Entering the Gate of the Sheep, Fourth Monday of Easter, April 22, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter
April 22, 2024
Acts 11:1-18, Ps 42, Jn 10:1-10

To listen to this morning’s homily, please click below: 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• The mystagogical catechesis of the Easter Season commences with the apparitions of the Risen Lord to convince us anew of the fact of his Resurrection and how he seeks to have us convert, seek the things that are above and live a new life. Then we have a four-day catechesis on the Sacrament of Baptism followed by an eight-day catechesis on the Eucharist. With Good Shepherd Sunday at the beginning of the Fourth Week, we begin to focus on various images and realities by which the risen Lord Jesus wishes to relate to us and bring us fully alive. Today is the second of three days on which we ponder the Risen Jesus as our shepherd. He summarizes the purpose of that relationship, the purpose of what he seeks to do in us through his passion, death and resurrection, at the end of today’s passage: “I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” St. John Paul II, in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, said that by this phrase, Jesus presents “the heart of his redemptive mission.” Jesus wishes us to overflow with his risen zoe. That’s what we prayed for at the beginning of Mass when we asked God to grant us the “full measure of [his] grace for ages unending.” Grace is our participation as creatures in God’s own life. At the end of today’s first reading, the early Church grasped that God wanted his “life-giving repentance” to be preached and offered to all the nations because Christ has “other sheep” as he told us in yesterday’s Gospel that were not of the fold of the Jews.
• In the Good Shepherd Discourse, we see how Jesus shepherds us to give us life in abundance, the full measure of his grace, in the following seven ways:
  • First he knows us — He knows us just like the Father knows him and he wants us to know him like he knows the Father. He is our friend and wants us to receive and reciprocate his friendship.
  • Second, he calls us by name — None of us is a number to him. None of us is anonymous. He summons us by name and calls us each individually. We’re special to him.
  • Third, he leads and guides us — He doesn’t call us and leave us on our own, but he constantly calls us to be with him. He goes before us so that he can turn to us and say “follow me.” Because he knows us individually, he knows that we need direction and he constantly gives that personal direction.
  • Fourth, he feeds us — In the most famous Psalm, which is all about how God shepherds us, we proclaim that with him, we lack nothing, but have it all. He leads us  into green pastures to have us graze. He guides us to restful waters to refresh us. He sets a table before us and makes our cup overflow. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus looked on the crowd because they were “like sheep without a shepherd,” on one occasion he worked the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish and on other occasion he began to teach, knowing that people were hungering for nourishment for their souls as well. As our shepherd, Jesus always remembers to give us each day our daily bread, both material and spiritual.
  • Fifth, he protects us — The ancient shepherds used to risk it all to protect their sheep against savage animals like wolves but also against bandits who would come to steal them. Jesus came into our world courageously to do the same for us. When we get lost wandering away from the fold, he leaves everyone else to come to find us and rescue us when we’re in danger.
  • Sixth, he gives his life for us — Jesus lays down, and lays down freely, his life for his sheep. I’ve always considered it crazy for a human being to die for an animal. It’s silly for us to die for our hamsters or parakeets or even for our pet canines and felines. But shepherds actually would die protecting their flocks from wolves, or lions, or evil bandits. The distance between human beings and animals, however, is nothing compared to the gap between God and us his creatures, and yet that’s precisely what God does. And he does so because he loves us.
  • Seventh, he gives us eternal life — The ultimate aim of everything he does is to give give us life to the full, not just in this world but forever.
• These are all characteristics of how the risen Lord Jesus wants to relate to us as our shepherd. Our first task is to respond to his shepherding in each of these seven ways.
  • To come to know him as he knows us — He wants us to know him the way the Father knows him and he knows the Father. That’s the mission of the Holy Spirit, who is the personal loving knowledge between the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit wants to help us to come to know Christ in prayer, in the sacraments, in charity and in life.
  • To respond to his call and singular involvement involvement in our life, to recognize that we’re special to him and summons us to a special bond with him and share in his saving mission. He says that his sheep hear his voice and don’t recognize the voice of a stranger. Yet one of the problems we face is that of discernment, because, after the Fall, we can’t always readily recognize his voice, and so we seek to attune our listening, with the help of others, to his constant calling. Each of us is called!
  • To follow him with docility and alacrity, knowing that we need his guidance and that he is constantly providing it. Our Christian life is not static, but dynamic. Jesus is always leading us out and he wants us following him. He’s leading us on a pilgrimage all the days of our life. Occasionally he will guide us through dark valleys with his rod and staff; we follow him there, too, as he gives us confidence to be with him even on the way of the Cross that is the path to glory.
  • To hunger for what he gives us, derive our nutrition from what he provides, with gratitude. It’s important for us to allow God to provide for us. That’s what God helped St. Peter to see in today’s first reading when God pronounced clean all food he had created. That’s key to spiritual childhood, that we recognize we need him. In the Psalm today, we pray, “Athirst is my soul for God, the living God.” This hunger and thirst are important physically but even more important spiritually, and God seeks to feed our souls even more lavishly than he feeds our bodies, because for our souls, he gives us himself as nutrition.
