Sunday Meditation: The Shepherd Calls His Sheep

The Gospel passage for the Fourth Sunday of Easter is always on a section of Chapter 10 of John’s Gospel, the chapter of the Good Shepherd.  Year A has the beginning of the chapter where Jesus compares Himself to the gate and gatekeeper of the sheep pen.  Three years ago I embedded a wonderful exegesis from Dr. Brant Pitre.  It is worth going back to hear it.  The key is understanding the Old Testament allusion Jesus is making from Ezekial.  The bad sheep are the past leaders of Israel.

To the shepherds, thus says the Lord GOD: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been pasturing themselves! Should not shepherds pasture the flock?  You consumed milk, wore wool, and slaughtered fatlings, but the flock you did not pasture.  You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick nor bind up the injured. You did not bring back the stray or seek the lost but ruled them harshly and brutally.  So they were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and became food for all the wild beasts.  They were scattered and wandered over all the mountains and high hills; over the entire surface of the earth my sheep were scattered. No one looked after them or searched for them.  (Ez 34:2-6)

And Ezekial goes on to say that God Himself will one day shepherd the people.

 

For thus says the Lord GOD: Look! I myself will search for my sheep and examine them.  As a shepherd examines his flock while he himself is among his scattered sheep, so will I examine my sheep. I will deliver them from every place where they were scattered on the day of dark clouds.  I will lead them out from among the peoples and gather them from the lands; I will bring them back to their own country and pasture them upon the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and every inhabited place in the land.  In good pastures I will pasture them; on the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down on good grazing ground; in rich pastures they will be pastured on the mountains of Israel.  I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest—oracle of the Lord GOD.  (Ez 34: 11-15)

 

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

Jesus said:

"Amen, amen, I say to you,

whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate

but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber.

But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice,

as the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he has driven out all his own,

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."

Although Jesus used this figure of speech,

the Pharisees did not realize what he was trying to tell them.

 

So Jesus said again, "Amen, amen, I say to you,

I am the gate for the sheep.

All who came before me are thieves and robbers,

but the sheep did not listen to them.

I am the gate.

Whoever enters through me will be saved,

and will come in and go out and find pasture.

A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy;

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

~Jn:10: 1-10

 

 

This is a great homily from our old friend Fr. Terrance Chartier. 

 

 

He is so thorough on all the facets of this Gospel passage.  I can only highlight a couple of his points.

Fr. Terrance:

In John 10:2, it says that the good shepherd enters the sheepfold through the door or through the gate, not through some other sneaky means. Now, what does this mean? Well, it means that Jesus does things in the right way. The sheepfold is an image for his church.  So, Jesus acts through his church. He enters the sheepfold through the door of the church. He's united with his children through the sacraments. unites himself to us through the sacraments.  The catechism at number 1213 calls baptism the gateway to life in the spirit and the door which gives access to the other sacraments.  So Jesus uses the means which he himself has established namely the sacraments and the hierarchy of the church in order to reach his children his sheep.  Shepherds in the church who have the heart of the good shepherd, therefore act in accord and in conformity to the church. They don't get at the sheep by going around the church or ignoring the church or disobeying the church. Those who do so to quote our Lord's words are thieves and robbers.

 

Secondly, the good shepherd calls his own sheep by name. John 10:3. When we were baptized, we were actually given a Christian name. We were given a baptismal name. And the catechism at number 2156 notes that through your name, Jesus, the good shepherd knows you personally. So through baptism, we belong to him. But after baptism, we truly belong to him or we continue to belong to him if we listen to his voice.  My sheep hear my voice. He says in (John 10:27) meaning that we belong to Christ, if we live our life in conformity to his teaching and his commandments, if we strive to be faithful to the commandments, then Jesus really does know us on an intimate personal level.  What will he say on judgment day to those who are condemned? He will say to them, quote, "I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers." (Matthew7:23).  So when Jesus speaks to you now, when he speaks in your conscience and through the godly people in your life, you need to hear his voice. You need to listen to him.

There are more insights worth listening to including an exegesis of the 23rd psalm.

