4th Sunday of Easter
Cycle A
May 7, 2017
Oliver Wendell Holmes
One
of the well-known names in our American history is the famous Supreme Court
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Holmes
was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932. He is rated as an excellent justice, but on a
personal level, he had a reputation for being absent-minded.
For
example, one day Holmes was on a train out of Washington. He was completely engrossed in studying a
case that the Court was hearing.
The
conductor came down the aisle and asked for his ticket. Holmes searched the pockets of coat and
trousers, but could not find it.
The
conductor said, “Don’t be concerned, Mr.
Justice Holmes. When you return to
Washington, you can send us the ticket at your convenience.”
Holmes
shook his head and said, “Thank you, my
good man, but the problem is not whether I’ll pay the fare. The problem is: where am I going?”
Direction and Guidance
That anecdote helps us to appreciate the question
implied in today’s gospel.
The question is: where are we going? Jesus uses the image of a shepherd and sheep.
The idea is that Jesus wants us to see him as our
shepherd and to follow the direction and guidance he offers us. Where do we find this direction and guidance?
We Catholic Christians believe that there are two
sources for this. And these are: the
Bible and Tradition.
Source 1: The Bible
First, the Bible is the primary place for finding our
direction.
The Bible or the Scripture is God speaking directly to
us. It is something like God writing a
letter to us.
God is telling us about who he is and who we are. For example, we are told that in some way God
is Creator and Savior and Holy Spirit living within us.
And besides telling us who God is, the Bible also tells us
what God intends us to be like. For
example, we are told that to be like God, we need to become persons of
compassion and justice.
Now because of all that the Scripture tells us, it is to
be the foundation of our faith and life.
This is why whenever we celebrate a sacrament, like the Eucharist, we
always begin with Scripture.
It is also why reading some verses from the Scripture,
especially from one of the gospels, is a good part of personal, private prayer
at home or wherever. In all of us, the Bible
forms our faith and forms us as persons.
It gives us direction.
It tells us where we should be going.
Source 2: Tradition
That takes us to the second
source for getting direction from the Good Shepherd, and this is Tradition.
Here Tradition is with a capital
T and not a small t. Tradition with a
small t means customs, maybe like having a family barbecue on Memorial Day.
But Tradition with a capital T
refers to our Catholic Christian Tradition.
This refers to what we can learn about God and about living life from
the experience of Christians and from the teaching of the Church down through
the centuries.
The idea is that the Bible does
not provide all the answers. It is our
primary source of direction, but often it is fairly general and does not give
specifics.
We also need the Tradition of
the Church to give these specifics. For
example, the Bible clearly forbids killing, the taking of the life of a person.
Our Church Tradition or teaching
tells us that ending the life of a fetus is forbidden by this commandment. In a similar way, that same Tradition spells
out principles for a just war that tell us when war may or may not be just and
moral.
So, the Bible gives the general
commandment or direction. The Tradition
of the Church in a sense supplements the Bible and makes it specific to certain
issues.
Conclusion
So, 1) Scripture or the Bible
and 2) Tradition with a capital T – these are the two sources for allowing
Jesus, the Good Shepherd to give us direction and tell us where we should be
going.
