Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time B.  July 23, 2006.  Our Lady of Grace 5:15, 9:30.  Jeremiah 23: 1-6.  Ephesians 2: 13-18.  Mark 6: 30-34.

Several years ago I helped a man go through the death of his second wife.  His first wife had also died of cancer and I was with him at that difficult time as well.  He and his first wife had a little boy named Matthew.  Matthew was about 2 years old when his mother died.  Laurie was the only mother that Matthew seemed to remembered, but he insisted on calling her Laurie and he never called her mother.  When Laurie was close to death Matthew was about 10 years old.  As we were sitting in the hospital waiting room I suggested that he go in and talk to Laurie by himself, or I said that I would go with him.  Matthew chose to go into her room alone.  When he came back I asked him what he said to Laurie.   After a long silence he said, “I thanked her for being my mom.”   Later, Laurie told me that Matthew’s words marked one of the finest moments in her life.   For years she had tried to connect with Matthew, but he kept putting her off.  The meeting of their hearts brought tears to both of their eyes and real joy to Laurie in the last hours of her life.  He was not fully her son until they had given one another their hearts.

The sensitive and loving heart of Jesus noticed that his disciples where tired and exhausted from the work he has sent them out to do.  He said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’ People were coming and going in great numbers, and they had no opportunity even to eat…but the crowd arrived in the place before them.  When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with compassion for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.”

It would appear that the heart of Jesus often got him into trouble.  When his disciples returned worn out from a mission of preaching and healing, Jesus noticed how people where pushing in on them and making more and more demands on them. He recognized that they didn’t even have time to eat.  Moved with compassion for the followers that he loved very deeply, Jesus invited them to go to a deserted place where they could enjoy some much needed rest.  When they got there a vast crowd of people descended on them.  Jesus could have been overwhelmed and angry.  Instead he felt compassion for the crowd because they were baffled and confused, like sheep without a shepherd.  The heart of Jesus went out to the crowd too.  He taught them many things, trying to help them. 

Stan Rother arrived in Guatemala little noticed.  He had driven over 2000 miles from Oklahoma City four years after being ordained a priest.  He was a farm kid not much into studying.  He flunked out of the seminary the first time around. His bishop decided to give him another chance.  Even then study came very hard for him.  He was hardly a star in the priesthood and it wasn’t long before he volunteered to travel to Guatemala to work at a mission there.  He worked hard celebrating five Sunday Masses in four different churches and baptizing 1,000 children a year. He was a very simple man and the poor people loved him because he was as comfortable sitting on the dirt floors of their huts as he was at the altar in church. When a civil war began in Guatemala Fr. Stan’s people were terrorized, kidnapped and murdered.  He tried to support the eight widows and 32 fatherless children of the 11 men who had disappeared from his parish. Later 17 of his people were gunned down and Fr. Stan decided to bring their bodies to church for Christian burial.  This was seen by the military terrorists as an act of defiance.  Knowing that he had been targeted for execution, Fr. Stan managed to get himself out of Guatemala and to return to the United States.  He spent three months on his family farm in Oklahoma, but then he grew restless and knew that he must return to his people in Guatemala.  His bishop told him that he might not come back to Oklahoma alive, but Fr. Stan insisted that he belonged with his people.  He told his friends that whatever happened to him it would be God’s will.  He returned to his people during holy week.  At the end of July three men snuck into Fr. Stan’s house.  They shot him twice in the head.  Fr. Stan Rother, an American priest who had flunked out of the Seminary, died in a pool of blood in the midst of his people.  Fr. Stan’s parents wanted his body buried in Oklahoma.  The people of his parish wanted him buried in Guatemala.  They compromised.  Fr. Stan’s body returned to the Untied States. His heart is buried in his parish Church in Guatemala.  Fr. Stan had great compassion for his people even when it meant that the only thing he had to give them was his life and his loving heart.  The bishops of Guatemala have asked that the pope declare Fr. Stan a Saint. 

Today’s first reading says, “I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd my people so that they need no longer fear and tremble; and none shall be missing, says the Lord.” 

Simply doing our duty is never enough.  We must also give our hearts, deeply, sincerely and with passion.  The first two times I went to Ghana I went because it was what a sense of duty, the Church and even our parish council expected me to do.  On my third trip I went to the airport to return home with tears in my eyes because the people of Ghana had won my heart.  I came to Our Lady of Grace four years ago because the Archbishop told me to come here.  I begin the fifth year as your pastor in a very different place because your goodness and faithfulness have captured my heart.  The heart makes a big difference.

Faithfulness in marriage is expected and wonderful.  Over and above this, married people who are in love with one another deeply and passionately in spite of and even because of the years that have passed are a miracle of God’s grace.  Parents have duties and obligations toward their children, yet over and above this, parents who love their children passionately and unconditionally are a sign of God’s goodness.  Neither our Church nor our Country is perfect.  Yet to love Church and Country with deep, heartfelt love is a powerful expression of Christian virtue. 

Jesus forgave the people who crucified him as he hung upon the Cross not only because it was the right thing to do.  He forgave them because he loved them with all his heart.  We pray that the heart of the Good Shepherd, given to each of us in Communion, may give us loving, Christ-filled, shepherd hearts in responding to the people and the world around us.