“I am the Good Shepherd. I know mine and mine know me.”
Historically, this Sunday has been called Good Shepherd Sunday,
the obvious connection to the gospel today,
a reminder that Christ Jesus is the Good Shepherd
that draws us into his one flock as Shepherd of us all;
a reminder that we are of all different
Catholic communities around the world,
but we still follow the one Jesus Christ.
In fact, all Christian churches throughout the whole world
follow the same one Shepherd making us one flock.
It is a great reminder for us to remain focused
on the one voice of Christ Jesus that leads us away from,
if you would, the wolves that will come to take us and scatter us.
These last few days, we are celebrating
our 65th anniversary as a parish and
our 60th anniversary as a parish school.
We have been honoring the stories
of those who have gone before us;
the founding mothers and fathers of our parish.
One of our parishioners did a wonderful job
in capturing in video these stories.
They are available on line on our website.
I encourage you to go and watch them or
at least the summary that will be available after this Mass.
It is beautiful because the stories are told
of those who were originally here
and those who have come since those early years;
and the tremendous joy they experienced in building this parish;
and the challenges they experienced.
They first built this church;
then they built the school;
then they rebuilt this church because they renovated it.
And then they built a gymnasium;
and they have added so many things to the school over these years;
and the stories of enormous challenges that have come along with that.
They have built this fantastic community of faith;
that is one community, parish and school,
that work together inside this one church.
What is so important for us is that as we receive this legacy,
this incredible gift
that we acknowledge and honor it then build on it.
Acknowledging that they had their challenges
and they stepped up and met those challenges of that generation
that we too now have new challenges.
Maybe it is not building buildings
but it is building community or re-building our community.
There are moments in all of our lives
that are going to be what I call liminal moments;
liminal moments are these moments that we will forever remember;
they are like a switch gate.
They will go one way or the other but we have to be present to them.
That root word “limen” comes from the Latin meaning “threshold.”
These liminal moments or liminal experiences
are threshold experiences.
They usher in an era of transformation
but that transformation just doesn’t happen.
We have to cooperate with it.
Otherwise, we remain stagnant, and remain stale.
The liminal moment presents us with an opportunity,
a moment in which to reflect and
to choose and to allow for our purposes
as people of faith
to allow the one Shepherd to transform us
into something even greater.
As a community and a nation,
we have experienced a collective liminal moment
as we have experienced the shared trauma
of the pandemic experience.
We are now beginning to emerge from it
and all that has happened in this year.
But we must not allow this moment
to pass us by as if it is just another moment.
This year is going to challenge us when we return
to what will be church; something very different.
Right now, I am celebrating Mass with six people in church
because we are still in this lockdown.
We still have Mass outside.
And the temptation is,
“Oh we can’t wait until we just come back to church!”
As if everyone is going to come back inside the church
like the good ole’ days
in whatever version of the good ole’ days it was.
Remember, before we even entered into the pandemic,
we at this parish, here at St. Simon,
had lost over 50% of our attending parishioners
over the last 10 years; pre-pandemic!
As we come back, we are going to have to
reimagine what it looks like.
What does it look like to be church again;
to build on what our founding fathers and mothers have given us.
It is not just to accept what was
and to continue as if it always was
but it is for us to be creative and to look at this liminal moment,
seize it and to be different;
to look again at the future and see what can we do differently.
Who can we be that is different?
In just this week, yet another liminal moment happened for us
that reminds us of the trauma we experienced a year ago.
Who of us would not remember watching that video last year
that has been replayed multiple times
since the trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.
In that moment, we heard the verdict this week,
that he was convicted of murder and
of course, when we watched that video
we knew that it was murder;
when he held his knee down on the neck of the man
as he breathed his last with no emotion.
No a single emotion.
We knew in our hearts that this was
something radically, profoundly wrong.
And it is not who we are as America.
It is not who by far the majority percentage of officers are;
yet it presents to us, now, a liminal moment.
And here is what it says to us:
It says we cannot go back and be the same.
We need to bring back in, usher in a new, a new community
and not allow the moment to pass us by.
But to seize this liminal moment
and eradicate every trace of racism that might exist within ourselves.
And that is deeply uncomfortable to admit.
I do not expect any of us to be racist
but that it is not enough anymore; to just not be racist.
We have to be willing to be anti-racist.
We have to seize this moment and
eradicate everything that we might even say or think
that has even a trace of racism.
Then we must be willing to not just say
that this is their problem but it is our problem;
that we together will be anti-racist
and fight for the rights of all especially those most persecuted,
most feeling objectified,
most especially those who are black.
We know in these last weeks
that the Asian Pacific Islanders have felt the exact same thing.
It is time for us to seize this moment as people of faith.
This is not about political correctness.
This is about people of faith and
seeing that we have one Good Shepherd
who is Father and Shepherd of us all.
And he calls us to work for justice.
He calls us to work for the right and
the equality of all people even people of different faiths;
that we will acknowledge that we have one God.
One Creator that has created all of us.
This Sunday is a good Sunday to do this
and to seize this liminal moment and
to accept that we are one flock with one Shepherd
and we gather at the one table.
What that is going to require of us
is something that is deeply uncomfortable.
It is going to require of us to sit with these liminal moments
and not let them pass as if they are another ordinary moment.
The temptation is to be oversaturated
but we want to seize it and be present to it
and to allow it to transform us.
Then to vow to be different; to act differently.
So then we honor the memory
of our forefathers and our foremothers
who have founded this parish 65 years ago.
Then we will recreate a parish that is alive;
online and in person
because people will want to be part of this community,
this Body of Christ that comes led by
the one Lord into action, in word and in prayer.
My friends today it starts with our own internal reckoning
in prayer with that one voice listening to Christ
and asking him what is he calling me to in this liminal moment;
so that we can rebuild this community
and be a great legacy to those who have handed it on to us;
and we will pass it on to those who come after us.
We have one Good Shepherd.
And we are one flock.
And we have one Lord at this one table.
May we celebrate that today.
