Good Shepherd Sunday

                                                                   Eastertide: Day 21

The fourth Sunday of Easter is known as "Good Shepherd Sunday," because the Mass readings for this day contain the infamous statement of Jesus - "I am the Good Shepherd."

The article below is written by Paweł Rytel-Andrianik ​from www.aleteia.org, and gives 3 short points to reflect on for this Sunday. 

---

3 Points to prepare for Mass in 30 seconds.

The Gospel for 4th Sunday of Easter is John 10:11-18.
1. Good Shepherd Sunday
The fourth Sunday of Easter is celebrated as Good Shepherd Sunday. The Gospel of the Good Shepherd is read throughout the Church on this day.
We also pray for vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life. This is an invitation to each of us to join in this prayer not only on this day, but throughout the year.

2. Key Words
The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Jesus is the good shepherd and the model for every pastor of how he should give his life for those to whom he is sent. Giving one’s life for others means giving one’s time, strength, ability, attention, living for others and not for oneself.

I know my sheep, and my sheep know me. In an Italian parish, the catechist once asked the children to write questions to the Lord Jesus. One of the children asked: “Lord Jesus, are you friends with our priest or do you only know each other from work?” Of course, this applies to each of us: Are we friends with the Lord Jesus? Or do we know Him only by sight.

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead. Pope Francis is an example of how to look for people on the outskirts, like Jesus who looks for a lost sheep. And when he finds it, he puts it up on his shoulders and brings it into the fold.
​
3. Today
Jesus saw sheep grazing in the poor desert areas and in the fertile pastures of Galilee. He saw shepherds who always walked ahead of the sheep, leading them to the best places. Let us pray for our pastors, that they will courageously and lovingly lead us to Jesus.

"There is no other name by which we must be saved!"
-St. Peter​

2.  The responsorial psalm is Psalm 118:
R. (22) The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in man.
It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in princes.
R. The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.
I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me
and have been my savior.
The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
By the LORD has this been done;
it is wonderful in our eyes.
R. The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD;
we bless you from the house of the LORD.
I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me
and have been my savior.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
for his kindness endures forever.
R. The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone. 

We have discussed this Psalm in previous posts: its significance as a todah psalm, its use in the Passover liturgy, its frequency in the Lectionary during this time of the Church year.  In today’s mass, the Psalm complements the first reading, in which Peter quotes it concerning the “rejected stone”:

He is the stone rejected by you, the builders,
which has become the cornerstone.

Let’s keep in mind that Psalm 118 was essentially the last thing Our Lord uttered at the Last Supper, since the “hymn” sung by Jesus and the Apostles (Mark 14:26) before leaving for the Mount of Olives would have been the Passover Hallel consisting of Psalms 113-118. Now, weeks after Easter, Peter is proclaiming that the prophetic words of the Hallel have found a fulfillment in Christ!

Jesus was rejected by the religious leaders of his own day, even though he was the source of salvation.  In a mysterious way, many saints have shared in Jesus’s rejection, being spurned by those with power.  So St. John of the Cross was imprisoned by his own order, St. Padre Pio was held under a cloud of suspicion, St. Josemaria Escriva was prevented from having any access to or communication with the Pope.  St. Alphonsus Liguori, already advanced in years and in poor health, was kicked out of the order he had founded by his fellow priests.  This kind of mysterious suffering at the hands of those who themselves belong to the Church are not reserved only for the extraordinary figures of history, but can also happen to lay Catholics seeking to live out their lives in faithfulness.  St. Josemaria called it “persecution from the good,” and it is a deep form of sharing in the sorrows of Christ, a very painful contradiction that tries the faith of the believer who undergoes it.  One has to accept it in total abandonment to the mysterious will of God, and exercise faith that there is resurrection on the other side of this kind of painful personal “death,” as there was for Christ himself.

