Homily: 4th Sunday of Easter - Year A

Readings: Acts 2:14,36-41; 1Pt 2:20-25; Ps 23; Jn 10:1-10

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Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, and for obvious reasons, given the readings we just heard.

In many respects the Good Shepherd is one of the most vivid of all Gospel images. Describing Himself as the Good Shepherd, Jesus shows His loving care for us, how precious we all are in God’s eyes. The Good Shepherd not only cares for us, but calls us to come together in His name, not as some amorphous mob, but as Church, called together in communion in word and sacrament to do His will in the world.

Now some of us might not appreciate being compared to sheep. I encountered this objection years ago when I was a young naval officer. At sea one evening, a group of us, including Fr. Pat, a visiting Catholic chaplain, were chatting over coffee when Mike, a young lieutenant and an agnostic, challenged the chaplain by saying:

"Christianity is a religion for wimps, especially you Catholics. You're just a bunch of sheep. You do whatever your Church tells you. You even call your God a shepherd. It's as if you actually like being compared to some stupid animal."

Now I'd never heard this argument before, so I was curious to hear how Fr. Pat would respond...and respond he did, in words I will never forget:

“Interesting observation, Mike. But I have a question for you: What's the cardinal rule of military leadership?" Mike didn’t miss a beat. "Take care of your men."

"That's right," Father Pat said, "because without them you can't accomplish the mission. Low morale means poor performance, so you do all you can to boost their morale…Now, do you think the men who work for you are wimps?"

Naturally he didn't. And Fr. Pat continued...

"Yet you expect obedience from them, especially in the heat of battle. You expect it because of your authority as a commissioned officer, and because you’ve earned their trust with your leadership. They trust you with their very lives. Why? Because they know if the need arises, you’d willingly give up your life for them. If you think about it, you expect your men to follow your lead, much like a herd of sheep will follow their shepherd, out of sheer trust. Jesus used the metaphor of the good shepherd because he was speaking to a pastoral people who would understand what he meant."

Father Pat was on a roll. None of us argued, or even said a word...so he went on...

"You know, Mike, if Jesus were here today, preaching aboard this ship, he'd probably say, 'I am the good Captain, my sailors know me and I know my sailors.' You see, it's not that we Christians are like dumb animals. We're really more like soldiers and sailors. We trust God because He was willing to sacrifice His life so that we might have eternal life."

How did Jesus put it in today’s Gospel reading?

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

…words that sum up the Good News of the entire Gospel message. And if there were ever a time when we needed to hear some good news, now is certainly the time.

By most human benchmarks, modern-day America enjoys a degree of affluence undreamed of by previous generations. Expensive cars, vacation homes, Caribbean cruises, smart TVs, and smarter phones, high-speed internet, the worldwide web…yes many Americans have it all.

"I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly."

Is this what Jesus meant by life in abundance – the good life? Or did he mean something else? If we set aside our material abundance, we find we also live in a country where children of affluence shoot their schoolmates; where suicide is a leading cause of death among the young; where citizens cry out for the death penalty because they believe the only cure for violence is more violence.

…a country where healers stop healing and assist in the killing of those who are burdensome, or inconvenient, or less than perfect.

…a country where it's legal to kill another human being only if that person is in the most defenseless, vulnerable stage of life, right before he or she is born. We do this so well; we've done it over 60 million times since 1973.

"I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly."

Is this what Jesus meant?

St. Teresa of Calcutta knew better. Do you remember? At the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in 1994 when she turned to our nation and our political leaders and spoke the truth:

"Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want."

A prophecy fulfilled in our hearing. This tiny woman, our beloved 20^th century prophet, had spent her entire life fighting what Saint John Paul called a “culture of death." She saw past the pleasant surroundings and nice-sounding words and into the hearts of our nation's leaders, these men and women of influence. And what she saw, quite simply, was the same darkness, the same culture of death she had come to know so well in the alleys and hovels of the world's forgotten places.

How did Jesus put it in today's Gospel? He alone is the gate to eternal life; all others are thieves and robbers.

"A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they may have life and have it abundantly."

Jesus is the gate, the gate to hope, the gate to life. And the Church? Well, do you know what St. Paul called the Church? He called it the “pillar and foundation of the truth” [1 Tim 3:15]. The Church is the gatekeeper. Recall Jesus' words to the Apostles:

"Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" [Mt 18:18].

But the Church doesn't speak for itself. The Church, the visible Body of Christ on earth, speaks the very Word of God and teaches the Truth. This is a tenet of our Catholic Faith. We either accept it and all that the Church teaches, or we reject it and cease calling ourselves Catholic Christians. And what does the Church tell us? Listen to the words of St. John Paul from his encyclical, "The Gospel of Life":

"The Gospel of God's love for man, the Gospel of the dignity of the person, and the Gospel of life are a single and indivisible Gospel."

Do we realize what this means? The one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church, Christ's Church, our Church, teaches unerringly that our dedication to social justice, our concern for the poor, for the dignity of the human person, must be founded on a rock-solid respect for human life in all its stages, or it is all meaningless. Only the Church speaks out consistently for life, teaching and preaching God's love for all humankind. This is why she is always under attack by those who would advance the culture of death.

We cannot confuse God's eternal truth with any human activity, even the noblest. All others, Jesus tells us plainly, are thieves and robbers. Does that offend us? It shouldn't. It’s always been the message of the Gospel, a message without compromise, a message centered on loving God above all else. When we Christians truly live the Gospel and abandon ourselves to God's Love, others will see Christ in us, will touch Christ in us, and He will plant the seeds of faith in their hearts.

Does this mean turning our lives upside down? A complete change of values? The end of our comfortable, isolated way of life? Quite simply, Yes. Have we forgotten that we are followers of a crucified Christ? For most of us, there’s a lot to overcome before we can say with St. Paul:

“I have been crucified with Christ…but Christ lives in me…" [Gal 2:19-20]

The choice is ours. We can follow the thieves and robbers we are warned against in the Gospel, or we can follow the Shepherd and His Church.

We can respond like the crowd:

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?” [Jn 6:60].

Or we can respond like Peter:

“Where else can we go. You have the words of eternal life” [Jn 6:68].

We must choose.

"I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly."

This is God's promise, the promise of eternal life.

Choose life.