Yes, you heard that correctly, the dinosaur movie.

This is a homily that Fr. Chris gave to his Seminarians, but it can be pertinent to all.

Gospel: Jn 10:11-18

Location: St. John Paul II Seminary

            You may remember the great, uh, spiritual classic, “Jurassic Park.”  John Hammond has discovered a way to bring dinosaurs back to life, and hopes to open a park for the public to see these amazing creatures.  He invites a number of archaeological specialists, a businessman, and his niece and nephew to see the park.  At one point, as they’re going through the park, the power shuts down and a T-Rex comes upon their cars.  The businessman, in the car with John’s niece and nephew, runs away from the car and ends up getting eaten.  So that didn’t work out for him.  Anyways, the T-Rex then ends up knocking the car with the children in it off the road and down into the wild where dinosaurs roam freely.

            One of the other characters, Dr. Grant, goes down to the car to find the niece and nephew.  The niece is having a panic attack, and she keeps saying the same thing.  And this is, I think, one of the most insightful lines in the entire movie.  She’s not saying, “there was so much blood. There was so much blood.”  Or, “The T-Rex.  The T-Rex.”  Or even, “We’re gonna die.  We’re gonna die.”  No.  What she is saying again and again is: “He left us.  He left us.”  The business man who was in the car with them left them.  That is what this teenage girl was traumatized by.  Not by the T-Rex; not by the plummet off the road; but by the business man abandoning them. And Dr. Grant, seeing her in this state, takes her shoulders and says, “But that’s not what I’m going to do.”  Dr. Grant is not a business man; he is not a hired man.  He is, quite simply, a man, who, at this moment, begins to be a shepherd.

            “A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away and the wolf catches and scatters them.  This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep.”  Brothers, can you hear the anger in Jesus’ voice?  And the love he has for his sheep?  He is looking at his sheep being torn apart by wolves because they have been abandoned by men who were supposed to be protecting them in His Father’s name.  These men were commissioned with the task of being the visible, tangible expression in the world of the Good Shepherd’s loving care for his flock.  And he chides them for what?  Not for being overwhelmed by wolves; not for their failure to plan ahead; but for leaving the sheep and running away.  All he wants them to do is stay there with the sheep.  To share their lot.  To see the sheep as their own.

            There is a danger, after the abuse crisis, of priests failing to see parishioners as their own.  We hear it many times.  “They’re not your people; they’re God’s people.”  And certainly, that’s not wrong.  They are God’s people.  And we forget that to our own detriment and to the detriment of the flock.  But at the same time… they are our people.  And it’s important both for them and for us that we acknowledge that and then to come to know it deeply.

            It’s important for them because God wants his people to experience his personal, intimate care for them.  And we can only know that care by concrete, bodily, sacramental expressions of that.  I think one of the reasons people knew God’s love from St. John Paul II is that he wasn’t afraid of showing his affection for the people he was with.  He’s constantly hugging, touching people’s faces, holding people’s hands.  And the people came to know God’s love, the love of the Shepherd for them, because John Paul II saw these people as his own.

            It’s also important for us as priests to see the people as our own.  We will never know the Heart of the Good Shepherd, and so never know the joy of the priesthood, if we do not participate intimately in His own loving concern for His sheep.  The more we identify ourselves with the sheep, the more we enter into the Heart of the Shepherd in a way that is really only accessible to one whom Christ has given a share of his own Priesthood.

            The flock has to know that the Shepherd will not leave them.  What does it look like to “stay”?  St. Maximus the Confessor said that “a true friend is one who in times of trial calmly suffers with his neighbor the ensuing afflictions, privations, and disasters as if they were his own.”  The shepherd sees his flock being attacked by wolves, and suffers with them the ravages of the wolves’ attack.  This means, first of all, that he is able to recognize just how bad it is.  Sin and its effects have wreaked havoc on our world and on our lives. And it doesn’t help anybody to downplay those effects.  Sometimes we do so out of a misguided sense of mercy.  Sometimes we do so because we think people should just get over it.  Both of these are forms of running away from the wolves.  Sin is awful, a life wounded by sin is literally excruciating, and it’s very healing to be able to acknowledge that.

            We also run from the wolves when we try to adopt “strategies” for fixing the problem of the wolves’ presence.  Satan’s dominion over us has harmed our relationship with God, with others, and with ourselves, and we think we can fix this if we just have the right strategies?  No.  This is also running from the wolves.  We can’t downplay the Enemy’s presence by thinking we can overcome him.  We have to recognize that we are fighting a foe who is quite simply more powerful than us.  The wolves attack, and we will be killed.

            So, as it turns out, “staying with the sheep,” means simply dying for them.  Jesus manifests his Presence with us by refusing to abandon us to the netherworld.  He is the Shepherd who did not run.  And it cost Him his Life.  But precisely in that way, the little sheep can rest secure, knowing that nothing will hinder the Shepherd from staying with her.  It is He who guides her along the dark road, and brings her at last into the pastures of eternal bliss.