We Are His Sheep - Who is Our Shepherd? 4th Sunday of Easter Year C

Nowadays people do not like being compared to sheep. In our modern sensibilities we find it offensive to be compared to docile animals with little thinking capacities. After all, we are more educated and we make our own decisions about a great many things that in ancient times were not available to people. However, shepherding was the essential economy of Israel and all the great figures of the Old Testament were shepherds: Abel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David. Israel saw her relationship to God in terms of God being their shepherd and they the sheep who follow the shepherd. These images continue in the time of Jesus and the New Testament, as all our readings this week make reference to the shepherding image.


The first reading draws our attention to authentic shepherds for the sheep of God. By their actions in putting Jesus to death, the Sanhedrin has lost their claim to be shepherds of God's people. Paul and Barnabas, by contrast, demonstrate the qualities of genuine shepherds who care for all God's people. The message of the Gospel is a message for all God's people, and every single human being - Jew or Gentile - has access to that message through faith in Jesus. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who gave us an example of qualities for shepherding the people of God. What is more, he appointed people to look after his flock, as we saw in last week's Gospel text and now we see in the actions of Paul and Barnabas.


In the vision of John in the book of Revelation that makes up our second reading, a great multitude is gathered in heaven to adore the Lamb of God. These are the sheep who followed the example of the Lamb. Jesus showed us the way to live on earth: to follow the will of God in all things by giving one's life and death for others. This Lamb becomes the shepherd who guides them through times of great distress. No doubt our own times could be described in these terms, and the message is the same for us as it would be for the original audience who experienced the persecution of the Roman Empire. We must be faithful to Christ and remain within the sheepfold of His Church.


The Gospel text also highlights this theme. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who guides his sheep by training them to hear his voice. Shepherds take great pains to train their sheep to recognize only the voice of the shepherd; a well trained flock of sheep will not follow any other voice but that of the shepherd. Jesus does likewise with his flock, the Church. He has provided us with shepherds to guide the Church faithfully. Last week we saw Jesus do so by commissioning Peter to be the chief shepherd of the flock, a duty entrusted through the ages to the popes.


Today we have a tendency through our power of choice to prefer to listen to one pope over and against another, as if there were any difference in what each teaches or in the authority each possesses. As one spiritual writer noted, "we should not fall into the all too easy temptation of setting one Pope against another, having confidence only in those whose actions respond to our personal feelings. We are not among those who nostagically look back to a former Pope or look forward to one in the future who will eventually dispense us from obeying the present one...Therefore in speaking of the pope we exclude from our vocabulary any expressions derived from parliamentary assemblies or the polemics of newspapers; let it not be said that people not of our faith should be the ones who explain the prestige of the head of the Church in the world to us." (G. Chevrot, Simon Peter, ch. 2)


Our shepherds on earth need our prayers and support in order to shepherd well, for only the grace of God can enable them to accomplish the grave responsibilities entrusted to them. May our prayers be with them as we hear the Opening Prayer for Mass today: "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, though your people walk in the valley of darkness, no evil should they fear; for they follow in faith the call of the shepherd whom you have sent for their hope and strength. Attune our minds to the sound of his voice, lead our steps in the path he has shown, that we may know the strength of his outstretched arm and enjoy the light of your presence forever. Amen."

"We are Witnesses to These Things" - Third Sunday of Easter Year C

In our times the word 'witness' refers to someone who actually sees an event occur and they give a statement to that effect. Our legal system uses the term in a similar way, referring to people who were eyewitnesses or other experts who can tell the court what happened in a particular case. While all of these senses of the word are certainly true, there is another element of the word 'witness' lost to our modern understanding, one that we find today in the readings for holy Mass. These readings provide us with the call to witness, the act of witnessing itself, and the heavenly witness after our life on earth.


In the Gospel reading, John records yet another resurrection appearance of Jesus to his disciples. These men were carrying on their ordinary work of fishing when Jesus appears on the shore and directs them in their work. Once he realizes it it Jesus, Peter jumps in the water to swim to our Lord, not prepared for what Jesus will say to him. After breakfast, Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. While Peter answers yes to each instance, Jesus commands Peter each time to feed Jesus' sheep. Afterward, Jesus will tell Peter what will happen in his life, indicating even the type of death Peter would suffer. In every instance of this Gospel text, Peter is called to witness to Jesus' resurrection: in swimming ashore, in receiving the command to shepherd the Church of God, and in hearing how his life of witnessing will end. Witnessing involves more than mere words; it involves deeds.


The first reading provides us with another aspect of witnessing. Peter in fact is the main character again in this reading, where he tells the Sanhedrin that the Christian community is the witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Greek term for witness is marturia, a word that provides us with our English word 'martyr'. To be a witness, therefore, is not merely to speak words, but to perform the works of Christ on earth: to go about doing good and to suffer for the sake of Jesus' name. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "The duty of Christians to take part in the life of the Church impels them to act as witnesses of the Gospel and of the obligations that flow from it. This witness is a transmission of the faith in words and deeds. Witness is an act of justice that establishes the truth or makes it known. 'All Christians by the example of their lives and the witness of their word, wherever they live, have an obligation to manifest the new man which they have put on in Baptism and to reveal the power of the Holy Spirit by whom they were strengthened at Confirmation" (CCC #2472, quoting Vatican II Ad Gentes #11).


