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Homily

Fourth Sunday of Easter – The Good Shepherd

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Acts 4:8-12; Ps. 118:1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 28, 29; 1 Jn. 3:1-2; Jn. 10:1-18

The Good Shepherd has come, laid down his life for his sheep and raised it up again but not only his own life but his own people who died with him in faith and obedience to his word.  This is the good news of our Easter season that Jesus is the good shepherd and the God of the resurrection of the dead.  Recall how immediately after Jesus died “the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two…The earth quaked, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised…they entered the holy city and appeared to many (Mt. 27:51-53)”. Jesus is raised indeed and so are his saintly people.  Jesus is the good shepherd of the dead who have come to life and of the living awaiting their mortal death.

Jesus is the good shepherd of those who hear his voice and turn to follow him.  Unlike sheep who are simply human creatures of this world, in the name of Jesus we are now called the children of God.  Often the question is raised to Catholics asking “why do Catholics baptize infants since they have no knowledge, cannot repent and no free will in the decision?”  In the early church baptism was given to complete families so if the head of the home accepted Christ not only was he baptized but so was his family and his slaves so this practice goes back to early Church history and tradition.  Baptism comes with the free gift of the Holy Spirit, that is the grace of God to enter the soul and be the light of truth, the good shepherd of the soul towards salvation. 

With the gift of the Holy Spirit comes the virtues including to grow in faith, hope, and love.  Who would deny their child this gift to get their life started in perfect sanctity open to hear the voice of the good shepherd as it faces the temptations of the world.  Without baptism the voice of the good shepherd is being drowned out by all the other voices of this world competing for its soul.  

As Jesus said to his disciples “allow the children to come to me for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these (Lk. 18:16).”  The good shepherd wants to enter our souls from the beginning of our life and remain with us all the days we are given.  The test of the good shepherd is less about us coming to him as it is to see if we can remain in him, something to ponder.  In the days that Jesus walked the earth many came to him but few remained with him because his teaching was hard to accept.  The good shepherd proved he was faithful unto death on a cross as he prophesized “I will lay down my life for the sheep”. 

Jesus gives us a tease in today’s gospel.  He speaks of having “other sheep that do not belong to this fold” but drops the topic only to proclaim that in the end “there will be one flock, one shepherd.”  Who are these other sheep?  One question that gets asked of Catholic Christians is whether only Catholics will go to heaven. It is also asked of other Christian denominations who profess to be the “true religion”.  Who belongs to the other flock is a mystery the Lord chose not to reveal.  

Consider first that for centuries the people of God were not “Christian”, they were not baptized in the name of Jesus yet in the transfiguration we see Elijah and Moses next to Jesus.  Consider also how many Christian denominations are now in existence becoming more divided than unified.   Recall what Jesus said his disciples, “For whoever is not against us is for us.  Anyone who gives you a cup of water…will surely not lose his reward (Mk. 9:40-41).  The mercy and love of God came that all may be saved but salvation is a process of purification of souls and God is not done with us yet, not with this world, not with all sinners, not with Christian believers as we struggle to carry the cross of our calling. 

What we carry with us is the promise that “what we shall be has not yet been revealed” but “we shall be like him”.  Today we are already called to live in the image of Christ the good shepherd, caring for those little ones, for the hungry and the poor, for our neighbor and the stranger.  Each according to our state in life has a cause given in which we serve the Lord transformed into the image of the good shepherd, Jesus the cornerstone by which we are saved. 

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Homily

4th Sunday of Easter Voice of God; Happy Mother’s Day!

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Acts 13:14, 43-52; Ps. 100:1-2, 3, 5; Rev. 7:9, 14b-17; Jn. 10:27-30

The voice of God is always present, do we hear it?  Happy Mother’s Day to all the women who gave life to a child either by birth or by upbringing.  As moms you accepted to give of yourself so that a child could also receive the gift of love and hear the voice of God through you and all of God’s creation.  As mothers you also bring the love of our Blessed Mother Mary to her son in your faith to accept this awesome calling to serve God as moms.  Blessed are you for your fiat to serve as the voice of God to a child. 

The voice of God is to flow through Mothers both with the authority of God but also through the sensibilities of tenderness, patience, and mercy.  Ask a little child, “who’s the boss of you?”  They will most likely identify their mothers as being in charge.  Women hold onto your motherhood and don’t be deceived by the currents of politically correct culture who try to simply label women as “birthing persons” as if women are asexual and only different because they have a womb.  Women are much more than a body part; you are gifted to be mothers. 

