A Reflection on the First Reading From Mass, 22 July 2018

The First Reading for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time in 2018, Year B of the Sunday Lectionary, is taken from the Book of the Prophet Jeremias. It opens,

¹ Woe to the pastors, that destroy and tear the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord.

2 Therefore thus saith the Lord the God of Israel to the pastors that feed my people: You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold I will visit upon you for the evil of your doings, saith the Lord.

3 And I will gather together the remnant of my flock, out of all the lands into which I have cast them out: and I will make them return to their own fields, and they shall increase and be multiplied.

4 And I will set up pastors over them, and they shall feed them: they shall fear no more, and they shall not be dismayed: and none shall be wanting of their number, saith the Lord.

As I read it over before Mass and as I listened to the Lector reading it, I could only think of 'pastors' like Francis and his minions such as Marx and Kasper and their ilk, undermining the Faith of millions, attacking the Divine and Catholic Faith, and the Sanctity of Marriage, starting to mount an attack on the infallible doctrine expounded by His Holiness Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae, and pushing the Church to a fragmented national 'church' structure modelled on the dying Anglican Communion.

I am not surprised that Father did not use it in his homily!

Lord, Thou hast promised that Thou wilt send us pastors to feed us sound doctrine. I plead, O Lord, how long?!