Then the shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen,
just as it had been told to them.

My brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,

The PNCC Solemnity of the Humble Shepherds is part of our rich heritage, and is another one of those unique feasts and solemnities that are not celebrated in other Catholic or Christian churches.

Who were these shepherds and why does the PNCC celebrate them? 

First of all, they are like us and our ancestors.  They were, in a particular way, like the men and women who worked to build and spread the PNCC across the United States and the world.

Remember that not many of our founders were rich, well educated, movers and shakers.  They were not people of power, means, and status.  They were humble working people.  They knew that their bread came by the sweat of their brow.  They knew what it meant to stand together, to help a neighbor and co-worker, to be strong in family and in faith.  They knew that their families were where the seeds of hard work, devotion to God’s Church, and love were planted.  They knew by first hand experience what the motto they left for the Church says: Truth, Work, and Struggle and through these Victory!

It is too bad that there aren’t similar solemnities and feasts worldwide. 

You know that the struggling Church is the Church that is sustaining the rest of us.  Look at the Church in Africa where strong, traditional Christianity is practiced, and where many suffer for the faith.  Look at the suffering Church in the Middle East and Asia where the penalty for faith in Jesus Christ is death.  Their values, their martyrs blood is what makes us strong.  The blood of martyrs is indeed the seed of the Christians. 

Like the suffering and the martyrs of today, and our humble immigrant ancestors, these shepherds were poor. 

The shepherds were not rich men living on a ranch and raising sheep.  They were rough and tough men, who lived out in the scrub and on the hillsides. They did not spend their evenings and nights in a house, rather they spent their time with the sheep —“ watching them, protecting them, and sleeping near them.  They were loners.   They were cunning, fearless, vigilant guardians whose deep and fierce love for their flocks made them a formidable force.  They inherited their trade from their fathers and passed it on to their sons.

These rough, tough, hard men were used to hard work.  The shepherd didn’t have much: He had an animal skin bag in which he carried his food —“ bread, dried fruit, some olives and cheese. He had his sling which he used as a weapon. He had a staff, a sort of short wooden club often studded with nails, which hung on his belt. And he had his rod —“ the shepherd’s crook.

The first visitors to the Christ child were these men, whom we honor today.  The heavenly host came to them in all its majesty.  These rough cut men did not disbelieve. They did what they were trained to do.  They went to see.  On seeing they believed.

We honor them not just because they trusted, saw, and believed, but because they gave glory to God for all of it.  For what God had done.

Do we glorify God for what we have heard and seen? 

Is your first thought as you leave the church, thank you God for bringing Your light into my life?  Is your first thought one of praise for God forgiving your sins, giving you His Word, and for His Son’s coming into your body, heart, and soul?  Is your first thought, thank you God for allowing me to be here today?

God I praise You.  Repeat it with me.  God I praise You.  Repeat this constantly.  Repeat it every morning and each night.  Repeat it at meals, at work, and at rest.

My friends,

Creation is marvelous.  Like the shepherds we are very much in touch with creation; the things around us.  Like the shepherds we are tasked with hard work.  And, like the shepherds, more than the created has been revealed to us. 

We know God.  We know Him because of His Son, Jesus Christ.  We know Jesus Christ because of the Church. We know God by God’s mercy only, because God wants us.  We can do nothing to make God love us or save us. 

Today’s second reading bears repeating:

When the kindness and generous love of God our savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done but because of his mercy, He saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.

Like the shepherds we must be thankful for being allowed to hear and see.  We must come here more and more and do so with the sole intent of glorifying and praising God.  We do so by our worship of him, by our sorrow for our sins, and by constantly taking him into ourselves.