 

For the pastoral homily I will present to you someone who I have not embedded on these Sunday homilies before, a Dominican from The Province of St. Albert the Great—that’s the province from the Midwest of the United States—Fr. Charlie Brouchard O.P. 

 

There is no transcript to copy from, but I particularly liked his story about when he was in the novitiate and had to round up sheep in a camp experience with the other novitiates.  “Those sheep neither recognized our voices nor followed us.  In fact they were quite determined to not get on that truck and protested in every possible way they could, including leaving little presents all over the ground and on us!”

“We can say we believe there are many sheep gates to choose among but Jesus is suggesting to us in effect there is only one that will lead us to happiness and salvation.”

“One of the issues this [recent Catholic conversions] raises for us is whether we have spoken or behaved in a way that might have attracted even one single person to the faith.  Has my witness in what I say or what I do made anyone say, “Oh maybe the Catholic Church...is the sheepgate that Jesus is talking about.”

The Church through our witness is the voice of Jesus calling out to the sheep.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: "Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture."

 

Let’s return to John Michael Talbot with his “The Lord is My Shepherd.”

 

The Lyrics:

The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not want

Beside restful waters

I am there

In the pasture of plenty

My soul lies down

 

So come all you thirsty

Your soul shall be refreshed

And come all you inflicted

And be healed

For though we walk

In the darkness now

No evil shall be feared

If the light of His banner

Be at our side

 

The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not want

Beside restful waters

I am there

In the pasture of plenty

My soul lies down

 

And come

All you hungry

At the table by His bread

And come now

And be anointed

Overflow

With His goodness

And His kindness

For the rest of your years

As you dwell within the hosue

Of our Lord

 

The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not want

Beside restful waters

I am there

In the pasture of plenty

My soul lies down

 

Sunday Meditation: On the Road to Emmaus

For the Third Sunday of Easter in Year A we have the notable “Road to Emmaus” passage.  It is the Sunday of the Resurrection, and two disciples, dejected and unbelieving that Christ has risen, are walking from Jerusalem to a town seven miles away called Emmaus.  Suddenly a man joins them on the route, and in dialogue the man explains to them how the scriptures had foreshadowed a messiah who would undergo suffering and death and resurrection.  Who are these two disciples?  The passage names one as Cleopas but leaves the other unnamed. Among the theories of the identity of the unnamed disciple, I favor the other being Mary the wife of Cleopas.  Mary the wife of Cleopas is mentioned being at the crucifixion in three Gospels: Jn 19:25, Mt 27:56, and Mk 15:40.  It would make perfect sense that Cleopas would be traveling home with his wife.  Fr. Geoffrey Plant will developed this further in his homily below.

One important aspect of this passage is that it depicts both the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist together.  I don’t think there is anywhere else in the New Testament where the two are so brought together.

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

That very day, the first day of the week,

two of Jesus' disciples were going

to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus,

and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.

And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,

Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,

but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.

He asked them,

"What are you discussing as you walk along?"

They stopped, looking downcast.

One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply,

"Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem

who does not know of the things

that have taken place there in these days?"

And he replied to them, "What sort of things?"

They said to him,

"The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene,

who was a prophet mighty in deed and word

before God and all the people,

how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over

to a sentence of death and crucified him.

But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel;

and besides all this,

it is now the third day since this took place.

Some women from our group, however, have astounded us:

they were at the tomb early in the morning

and did not find his body;

they came back and reported

that they had indeed seen a vision of angels

who announced that he was alive.

Then some of those with us went to the tomb

and found things just as the women had described,

but him they did not see."

And he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are!

How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!

Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things

and enter into his glory?"

Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,

he interpreted to them what referred to him

in all the Scriptures.

As they approached the village to which they were going,

he gave the impression that he was going on farther.

But they urged him, "Stay with us,

for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over."

So he went in to stay with them.

And it happened that, while he was with them at table,

he took bread, said the blessing,

broke it, and gave it to them.

With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,

but he vanished from their sight.

Then they said to each other,

"Were not our hearts burning within us

while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?"

So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem

where they found gathered together

the eleven and those with them who were saying,

"The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!"