“We are his people” who hear his voice says the Lord.  In times of distress, we may question God “Does God hear our prayers?”  The question for us however needs to be “Do we hear his voice?”  The voice of God is always present to us when we turn to the scriptures as the “gold standard” of knowledge and the “diamond” of wisdom.  The voice of God comes to us through his appointed ministers guided by the Holy Spirit to shepherd his people.  The voice of God comes to us in prayer when we become still in silence and wait upon the Lord. 

If we desire to hear the Lord, we are to open up the scriptures and spend time with the Lord reflecting on his word.  If we desire to hear the Lord, we come to receive the sacraments through the hands of the priesthood and the indwelling spirit will speak to us.  If we desire to hear the Lord, prayer is our daily constant in all its forms, the prayer of the Mass, the prayer before the blessed sacrament in adoration, the prayer of the family, and the silent prayer of the heart that calls out to God as we invite him into the moment of our day.  

We are to ask ourselves, “Is our desire to hear the Lord?”  A quick examination of conscience gives us the answer to the extent we study the scriptures, celebrate the sacraments and pray.  How long will we keep the Lord waiting for us to come to him, desire his presence, be in dialogue with him?  Last Sunday, Jesus asks Simon Peter “Do you love me?”.  We say we love God and yet how much is he a part of our day? 

We say we love our family but if we only see them in the morning before we all leave home and at night to check in on them then how strong is that love that will stand united when troubles come?  Time together is the bond of love that strengthens all relationships and God desires a relationship not simply an act of worship.  If today we hear his voice, it is because our love for the Lord brings us here to celebrate his presence in our life, our relationship with him.  Otherwise, we are simply living by tradition, a ritual of life on top of all the other rituals and habits that may have lost their meaning. 

The voice of the Lord makes our hearts burn within us as he speaks to us and opens the scriptures to us.  If you recall the movie “City Slickers” the three men went out to find that “one” thing in life they needed.  The one thing we need is to hear the voice of the Lord to give us peace, consolation, hope, mercy, all wrapped together in his love.  The voice of the Lord is the key that opens up the mystery of faith in tangible ways for us to follow.  This one thing makes everything else come to order in our priorities.  If we are not hearing the voice of the Lord then are we going in the wrong direction?  

The Lord comes to us in his body and blood in communion, in fellowship, and in sacrifice.  Today we see in the first reading Paul and Barnabas coming into the synagogue on the sabbath as Jews that those gathered may hear the voice of the Lord in the word of God revealed by the apostles.  This is their evangelization to bridge the old with the new.  Then on Sundays they gathered as believers to break bread as followers of Christ, that is as Christians.  The early church was attempting to bring about a reformation of the Jewish tradition and have Gentiles follow Jewish law but the more the Jews rejected and persecuted the Christians the more they recognized the voice of the Lord was making all things new for the Church and guided them in a new direction.  Not our will but thy will be done Lord. 

Paul and Barnabas were happy “they shook the dust from their feet in protest”, a sign they accepted it was not their fight to convert anyone.  They spoke “boldly” but only to urge them “to remain faithful to the grace of God.”  The lesson from Paul and Barnabas is that no one condemns us but those who reject the word of God “condemn yourselves as unworthy of eternal life”. 

Oh, how we desire to convert the world to the truth of the gospel but sometimes we struggle to convert our own household.  We have fallen away siblings, children, even parents.  It is not our fight it belongs to the Lord.  We are to pray for conversion to begin with us to witness to the truth by the testimony of how we live our lives and pray “Jesus I trust in you” for others to seek you and hear your voice.  The closer we get to holiness the greater the voice of God will resonate through us to others.  We worry and have anxiety about so many things and people but this only resonates fear and control to others and nobody is drawn to fear and control.  The voice of fear and control keeps the voice of God silent next to ours.  Let us resonate the voice of God through love and mercy. 

The world remains in a time of great distress in the voices of war, death, violence, and persecution in order to gain power over others.  We wash our robes white with the blood of the lamb.  This blood comes to us by remaining faithful to the voice of the Lord and in the body and blood of Christ who we join with in the suffering for our sins and those of this world.  Revelation does not say we will not have tears in this world but “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” and lead us “to springs of life-giving water.”  Marian apparitions call us to “pray for the conversion of sinners”.  The power of prayer is not our power but the power of the one sent to us.  In the name of Jesus, the apostles demonstrated his power to heal, bring about conversion and other miracles.