By witnessing to the resurrection of Christ and the ministry of reconciliation throughout one's life, even to the point of death, the Christian then becomes worthy to partake of the heavenly liturgy John describes in the second reading from the book of Revelation. This final act of witnessing is our reward for a life of faith on earth, a reward we do not earn but one freely given to those who live in response to the love God has shown to us all. Blessed Pope John XXIII now partakes of this heavenly worship, and while on earth he offered us a prayer that aptly concludes our reflection: "O Lord, in return for so much tenderness you ask me anxiously one thing only: 'My son do you love me? Lord, how can I answer you? See my tears, my throbbing heart...What can I say? 'Lord, you know that I love you.' Oh, if I could love you as Peter loved you, with the fervor of Paul and all the martyrs! My love must be joined to humility, a low opinion of myself and scorn for the things of this world - and then make of me what you will, an apostle, a martyr, Lord! At the sight of my most gentle Jesus humbling himself and, like a meek lamb, submitting to persecution, torture, treachery, and death, my soul is bewildered, ashamed, prostrated: I can find no words - even my pride hangs its head in shame. 'O most sweet Jesus, comfort of the pilgrim soul, with you I am voiceless, by my very silence speaks to you! Oh, after so many graces, showered upon me during my long life, there is nothing now that I can refuse. You have shown me the way, O Jesus. 'I will follow you wherever you go,' to sacrifice, to mortification, to death" (Journal of a Soul, p. 91-92, 318).

Seeing is Not Believing - Sunday After Easter Year C

I've often imagined myself, a native of Buffalo, NY, being away from America for many years and apart from any news whatever. Someone then comes to me and says the Buffalo Bills won the Super Bowl. Needless to say, I'm a bit skeptical, but I want to believe it with all my heart. Still, I would want some proof for this miraculous news. In some way, I could identify with Thomas in today's Gospel text. However, the comparison would not do justice to the full import of today's readings, for in reality this week's liturgical theme has to do with the response of faith to the risen Jesus.

Rather than seeing the Gospel reading as being about Thomas, another reading of the text would have us focus our attention on the eleven who saw the Risen Jesus first. While still afraid afterward (they were still in the locked upper room eight days later), they nonetheless felt compelled to tell Thomas about their experience with Jesus and encouraged him to believe. Through their efforts Thomas was present the next time in order to experience Jesus' second appearance. On Easter we have renewed our baptismal vows and new members of the Church have been baptized and confirmed. We have encountered the risen Christ, and so we must encourage others to meet Jesus alive and present to them as well.

St. Augustine made a similar point to his flock centuries ago: "So, then, on Saturday next, on which we shall celebrate the Vigil, God willing, you will have to render not the Prayer (the Our Father), but the 'Symbolum' (the Creed); because if you do not learn it now, afterwards you will not be hearing it every day in the Church from the people. And, in learning it well, say it every day so as to not forget it: when getting up from bed, when you are going to sleep, pronounce your 'Symbolum'; pronounce it to God, striving to learn it by heart, and don't be lazy about repeating it. It is a good thing to repeat so as not to forget. Don't say: 'I have already said it yesterday, I am saying it today and I say it everyday: I have it well engraved in my memory.' Let it be for you a reminder of your faith and a mirror in which you see yourself reflected. Look at it yourself, then, in it; check to see if you continue believing all the truths that you say in words that you believe, and rejoice daily in your faith. Let them be your riches; let them be as an apparel for the adornment of your soul" (St. Augustine, Sermon 58, 15).

John, the author of the book of Revelation, took the creed seriously and passed the faith on to others. For this apostolic endeavor, he found himself exiled to the island of Patmos by the Roman Empire. Unable to be in contact with others, John becomes discouraged until he sees this vision of the risen Jesus in the heavenly Jerusalem, a sight that frightened him just as the sight of Jesus on that first Easter morning. Nevertheless, John is encouraged to write down what he has experienced. Through his writing John will be able to pass along the faith to others.

Finally, the first reading recounts the response of the entire Christian community to the risen Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit they have experienced at Pentecost. As a result of their witness for the faith, more and more people came to believe in the Lord and the young church grew in numbers. What is more, their ministry was focused on care for the sick and the poor, an essential element of Christian living in every age. Thus, by gathering together in community for prayer we come to know our ultimate destiny and vocation in life. As the Second Vatican Council taught: "Only by the light of faith and by meditation on the word of God can one always and everywhere know God in whom 'we live and move and have our being', seek His will in every agent, see Christ in everyone whether he be a relative or stranger, and take correct judgments about the true meaning and value of temporal things both in themselves and in their relation to man's final goal" (Vatican II, Apostolican actuositatem, 4).

If we live by this faith and genuinely put it into practice in our lives, then we too will lead others to Christ and to his Church. We will open schools instead of close them, grow deeper in Christian unity around the bishops as the authentic teachers of Christian faith, and provide a ministry of healing to the sick that protects all human life from conception to natural death and leaves no one uncovered. We pray, "God of mercy, you wash away our sins in water, you give us new birth in the Spirit, and redeem us in the blood of Christ. As we celebrate Christ's resurrection increase our awareness of these blessings, and renew your gift of life within us" (Opening Prayer).