Then the two recounted

what had taken place on the way

and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.

~Lk:24:13-35

 

 

Fr. Geoffrey Plant provides a thorough exegesis of this passage, including proposing that the unnamed disciple is Mary of Clopas.

 

Fr. Geoffrey:

Let us briefly consider two important themes that have emerged here. Firstly, the risen Lord is neither a spirit nor a ghost; he has a physical body that can be touched. And secondly, the risen Lord emphasizes that his death and resurrection are the fulfilment of Scripture. The Gospels of Luke and John stress the physical reality of the risen Jesus in strikingly similar ways, especially through the themes of touch and eating, as we have heard in today’s Gospel. Jesus invites the disciples to touch him, and he then asks for something to eat. And yet the risen body of Jesus is not simply restored to ordinary earthly life. Jesus is not merely resuscitated, like Lazarus was. The body of Jesus is transformed, belonging to the new creation. He is no longer subject to the ordinary limitations of space and time.

 

This second theme — the fulfilment of Scripture — runs through Luke’s whole work. The overall design of Luke’s two-volume narrative — the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles — is to show that the story of Jesus constitutes the fulfilment of the story of Israel. God has bound himself to Israel and can therefore be trusted to rescue his people and bring his saving purposes to completion. In Luke’s Gospel, the idea that Scripture is being “fulfilled” means that what God promised long ago is now actually happening — and to express this idea Luke often uses the Greek verb πληρόω (plēroō), which means “to fulfil, to fill up, or to bring to completion.”… God’s plan has been unfolding across centuries, and in Jesus the promises of Scripture reach their goal. But Luke is not only telling us what  God has done; he is also shaping his Gospel so that we learn how to see what God is doing.

 

And so, when you see the parallels of between the eating of the bread in this passage with that of eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden (“their eyes were opened”), does it not make sense that the unnamed disciple was a woman, the wife of the man?

For the pastoral homily, let’s once again turn to Fr. Greg Friedman OFM who provides a homily for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

 

Fr. Greg:

The 24th chapter of Luke's gospel might have been written by a busy pastor and his pastoral team. There the biblical author presents the very first Easter day as one of non-stop action. It begins with the women then Peter coming to the tomb.  Next, today's gospel story of the road to Emmas. The two disciples walk 7 miles from Jerusalem, share a meal with the risen Jesus, then head back to Jerusalem. There all the disciples are visited by the Lord. But the day doesn't end. Jesus leads them out to Bethany where he blesses them and is carried up to heaven. If you read it straight through, the action seems to take place all on one day. Now, that's what I call a busy Easter. While we're focused today on that well-known story on the road to Emmas, allow me to reflect a bit on Luke's long Easter day. Why would the evangelist choose to group all the stories about the risen Jesus together into what appears to be 24 hours?  Well, I suspect Luke isn't concerned about real time here. Rather, his non-stop Easter Day takes place in salvation time, sometimes called by the Greek word Kairos.  Thanks to the resurrection of Jesus, his disciples are experiencing through faith and teaching what life as church is all about…Luke does have a point by inviting us to live our lives in a timeless Easter day.

 

What a wonderful insight.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: "Were not our hearts burning within us

while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?"

 

This was played at my parish today.  “Two Were Bound for Emmaus.”

 

Two were bound for Emmaus, disheartened and lost

All their hope for the future had been nailed to a cross

Love unknown then walked beside them, come back from the dead

And they knew he was risen in the breaking of bread

 

On the Sea of Tiberius, when the night was nearly gone

And their toil seemed so useless, not one fish had they caught

From the shore, the stranger called to them

"Cast your net, friends, once more"

And they filled it to bursting, but the net was not torn

 

Then they knew it was Jesus and they hastened in to shore

Bread and fish for their breakfast from the hands of their Lord

"O Peter, if you love me you must care for my sheep

If you follow your Shepherd, then a shepherd you'll be"

 

When the road makes us weary, when our labor seems but loss

When the fire of faith weakens and too high seems the cost

Let the Church turn to its risen Lord who for us bore the cross

And we'll find our hearts burning at the sound of his voice

 