If today you hear his voice know that you belong to the Lord.  If we cannot hear his voice then we are to turn back to the path he provided for us to follow and we will know the “good shepherd” is with us and no one can take us out of his hands. 

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Homily

4th Sunday of Easter – The Good Shepherd

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Acts 4:8-12; Ps. 118:1, 8-9, 21-23, 26,28-29; 1 Jn. 3:1-2; Jn. 10:11-18

The good shepherd is Jesus Christ who laid down his life for us his sheep “by which we are to be saved.”  The Catholic Church proclaims the primacy of Peter for the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church given to us by Jesus as the cornerstone of our faith.  Jesus the good shepherd is the one under who our salvation is to be revealed to be like him, that is to be holy, catholic and apostolic as shepherds of our flock.   We pray in faith “Jesus, I trust in you”.  We are also given God’s grace to be like him as shepherds of the flock he has trusted us to lead.  Will we stand with the courage to give of ourselves for our flock or will we be like the hired man who sees the danger of the “wolf” in today’s cultural war coming to attack and runs away, that is runs away with no ownership except for their own survival. 

In the reading from Acts, “Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit” declares Jesus the Nazorean is the only name that brings us salvation.  What about the souls who have not received the name of Jesus as their Lord and savior?  Jesus lets us know he has “other sheep that do not belong to this fold” who will hear his voice and be of the one flock under the one shepherd.  Jesus came to his own, that is “all the people of Israel” yet his voice was received by Jew and by the other sheep, the Gentile alike who were converted and came to believe in the Son of God.  His voice was to spread to the ends of the world to bring all to salvation.  Do we have any ownership to witness to these sheep, the unchurched and bring them into the flock?  God places others in our path, like today’s modern day “none” who claim no religious affiliation with an opportunity to share the gospel message of salvation as Catholics. 

In the history of the world there is repeatedly a rise of wolves promoting a “Great evil done in the name of a great good”.  The crucifixion was a great evil believing it was better for one to die in the name of a greater good to preserve the Jewish customs.  The Holocaust was a great evil believing it was a great good to exterminate what was proclaimed as an inferior people.  We have seen the great evil of abortion done in the name of a great good defending the “right to choose” life or death of a child.  The evil of the death of a child in the womb seen in the sonograms is validated by modern science to be the killing of a beating heart.  That is why the number of abortions continues to decline and a greater number of the young people stand for life.  As one evil slowly gets defeated there is a rise of another wolf to follow.  What is the new evil to rise up? 

Gender selection is the new evil promoted as a “greater good” to a child as “questioning” their identity.  A child before the age of mature cognitive development is promoted gender selection as a great good supported by the rise of medication assisted treatment to promote a gender change.  Once indoctrinated to choose a gender opposed to the natural law of their genetic makeup then the child is victim to a life-long process of dependency on a medical system of care to sustain the big lie against the natural law.  If any voice of contradiction should rise then it becomes imperative to be silenced by the “cancel culture”, which is the return of the past great evil that crucified Jesus Christ to silence him and his followers for speaking truth to power.  The power that saves!  These are the wolves of our time and will we stand to defend our sheep that is the children from being scattered by these wolves.

The rise of the great evil in “cancel culture” is to promote a belief in a greater good of inclusive language by canceling what is professed to be racist speech for any opposition raised to speak up for the natural law of creation.  Mandatory cultural sensitivity is the new norm for indoctrination into the accepted culture in the cultural war of the new systemic bias towards inclusivity defined as an acceptance to any identity regardless of natural law.  What is lost in the argument is that systemic bias is what is driving the cancel culture against the norms, values, and morals founded on religious beliefs and liberty. 

First God was taken out of schools in the dogma of separation of church and state.  It opened up the doors to secular rule as the only “truth” for all the sheep to hear.  Now comes a pandemic crisis calling for the closure of church gatherings as a greater good and our children to stay home not only from school but from church catechesis of the faith.  We hear of reaching herd immunity to a virus that kills by eliminating potential hosts when all have been vaccinated or survived the virus.  The cultural war is seeking to create herd immunity to religious values with mandatory cultural sensitivity training as the vaccine against church teaching.  Promoters of great evil always believe “never let a crisis go to waste”. 

Who will shepherd the faith of our children and their understanding of their creation in the image of God and the natural law of God?  Will we let them come back to the church and continue their journey of faith?  Are we ready to teach the faith as the domestic church at home which we are called to shepherd and protect?  Are we fulfilling our baptismal vows?  Questions each of us must answer and take ownership as shepherds of our flock. 

