Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Agnes Church, Manhattan
Second Sunday after the Easter Octave
April 15, 2018
1 Peter 2:21-25, Jn 10:11-16
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The text that guided today’s homily was:
Every year, in the heart of the Easter Season — on the Second Sunday after the Easter Octave in the Extraordinary Form and next week, on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, in the Ordinary Form — the Church has us ponder the Lord Jesus under the image of our Good Shepherd.
From the earliest days of Christianity, the Easter Season was formulated as the period of mystagogy, in which the newly baptized were introduced more deeply into the realities of the Christian life. But it has always been an opportunity for all the baptized to be nourished in our living out of the faith in all its consequences. Mystagogy has always been contrasted with pedagogy. Pedagogy is teaching someone how to swim in books and in a classroom; mystagogy is teaching someone to swim in a pool, immersing them in the reality of the water and helping them from within the water to learn how to float and move. And so in this mystagogical phase of the liturgical year, the Church is trying to help all of us immerse ourselves ever more into the “mysteries” of our faith so that we may learn how to live our whole life in alignment with them and become far more capable of helping others — kids, grandkids, godchildren, spouses, friends, fellow parishioners, and of course the recently baptized — to enter more deeply into them as well.
One of those most important realities is learning how to relate to the Risen Lord Jesus as our Good Shepherd. That’s why each Easter we ponder the tenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel in which Jesus tells us, “I am the Good Shepherd,” and seeks to help us become, first, his truly good sheep, and through that relationship become together with him good shepherds of others.
This transformation is one of the most frequently depicted images in ancient Christian art. This past week I’ve been in Rome where Pope Francis called the 895 priests whom he has appointed Missionaries of Mercy across the world to meet with him and be strengthened in our task of preaching about God’s mercy and sharing it, with the Pope’s own faculties, in the Sacrament of Confession. On Monday and Wednesday, we had lectures at the Pope’s university, next to his Cathedral of St. John in the Lateran. In the University’s beautiful new Aula Magna, made nine years ago, there was an incredible, huge mosaic above the dais of Jesus Christ the Teacher, seated as ancient teachers always were as students stood and learned, with his right hand raised as ancient professors and orators would do to call attention when they were about to speak, with a sealed book in his left hand ready to open up to us the mysteries. Above was a phrase in Latin, “Magister Vester Unus Est Christus,” “Christ alone is your teacher,” and underneath which were twelve sheep looking toward Christ on the throne. If you go to St. Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome you’ll see the similar twelve sheep on the mosaic of the façade. If you go to San Clemente, you’ll see them again. Why twelve? Why sheep? Because it was meant to show the twelve apostles’ relationship to Christ the Good Shepherd. Before Jesus could ever send them out to fulfill his mission caring for his sheep and lambs, they first needed to come to Him Good Shepherd. They needed to be good sheep before they could be good shepherds. They needed to be holy disciples before they could be ardent apostles. But Jesus intends for them — and us — to be both. That’s what we ponder today. As Jesus tells us, “I am the Good Shepherd,” we reply, “The Lord is my shepherd. There is nothing I shall want,” in other words, with the Lord as our Good Shepherd we have it all. St. Peter tells us at the end of the epistle we just heard, “You had gone astray like sheep,” which we clearly have because of sin, “but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls,” who wants to carry out this mystagogical work of transformation.
In John 10, Jesus tells us many things about his work as Good Shepherd in our life and how we’re supposed to respond.
- “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them.This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep. … I will lay down my life for the sheep.” — Do we recognize that Jesus has laid down his life for us, that he faced the wolves and the devil straight out on our love for us, not just risking but giving his life to save our own? As St. Peter tells us today, “Christ sufferedfor you. … He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” Does this life-saving work of Jesus make us truly grateful and change our life the same way that if someone risked and gave his life to save us from drowning we would spend the rest of our life telling others of that life-saver?
- “A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” — Jesus seeks to protect us. He makes himself the gate for the sheep saying that if the wolves want to get us they have to go through him first. Do we grasp that Jesus comes not to take our life away, but to give us life to the full, in this world and forever? While no one can take us from his hand, do we wander from that embrace?
- “Whoever does not enter a sheepfoldthrough the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber” and later “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” — Jesus doesn’t want us to cheat in our relationship with him. He wants us to enter fully into him. Have we? Do we seek to keep our communion with him in all parts of our life or just some?
- “His sheep hear his voice, as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. …. He walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him,because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.” — Jesus speaks to us. He’s not mute. He speaks in a clearly identifiable way, differently than others. He knows our names. He wants to know us intimately. He leads us out. He leads us on a journey, a true adventure. That pilgrimage is what life is about. He doesn’t merely tell us about where we need to go, but he leads us by example. He doesn’t want to keep us in the sheepfold but to guide us out to transform the world. Our discipleship and apostolate involve following where he has led. “Christ left you an example,” St. Peter tells us, “so that you should follow in his steps.” And so we can ask: Are we truly tuned into Jesus’ voice in prayer, in the readings of Sacred Scripture, in the events of each day. Do we listen for his voice more than we do for worldly gurus, or television commentators, or politicians, celebrities? Do we have a personal relationship with him such that we hear him calling us by name? He says a little later, “I know them and they follow me.” Do we allow ourselves to be fully known by Jesus in prayer, do we enter into friendship with him, do we follow him with trust as he seeks to lead us out, even as he asks us to live differently than all the rest?
We could add two other elements from other parts of Sacred Scripture.
- Jesus as our Good Shepherd comes searching for us to reconcile us — St. Luke tells us that when tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus and the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, Jesus replied, “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”
- Jesus as our Good Shepherd seeks to feed us. He “prepares a table for us in the midst of our foes.” Jesus feeds us in every way. He feeds us materially each day as he “gives us today our daily bread” (Mt 6:11). He feeds our souls with his word, for “not on bread alone does man live, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). He feeds us, ultimately, on his own body and blood in the Eucharist, the food of everlasting life.
This is the Risen Good Shepherd to whom we relate, who wants to make us part of his body. That is meant to be transformative for us. He wants to help us learn from him, and strengthen us on the inside, so that we may like him learn to lay down our lives for him and others, to listen to his voice in such a way that we can echo his words to others, to relate to him intimately in such a way that we can help others learn how Jesus is similarly calling them by name, to follow him so infectiously and joyously that others will long to join us on the journey to life in abundance.
The culmination of this transformation thanks to Jesus’ shepherdly laying down his life and his resurrection is depicted very well in the post-resurrection scene of Jesus with Peter on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus asked him three times, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” And Simon replied three times, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” And Jesus’ response to that was a commission: “Feed my sheep. Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep.” Peter’s love for the Good Shepherd would be shown in how he would shepherd for Jesus those he had entrusted to him. It’s the same for us. The more we are good sheep of the Good Shepherd, the more we hear his voice, the more we relate to him intimately by name, the more we follow him as he leads us out, simply the more we become like him and share his shepherdly heart.
As Psalm 23 reminds us, the Lord is our shepherd. With him, we have life to the full. And that Good Shepherd and Lord has now prepared a banquet for us, so that we may dwell with him in the house of the Lord, his one sheepfold, today and all the days of our life.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
A reading from the First Epistle of Peter
For to this you have been called, because Christ also sufferedfor you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps. “He committed no sin,and no deceit was found in his mouth.”When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten; instead, he handed himself over to the one who judges justly.He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.’ For you had gone astray like sheep,but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
The continuation of the Holy Gospel according to Saint John
Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them.This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep.I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me,just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep.I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.”
