Homily: Monday, 4th Week of Easter

Reading: Acts 11:1-18; Ps 42; Jn 10:1-10
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Today is the optional memorial of Our Lady of Fatima, and how blessed we are in this parish to have our prayer warriors who pray the Rosary together here in our Church after daily Mass.

They pray for the Church, for our parish, for the intentions of our parishioners, all in response to our Blessed Mother's hope that the Rosary will be prayed daily throughout the universal Church. In doing so, they join many other parishioners who pray the Rosary daily in their families. 

Yes, we are blessed to have them.

And because Mary appeared to three shepherd children, it's also fitting that today's Gospel passage should focus on the Good Shepherd.

We hear Jesus say many remarkable things in the Gospel, but I really think far too many Christians don't seem to believe He always means exactly what He says...even when He turns to metaphors and other figures of speech.

For example, in the verse that immediately follows our Gospel passage from John, Jesus says:

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" [Jn 10:11].

Now I've known only one person who could remotely be called a shepherd since he raised sheep. But I really don't think he would have sacrificed his own life for that of a lamb. For him it was simply a business and I would guess that for him an occasional lost sheep was part of the cost of doing business.

But Jesus isn't simply "a shepherd" or even "a good shepherd." No, He calls Himself "the Good Shepherd" - the one and only Good Shepherd. 

And will He really lay down His life for His sheep? Well, yes. He already did so, didn't He?  For we are His sheep; and to rescue and gather us to Himself, He paid a price, and the price was His life.

Hearing this, so many find themselves asking: Can this possibly be true? Can the Creative Word of God, the God who brought everything into existence, have such love for His creatures?

He can and He does. But not just for us as the human race, as a people, but for every single, unique one of us. 

"...the sheep hear His voice, as He calls His own sheep by name..." [Jn 10:3]

He calls us by name, every single one of us. You and I can't hide from God's love. It's simply far too great, and it reaches out to us even when we seem surrounded by darkness. It's an ineffable love, a love taken to extremes, this love of God. In fact, He takes love to such an extreme that we finally come to understand what St. John meant when he said, quite simply: "God is love" [1 Jn 4:8].

And God's love has a purpose. Recall Jesus' words:

"I am the gate for the sheep...Whoever enters through me will be saved..."  [Jn 10:7,9]

He, then, is the gateway to eternal life, to a life we cannot imagine. Here again, the metaphor describes a truth, for salvation comes only through Jesus Christ, only when we follow the Good Shepherd, only when we choose the good. In other words, He created us, not as robots programmed to respond as He desires, but in His own image and likeness, with intellect and will, able to make moral choices.

"He walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow Him, because they recognize His voice" [Jn 10:4].

To make the right choices, then, we must recognize His voice, listen to the Word, and believe in the Gospel. For like the sheep called by the shepherd, we are called by Jesus to follow:

But then Jesus says something that should cause to look more deeply within:

"I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me" [Jn 10:14].

Yes, Jesus knows His sheep, but how well do we know Him?  Do we even try to know Him, or do we simply accept what we're told and go on with our lives?

The Lateran Basilica in Rome has a remarkable and very large baptistery. And right beside the font is a statue of a deer leaning down and thirsting for a drink. Do you recall the words or today's Psalm?

"As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God" [Ps 42:2[.

At Easter we all renewed our baptismal promises, and were then sprinkled with the newly blessed baptismal water. Did we thirst for that water, that saving water?

...the living water that made us children of the Father?

...the living water that filled us with the Holy Spirit, "the Lord and Giver of life," the Holy Spirit Peter described in today's reading from Acts?

...the living water that cleansed us of sin?

...the living water that brought us into Christ's Church?

How did Jesus put it when He described His mission?

"I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly" [Jn 10:10]

That's what Jesus wants for you and me, brothers and sisters, what we should all thirst for: a life of abundance, an eternal life in the embrace of the Good Shepherd. We need only follow Him, loving our God and our neighbor.