'May the Lord Jesus Christ receive thee with a smiling and benign countenance.' Sunday Reflections, 4th Sunday of Easter, Year C

 

The Good Shepherd

Early Italian Christian Sculptor [Web Gallery of Art]

WGA note on this sculpture: The allegorical figure of the Good Shepherd was originally based on the pagan representation of a man bringing his offering to the altar but, by the 3rd century, had also come to represent the 'ram bearer' with its connotations of philanthropy and loving care. The latter image accorded well with the Christians’ understanding of a divine Shepherd who would lay down his life for his flock. In a period of persecution, such images had the advantage of directly addressing the adherents of the Christian faith while not drawing attention to them, since the images were already popular with

non-Christians [emphasis added].

Readings, (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)

Readings, (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel, John 10:27-39 (English Standard Version Anglicised: India)  

Jesus said:

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”

Léachtaí i nGaeilge

Fr William Doyle SJ

1 March 1873 - 16 August 1917

This Sunday is known as 'Good Shepherd Sunday'. One great example of a Good Shepherd who I learned about in kindergarten more than 70 years ago is Fr Willie Doyle SJ. A great source about him is the website of the Father Willie Doyle Association, edited and maintained by Dr Patrick Kenny

Pat Kenny is also the compiler and editor of To Raise the Fallen, published by Veritas, where he writes on page 38: The precise details surrounding Fr Doyle's death are unclear. But at some time in the late afternoon of 16 August 1917, a group of soldiers led by 2nd Lieutenants Marlow and Green got into trouble beyond the front line, and Fr Doyle ran to assist them. It seems that Fr Doyle and the two officers were about to take shelter when they were hit by a German shell and killed. His body was never recovered.

In pages 65 - 68 Fr Doyle tells one of many stories he wrote in letters to his father from the front, this one dated 13 January 1917. Here are some extracts from it.

'Two men badly wounded in the firing line, Sir'. I was fast asleep . . . 'You will need to be quick, Father, to find them alive.'  By this time I had grasped that someone was calling me, that some poor dying man needed help, that perhaps a soul was in danger. In a few seconds I had pulled on my big boots, I know I should want them in the mud and wet, jumped into my waterproof and darted down the trench.

It was just two a.m., bitterly cold and snowing hard . . . God help and strengthen the victims of this war, the wounded soldier with his torn and bleeding body lying out in this awful biting cold, praying for the help that seems so slow in coming . . .

Away on my left as I ran I could hear in the stilness of the night the grinding 'Rat-tat-tat' of the machine gun, for all the world as if a hundred German carpenters were driving nails into my coffin, while overhead 'crack, crack, crack, whiz' went the bullets tearing one after another for fear they would be two late . . .

The first man was in extremis when I reached him. I did all I could for him, commended his sould to the merciful God as he had only a few minutes to live, and hurried on to find the other wounded boy . . . [Note: Fr Doyle frequently referred to the soldiers as his 'boys'  or 'lads'. The vast majority were in their late teens and early 20s.]

I found the dying lad, he was not much more, so tightly jammed into a corner of the trench it was almost impossible to get him out. Both legs were smashed, one in two or three places, so his chances of life were small as there were other major injuries as well. What a harrowing picture that scene would have made. A splendid young soldier, married only a month they told me, lying there pale and motionless in the mud and water with the life crushed out of him by a cruel shell. The stretcher bearers hard at work binding him up as well as they may his broken limbs; round about a group of silent Tommies ['Tommy' was the nickname for the enlisted men in the British army] looking on and wondering when their turn would come. 

Peace for a moment seems to have taken possession of the battlefield, not a sound save the deep boom of some far-off gun and the stifled moans of the dying boy, while as if anxious to hide the scene, nature drops her soft mantle of snow on the living and dead alike. Then while every head is bared come the solemn words of absolution, 'Ego te absolvo,' I absolve thee from thy sins. Depart Christian soul and may the Lord Jesus Christ receive thee with a smiling and benign countenance. Amen.

Oh! surely the gentle Saviour did receive with open arms the brave lad . . . and as I turned away I felt happy in the thought that his soul was already safe in the land where 'God will wipe away all sorrow from our eyes, for weeping and mourning shall be no more'.

Passchendaele, The Third Battle of Ypres (Ieper), 1917

This is the battle where Fr Willie Doyle died.

What a beautiful image of the Good Shepherd that Father Willie conveys in that last sentence of the letter to his father: Depart Christian soul and may the Lord Jesus Christ receive thee with a smiling and benign countenance. Amen.

Antiphona ad communionem  Communion Antiphon 

Surréxit Pastor bonus, 

The Good Shepherd has risen, 

qui ánimam suam pósuit pro óvibus suis, 

who laid down his life for his sheep 

et pro grege suo mori dignátus est, alléluia.

and willingly died for his flock, alleluia.

Orlando di Lasso (c.1530 - 1594), who composed this Latin setting of the Communion Antiphon, was Flemish. Vox Angelorum is a Catholic choir from Jakarta, Indonesia, singing here in St Paul's Within the Walls Episcopal Church, the first Protestant church built in Rome.

Traditional Latin Mass

Third Sunday after Easter

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 05-08-2022 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Peter 2:11-19. Gospel: John 16: 16-22.

Saint Peter

El Greco [Wikipedia]