Listening to and following Christ Jesus our Lord through His Body, the Church [Fourth Sunday of Easter]

JESUS, THE TRUE SHEPHERD.
Image from picturesofjesus via google.com

Jesus said, 

"My sheep hear my voice; 

I know them, and they follow me. 

I give them eternal life, 

and they shall never perish. 

No one can take them out of my hand. 

My Father, who has given them to me, 

is greater than all, 

and no one can take them out 

of the Father's hand. 

The Father and I are one." 

- John 10: 27-30

There are a lot of shepherds in the world: political, economic, socio-civic, military, religious shepherds. And they all try to outdo each other in showing that they are the shepherds whom people need to follow in order to achieve salvation. But there is only one who outshine everyone else, the one who did not deem equality with God but became like us in everything except sin and who accepted even death upon the cross [see Philippians 2: 6-11], no other than the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord [see John 10:11]. 

"My Sheep hear My Voice, I Know Them and They Follow Me"

Those who truly belong to the Lord's flock follow Him and since He has already entrusted the care of the flock unto the Apostle Peter [see John 21: 15-17] those who belong to His flock naturally follow those who have succeeded Peter as head of the earthly flock, the Pope. Many people use it as some kind of a convenient excuse that the Pope is not Jesus and that only the Jesus in the Holy Bible has the right to claim their faith and obedience. Convenient excuse because the Jesus in the Holy Bible cannot correct them if they misinterpret the Holy Bible, cannot expound His teachings anymore so they could make their own exegesis of what He taught in accordance with their liking and intentions, cannot tell them "Stop! You are using my Words to your own destruction!"

So they could just read the Holy Bible and claim the Holy Spirit's inspiration and guidance forgetting that the Lord has promised the Holy Spirit only to His Apostle and has sent the same to His Apostles and disciples during Pentecost.  They also disregard the fact that it was the Church which has provided us with the Holy Bible in the first place. Even the Apostle Paul who received his special commission from the Lord through a vision had to confer with the original Apostles to confirm the things that he was teaching [see Galatians 2: 1-10]. For God is a God of peace, not of chaos [see 1 Corinthians 14:33] and He wanted everyone to become His children in the Lord Jesus Christ [see Ephesians 1:5; Romans 8:29; 1 John 3:2]. The Lord himself said that He has other sheep which are still outside of the flock and He wanted them to belong to the one flock so that there would be only one fold and one Shepherd [see John 10:16]. The Lord also gave His life so that there would no more distinction between Jews and Gentiles, etc [see Galatians 3:28; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Romans 3:22]. 

It would therefore be a true inconsistency to think that the Lord Jesus Christ did not intend to set up His Church with an organized hierarchy, structure or various offices to fulfill [see 1 Corinthians 12: 28-30]. The Apostle Paul's comparison of the Church with the human body is also a basis of an organized structure [see 1 Corinthians 12: 12-27]. If so, then it would be more absurd to think that the Lord would decide that His body, the Church, has to come centuries or even millenniums later! The Lord said that His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. Didn't He say that He will send the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles to be their guide and to be the One who will remind everything that He taught them [for we must accept it: the Apostles were human, not robots or computers which could process everything in so short a span of time that He was with them for in the first place they needed more than intelligence to understand the many wonderful things that Jesus did, taught and shared - they needed the Holy Spirit to inspire them!] So if we are truly His sheep, we shall believe that He has already set up the Church while He was here on earth and that through the Holy Spirit that Church continued and continues to exist without stopping or being lost at any period in time [see also Matthew 28: 18-20]!

As His sheep, we listen to His voice and we follow Him through His visible presence: His Body, the Church. For we are admonished and commanded to be obedient and submissive to those who have been placed above us in the Church as they also have been given the task of taking care of us [see  Isaiah 62:6; Ezekiel 3:17; Hebrews 13: 7, 17; 1 Thessalonians 5:12; 1 Corinthians 16:16; Acts 20:28; John 21: 15-17]. He even made the Church as the final arbiter of any dispute between brethren [see Matthew 18: 15-17] with the Apostle Paul warning us about taking matters within the concern of the Church to non-believers [see 1 Corinthians 6: 1-6].

The Church is the Lord's body and the Lord is the Church's head. If we believe in Christ our Lord, then why question His Church? The problem that we can see why people can't follow the Church is that the Father has not yet moved them to embrace the Lord through His Church for they do not offer a space in their hearts for the Father to do His work.

For us who have already been drawn by the Father to the Lord, let us be grateful for this grace. Through our love, let us inspire others to open up their hearts so that the Father may also lead them to His Son and that they too may gain salvation and eternal life!