  • Not to run away from his protection to get his attention, but to stay close to his strong arm. That’s what gives us great confidence and happiness. There’s a beautiful part of today’s Gospel that says that the sheep “come in and go out and find pasture.” Those verbs point to the fact that they’re secure enough, under the protection of the Shepherd, to wander about, without being paranoid about the wolves or thieves.
  • To receive the fruits of laying down his life for us. Jesus died so that we might have new life, in fact, life to the full. The way we receive this gift is by coming alive, by seizing that gift of abundant life, which is not bios (biological life), but zoe (supernatural life). We don’t want Jesus’ gift of life to be wasted, but to invest it so that we may have more and more a share of his life, by entering into his life. That means we seek the things that are above, we thirst for the living God, and we seek to unite our whole life to him.
  • To long for the eternal life he gives us. Eternal life, Jesus says elsewhere, is knowing him and the Father who sent him. But that knowledge is supposed to grow so that we may become like him by seeing him as he is, which is the promise he makes about heaven. This means we live by the great hope, and set our hearts on the treasure of eternal life and love with him.
• When we begin to share in Jesus’ life to the full, when we become Jesus’ good sheep knowing him, listening to him, following him, consuming what he gives, staying under his protection, receiving his life to the full and hungering to be with him always, Jesus helps us to make the transition from being good sheep to becoming good shepherds so that others through us may come to life to the full. Then we become capable of being his instruments in order to:
  • Helping others to know God — We share with them the Gospel, we introduce them into the sacramental life, and we teach them how to pray so that they may come to know God and know themselves known by him.
  • Calling others individually by name — Everyone is precious to God and we need to treat them as precious. It’s one of the reasons why it’s important to learn people’s names. Names are how we relate to each other on a personal level, and if God calls us by name, we’re called to relate to others by name as well.
  • Setting for them good example to lead them in the Master’s ways — The Lord wants to use us to guide people to him and after him to abundant life. The greatest way we can pass on the gift of faith is by showing others the faith rather than just verbally teaching it, and particularly by showing how beautiful the life of the faith is. It’s much easier for them to walk in Jesus’ footsteps if they see us doing it.
  • Feeding them with material and spiritual nourishment — Before Jesus worked the miracle of the multiplication of loaves and fish, having looked upon the crowd that was like sheep without a shepherd, he told his apostles, “You give them something to eat.” He asked for the five loaves and two fish they had. So he wants us to share in his shepherdly care for others, feeding them materially and spiritually.
  • Protecting them from wolves, thieves, and marauders — Jesus wants us, like him, to be good shepherds protecting others from harm. He contrasts himself from the “merchants” who run away when beasts or bandits arrive to harm the flock, putting their self-preservation over the protection of others. Jesus calls us to another form of life, one of prudent vigilance not just over ourselves but over others. That leads us to the next point.
  • Loving them to the extreme — St. John writes in his first letter, “The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16). In forming us to be Good Shepherds, Jesus is helping us to be courageous, to lay down our lives for others in little ways or even by the supreme sacrifice. This is what a Good Shepherd does. This is what fathers and mothers worthy of the name do for their children. This is what Jesus is calling us to do for all our brothers and sisters. When we’re willing to die for others, then loving them is so much easier. And like Jesus said in yesterday’s Gospel, we’re called to do so willingly, saying, “No one takes my life from me. I fully lay it down!”
  • Helping them to long for heaven — Jesus wants to give them eternal life. In the midst of so many worldly hopes, we’re called to help seek what Pope Benedict called the “great hope” surpassing all others. We’re called to speak about heaven, to order our choices there. The Responsorial Psalm today focuses on desire for God and this is meant to translate into a desire to be with God forever: “As the hind longs for the running waters, so my soul longs for you, O God. Athirst is my soul for God, the living God. When shall I go and behold the face of God?” Then the Psalm answers the question, not just with regard to this life but to eternity, not just to the earthly Jerusalem but the heavenly. We pray: “Bring me to your holy mountain, to your dwelling-place. Then will I go in to the altar of God, the God of my gladness and joy; Then will I give you thanks upon the harp, O God, my God!”
• Jesus the Good Shepherd does all of this training here at Mass. It’s here where we get to know him intimately on the inside. It’s here he calls us. It’s here to which he guides us. It’s here that he feeds us. It’s here that he protects us from the evil one. It’s here that we receive his laying down his life for us on Holy Thursday and Good Friday. And it’s here that he gives us a foretaste of eternal life as we receive his Risen Body and Blood, the downpayment of lief to the full. In Psalm 23, we pray, “The Lord is my shepherd. There is nothing I shall want.” Indeed, with the Lord as our Good Shepherd, we have it all. And it’s here that on earth he seeks to give us, together with himself, every spiritual blessing in the heavens. Let us with joy come to meet him at the banquet he has set for us here on earth, which is a foretaste of the fullness of life he is seeking to give us in the eternal banquet he is preparing for us in the eternal verdant pastures.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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