My pastor retired yesterday. The service was such a sweet celebration of the man and his ministry. Tears flowed freely as pastors who had been mentored over 22 years came back to bear witness and as those who were once children under his teaching rose up to testify to the impact on their lives. Many have known no other pastor. He will be missed but in his farewell message he pointed to Christ and the nature of the Church, not to himself.
Pastoral ministry is difficult. It always has been. It always will be. It was true when Augustine was Bishop of Hippo and its true for your pastor today.
The entire quote about Augustine’s pastoral ministry is worth consideration, but I have emphasized one particular sentence which gave me pause in considering the challenges pastors face today in amidst a cacophony of demands.
As the bishop of Hippo, Augustine was bound to a treadmill of ceaseless activity: as judge in the Episcopal court arbitrating endless litigation, as administrator of the Church’s vast property, as counselor of his priests, and as a leading member of the African hierarchy taking part in the great councils of the day.
At the same time as shepherd of his flock, he preached constantly before rapt and crowded congregations and left to posterity a collection of sermons that indicate his almost incredible knowledge of Scripture as well as a verbal dexterity that fascinated his uneducated audience and kept them interested even when he was expounding the most profound truths of the faith. Much of his success was due to an extraordinary sensitivity, by which he could identify with his people and so move them to identify completely with himself. With it all, he managed to carry on a huge correspondence with a host of friends and acquaintances and to write innumerable treatises – thirty-three books alone between 395 and 410.
Most pastors will not be immortalized like Augustine, but all can seek to emulate this one characteristic highlighted above — that of a humble shepherd of the sheep, a faithful under-shepherd of the flock entrusted by the Good Shepherd to his care.
Or, as Jesus said of his own shepherding ministry:
I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. (John 10:14)
Even as we labor to improve our mind and our understanding of theology and Scripture, let us also labor in our pastoral ministry to know our sheep and for them to know Jesus Christ better on account of them knowing us — even as we are following to know Christ.
(From A Concise History of the Catholic Church, by Thomas Bokenkotter — a work that has both sold a mountain of copies over the years while also receiving an ocean of criticism for his view of the Church.)
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