Two were bound for Emmaus, disheartened and lost

All their hope for the future had been nailed to a cross

Love unknown then walked beside them, come back from the dead

And they knew he was risen in the breaking of bread

 

 

Sunday Meditation: Receive the Holy Spirit

For the Second Sunday of Easter we have the same Gospel passage every year, though the other readings change with the liturgical calendar.  Every year we hear how the Apostle Thomas doubted Christ’s bodily Resurrection only to have Jesus show up and let Thomas touch the wounds.  In the year 2000, Pope St. John Paul II instituted for the Second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday.  Last year we were in mourning over the passing of Pope Francis who had died Easter Monday.  Pope Francis had a very strong devotion to Divine Mercy. 

The Gospel reading is famous for the Doubting Thomas story, but perhaps more important is the fact that the Risen Christ breathes on the apostles to pass on the Holy Spirit.  “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he tells them and with that He creates them anew.  This of course is an allusion to Genesis chapter 2, “Then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Gen 2:7).  Man is formed with the breath of life in Genesis, and Jesus reforms them with the breath that is the Holy Spirit upon His resurrection.  Jesus’s Resurrection begins the new creation. 

 

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”

 

Thomas, called Didymus, one of the Twelve,
was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
But he said to them,
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands
and put my finger into the nailmarks
and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

 

Now a week later his disciples were again inside
and Thomas was with them.
Jesus came, although the doors were locked,
and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.”
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

 

Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples
that are not written in this book.
But these are written that you may come to believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that through this belief you may have life in his name.

~Jn:20:19-31

 

There is a lot going on in this passage.  Resurrection, breath, peace, wounds, faith, Fr. Cajetan Cuddy O.P. of the Encyclopedia of Catholic Theology pulls it all together.

 

Fr. Cajetan:

“Nothing can be a barrier to union with Jesus.”  “The Gospel reveals that nothing can prevent Christ from reaching those He loves—not fear, not suffering, not even sin. In His mercy, Jesus passes through every barrier and gives Himself to us, especially through the sacrament of confession.”  “The wounds of Christ are not signs of defeat, but of a love that transforms all things. Even our brokenness can become a place of healing when brought to Him.”  “It is in the sacrament of penance that Jesus gives us mercy, His peace, reconciliation to Him.”  “Whatever Jesus touches, bears, becomes holy.”  “The wounds Jesus bore show that He can transform any disorder.”  “He assimilated the pain and suffering of the world so that when we go through pain and suffering our pains and sufferings in Jesus can become a means of sanctification, of holiness, and of salvation.

 

Listen to it all. 

 

For the pastoral homily, let’s turn to a Franciscan, Fr. Greg Friedman OFM who appropriately quotes Pope Francis.

 

Fr. Greg:

Grace always precedes us, Pope Francis declared, and takes on the face of mercy that affects our reconciliation and pardon. God makes us understand the great love for us precisely when we recognize that we are sinners. Grace is stronger than sin. It overcomes every possible form of resistance because love conquers all.  I think Thomas realized his need for Jesus at that moment in the story. His humble prayer says it all. My God and my Lord. We who hear this gospel centuries later are included in this scene as well. Jesus blesses us who have not seen and yet believe. Our faith assures us as Pope Francis said that in our risen Lord, love conquers all.

 

What grace Thomas received.  What peace Thomas must have felt when Christ allowed him to put his fingers into Christ’s wounds.  What Divine Mercy.  And what grace we have by believing.  What Divine Mercy.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “Peace be with you.”

 

 

I have played this lovely song before, “Divine Mercy Flood My Soul” by Annie Karto.  I have to post it again.  It seems so perfect.

 

All I could see, all I could feel

Was swept away in a river of his love

I felt so weak I rested in his arms

Washed clean, His gaze now feels so warm.

 

Divine Mercy like a river

Oh flood my soul

Wash me clean

And make me whole.

 

Finally we had a special praying of the Divine Chaplet at our parish at the three o’clock hour with the Blessed Sacrament exposed.  Off to the side we had a first class relic and beside that our replica of the Divine Mercy painting.  Let me share pictures.

For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.