Laying Down Your Life
Deacon Anthony Shumway was 26 years old when he entered seminary. Brian Schumacher and Michael Weight were both 32 when they entered. Kenneth Parsad was 20. William Roundy will be 27 when he enters this Summer. Jesus Christ was 30 years old when he began his public ministry and only 33 years old when he was put to death. But to see his death as a failure of his mission is clearly wrong; in reality, it was the accomplishment of the sole purpose he came to us - to lay down his life for us. This Fourth Sunday of Easter is “Good Shepherd Sunday” when we hear Christ proclaim that he is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. On this same Sunday, we contemplate the shepherds in our own lives, especially the Shepherds of our future, and how Christ might be calling us to emulate him in laying down our own lives.
Even in the secular world, human beings make life-altering decisions every day, whether they do so willingly or not. Maybe you start a conversation that blossoms into a deep and genuine friendship. Maybe you go on a date that leads to a spouse. Maybe you go on an interview that brings about a lifelong career. Our life meanders and follows a path of its own, it seems; any attempt by us to carve out the exact life we want ultimately leads to failure. That being said, it’s important for us to constantly discern the right choices so that our life leads us in the long journey to Heaven, but sometimes, that means just following our gut. It means noticing a little itch, and scratching at it until it reveals itself to either be something meaningful or something less. There’s no timeline to this; God calls us in different directions at different points. When it comes to the young men who came through our parish to learn about the vocation of the priesthood, they came from different backgrounds at different points in their own lives. None of them made the decision nonchalantly, but neither was it a solemn decision that took years of weighing different options or contemplating all the different possibilities in their own lives. They felt that itch, and they decided to scratch it little by little to see where it led. Every person makes this type of decision in their own lives, but those of us not called to the life of a priest could potentially look at this decision and think it absurd - these men are fairly young, and they are giving up a wife, children, normal jobs, normal houses, normal lives! What could possibly be the reward? It is the same reward that Christ received at this same age - to have the opportunity to lay down these supposed “normal” lives for no other reason than love for their community, their sheep. These are our future shepherds.
Our seminarians chose us to love. Even with all of the possible opportunities they had in their own lives, they chose Utah, they chose St. Mary’s, they chose you and me. They are not “hired men” brought in like Christ mentions in this Sunday’s Gospel. Each one of them is one of us. They are laying down their lives only so that we can continue to have the Sacraments, to have spiritual guidance and direction, so that we are not those “sheep without shepherds” mentioned in the Gospels who Christ felt his heart break for. If we take Christianity seriously, every single one of us, regardless of our vocation, must be ready to lay down our lives for the person next to us. These seminarians found a way to express Christianity as close to Christ as possible - to become shepherds who lay down their lives for us. May we continue to pray for these young men, and pray that more young men are moved by this heroic call to lay down their lives for us.
Today's Readings:
