St Vincent de Paul Society Festival Mass – Diocese of Broken Bay
“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Matt 9: 35-38)
If we were to go around and ask, “Who stands out for you with leadership?” the responses might be interesting. Perhaps we would think of a great political leader, a great social reformer, a sporting hero. Jesus, himself, had many examples to choose from when it came for himself to think about leadership. There were many manifestations of military, social, political and religious leadership in first century Palestine. However, when Jesus comes to describe the nature of leadership as he imagines it, he chooses none of these. And the absence of any of them in the gospels is extraordinary. What is even more remarkable is the choice of image Jesus does in fact choose.
Jesus chooses the image of shepherd. Unfortunately, this image has become domesticated from its original context. How might we retrieve its original context? A visit to a little Italian village in remote south-west Umbria helped me do this. I was there for a couple of days and I took to exploring all the corners of the village eventually coming across the shepherds’ huts. They were in the very poor area of the village and not particularly presentable. I learnt that they were only used for the winter months of the year because for the rest of the time the shepherds would be out in the mountains with the herds. For winter, though, the shepherds would come back into the village, but they were not particularly welcome. They were dirty, unclean, unsophisticated people – not the kind of people you wanted to associate with. In fact, there was something a bit suspicious about them. They kept to themselves. They were marginal figures without status.
In that Italian village I realized why Jesus had chosen the image of shepherd to describe the nature of leadership out of all the other images available to him. Jesus is at pains to convey to us that our being with one another is not to be characterized by power, prestige and status. It is to be characterized by something entirely different. Jesus leads us by identifying with us, by being one with us where we are in both our hurt and our hope, by being one with us in the questions which haunt our hearts, in our uncertainties and confusion, in all that quickens us and delights us. Jesus leads us by listening deeply to us, by attending to us, by being overwhelmed by a passionate, suffering concern for us. If Jesus understands his way of being with us in this way – as identification with, as reverent attentiveness toward, as passionate concern, – then this is the way we are to be with one another. The workers of the harvest are to have the same heart. “Mercy is the beating heart of the Gospel,” as Pope Francis reminds us continuously.[1]
Mercy however is always about actual persons. As Francis has explained it, “The works of mercy are endless, but each bears the stamp of a particular face, a personal history.”[2] This is why he challenges us in his recent letter to us about the nature of holiness
“If I encounter a person sleeping outdoors on a cold night, I can view him or her as an annoyance, an idler, an obstacle in my path, a troubling sight, a problem for politicians to sort out, or even a piece of refuse cluttering a public space. Or I can respond with faith and charity and see in this person a human being with a dignity identical to my own, a creature infinitely loved by the Father, an image of God, a brother or sister redeemed by Jesus Christ. That is what it is to be a Christian!”[3]
But as Francis goes on to say, “this involves a constant and healthy unease.”[4] It is the unease experienced by Jesus himself when he encounters suffering, as we have heard in the Gospel, echoed in St Vincent de Paul. It is the disturbance of the heart and mind known by Fredric Ozanam, and that unsettles all the members of the Society he brings into being.
This evening we give thanks for all those who live with this disruption.
“Among the most precious realities of the Church is in fact you, who every day, often in silence and hiddenness, give form and visibility to mercy. You are artisans of mercy: with your hands, with your eyes, with your listening, with your closeness, with your caresses … artisans! You express one of the most beautiful desires in man’s heart, that of having a suffering person feel loved. In the different conditions of need and necessities of so many persons, your presence is Christ’s extended hand that reaches all. You are Christ’s extended hand: have you thought of this? . . . In sum, wherever there is a request for help, your active and selfless witness reaches there. You render Christ’s law visible, that of bearing one another’s burdens (cf. Galatians 6:2; John 13-34). Dear brothers and sisters, you touch Christ’s flesh with your hands: do not forget this. You touch Christ’s flesh with your hands.”[5]
And it is precisely and only because of this, as Francis observes, that “each work multiplies like the bread in the baskets; each gives abundant growth like the mustard seed. For mercy is fruitful and inclusive.” [6] The harvest becomes abundant and overflowing indeed.
[1] Pope Francis, Bull Misericordiae Vultus (11 April 2015), 12: AAS 107 (2015), 407.
[2] Pope Francis, 30 June 2016.
[3] Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate, On the Call to Holiness in Today’s World, Apostolic Exhortation (19 March 2018), n.98.
[4] Pope Francis, Gaudete et Exsultate.n. 99.
[5] Pope Francis, Homily to Participants in the Jubilee of Volunteers and Agents of Mercy, held Sept. 2-4 in Rome.
[6] Pope Francis, 30 June 2016.
