled with the existence of evil in the world.  Tobit wondered why God doesn’t just end evil?  God has the power to do that, but part of the reason is God gave us free will, the ability to choose.  God did that so we could freely choose to love the Lord here and for all eternity.

 

In Matthew’s Gospel [28:16-20] and in the Gospel of the day [Mark 12:35-37]

 

We were Baptized to do the same.  Parents, teachers, priests, and deacons should teach others to love God, to be prudent [make good decisions], to be patient and to be generous, to be good shepherds.

 

That is what a good shepherd does, and it is a lot to do, but if we do that, we will lead good lives, and our lives will shine Jesus’ light in the darkness of our world.

 

St. Joseph pray for us. 

St. Andre Bessette intercede for us. 

May God Be Praised!