3.  The second reading is taken from the First Epistle of John 3:1-2:
Beloved:
See what love the Father has bestowed on us
that we may be called the children of God.
Yet so we are!
The reason the world does not know us
is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.
While at first it appears that this Reading does not share themes with the others, in fact it does, in a profound way: the Apostle John emphasizes the element of Jesus’ Gospel that the world finds so scandalous: the offer of divine sonship.  This is what the Buddha would have considered silly and Mohammed blasphemous:
See what love the Father has bestowed on us
that we may be called the children of God!

Our eternal destiny is mysterious, something beyond what can be fully comprehended in this life: “it does not yet appear what we shall be.”  It is not an eternal Disneyland nor garden of sensual delights. (In fact, the desire for self-satisfaction that would make us want a Disneyland or sensual garden is one of those things from which Christ came to free us.)  It will be, however, eternal communion with God: “we shall see him as he is.” 

Gazing (looking intently upon someone) is a profound form of communion in the Scriptures, as can be seen in the Song of Songs, a book which deeply influenced the Apostle John and echoes of which can be found in strategic places in his Gospel.  The idea of “seeing” God is very important in strategic places in the Gospel of John: just look at John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God, but God the only begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, has made him known,” or John 14:9: “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”

This Second Reading just re-emphasizes that the whole point of our Christian faith is something different than the other world religions and philosophies are trying to attain.  Do you want to become a child of the only creator God who truly exists?  Do you want to enter into communion with him and share his nature forever?  Then check out the Catholic Church founded by Jesus.

4. The Gospel reading, however, does not show the influence of the Song of Songs, but of two other key OT texts: Psalm 23 and Ezekiel 34.  We are speaking of the famous “Good Shepherd Discourse” (John 10:11-18):
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.
This is why the Father loves me,
because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own.
I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again.
This command I have received from my Father.”

In Psalm 23, David proclaimed: “The LORD (YHWH) is my Shepherd!”  So in claiming to be the “Good Shepherd,” Jesus is implicitly claiming to be the LORD.

Other passages come into play here, as well.  In Ezekiel 34 the LORD promises that in the latter days, “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD.  I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the crippled, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will watch over; I will feed them in justice” (vv. 15-16).  Jesus is clearly developing this passage and its larger context, and applying it to himself.

But Ezekiel 34 also promises that in the latter days, “I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd” (v. 23).  Hmmm, that’s curious.  Lord, I thought you just said that you yourself would be the shepherd of your sheep (Ezek 34:15)?  How is David going to fit into this picture?  Will there be two shepherds, the LORD and David?  But that can’t be, because “I will set up over them one shepherd …” (Ezek 34:23).

In claiming to be the Good Shepherd, Jesus is assuming the mantle of both the LORD and David, the two of whom, Ezekiel prophesied, would constitute the one shepherd of Israel in the latter days.

But here is an element of Jesus’ teaching that is not clearly foreseen in Psalm 23 or Ezek 34: namely, that the LORD-Shepherd would submit to death: “I lay down my life, that I may take it again.  No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (vv. 17-18).  This is a final “scandalous” element of Jesus Gospel: a savior-God who loves us to the point of death.  This, too, is something not found in Buddha, Mohammed, and the other great religions and philosophies.  It’s scandalous, too, because if our Shepherd, Lord, and God laid down his life in love, that sets an example for us: an example we often balk at following.  Let’s remember that Jesus taught us: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23).  The path of salvation is the path of the cross—a life of self-denial even to the point of death.  Understandably, this message has never been terribly popular.  Even in historical periods where the institutional Church has enjoyed popular support, the numbers of people who truly internalized this Gospel message and lived it out have been relatively small. It takes great faith to believe that self-sacrifice is, in fact, the one and only way to experience resurrection and eternal life. 

May the grace that we receive from communing with Christ in this Eucharist empower us to lay down our lives in love this coming week, take up our cross, and follow Jesus—whatever that may mean in our different life circumstances.