Where is God, faith, and traditional values and morals in this new cultural war?  God is present in his church and his church stands opposed to abortion, homosexuality, gender neutral identity, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and more thus it is an abomination to the “new imagining” and a threat to the cancel culture.  It is better to take refuge in the good shepherd rejected by the builders of this cancel culture than to trust in man or the princes who lead what is being called the “new imagining”.   Will the “new imagining” bring us truth, goodness, beauty and unity or a return to the original lie of the serpent “you shall be like gods” by evolving into your own creation?

We are reminded “The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”  The cancel culture of the world is not a new phenomenon.  History proves that all the great evils done were done in the name of a great good.   The world will continue to reimagine itself into the culture of bringing about great evil for the purpose of the power that comes from it as a sheep in wolves clothing.  They hear not the voice of the Lord but their own voice of tyranny seeking to tear down in order to create a new world order.  When will the new imagining recognize there remains a heaven and hell that cannot be reimagined at the end of this life and all these visions being imagined failed to see beyond itself to the true greater good of the kingdom of God? 

The good shepherd says “I know my sheep, and mine know me.”  If we don’t have that knowledge of the good shepherd then we are invited to come to the sanctuary of salvation while there is still time.  “What we shall be has not yet been revealed” but it is not something we can reimagine.  To be “like him” is to persevere in the sacrifice of faith, hope and love for the one true good, that is for the good shepherd.  `

We are called to be one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church.  Given the Holy Spirit at baptism we have entered into the kingdom of God to be like him, holy by seeking our identity in Jesus Christ the holy one, catholic by being united into the one body of Christ and apostolic by giving testimony of our faith by the witness of our lives.  Holiness is a gift of grace we seek in prayer to overcome the sin of our fallen nature.  It is not something we hope for after death but something we sacrifice for as disciples of the good shepherd.  We are Catholic in being united to the body of Christ when we come to receive his body and blood in the Eucharist.  Apostolic when we go forth transformed as sheep into shepherds in the image of Christ to spread to good news of Easter, Jesus is alive!  He lives in us and with us to spread the good news through us. 

Let us listen to the voice of the shepherd and be transformed into shepherds of the gifts and blessing we have been given and let us go forth to multiply the kingdom for the true greater good of salvation. 

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Homily

4th Sunday of Easter

Posted on by Deacon Joe

Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Ps. 23:1-3a, 3b-6; 1Peter 2:20b-25; Jn. 10:1-10

The Good Shepherd has called us by name to “Save yourself from this corrupt generation…which does not enter the sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber.”  When Peter stood up and proclaimed to his generation “this Jesus whom you crucified…they were cut to the heart”.  Salvation come through repentance and baptism but first the word of God must cut to the heart and reveal our sin before us.  Sin is the thief and robber that climbs into our lives unsuspectingly to steal our hearts with temptation until we become “normalized” by a corrupt generation. 

The sin of each generation is a thief and robber in search of souls for a self-indulgence trying to feed on the pleasure principle, “if it feels good then indulge” until it becomes toxic but by then the heart is compromised and it stands at the gate holding us in bondage to “steal, slaughter and destroy”.  The thief lays the “feel good bag of goodies” to savor but it is our response that is the sin we possess.  Fault always is personal to be rejected with virtue.  Corruption came from the beginning, the genesis of sin after creation by free will and it remains “mia culpa” by our choice.  “For you have gone astray as sheep” but now we hear the voice of truth to lead us back. 

Truth leads to wisdom of a greater understanding beyond ourselves.  It is not about “me” it is about salvation for “us”.  Easter is this gift of salvation in Jesus giving of himself for us in his passion, death and resurrection that all may be saved through the “good shepherd”.  Jesus proclaims “I know my sheep, and mine know me.”  How does Jesus recognize his “sheep” and how do we recognize our Lord?  We are recognized in being “patient when you suffer for doing what is good, this is a grace before God”.  Jesus is the example we should follow that he may see himself in us.  In this Jesus recognizes his own who are responding to evil with good.  How then do we know Jesus?  Jesus revelation comes in the voice of truth that cuts to our hearts “and the sheep follow him”.  The voice of the shepherd burns in the hearts of his sheep, it cannot be denied. 

“The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want”.  The people of Israel sought freedom he gave them salvation.  They sought a king for this earth and he gave them a kingdom in heaven.  They wanted someone to rule over them and he gave them a shepherd to follow.  They wanted to conquer other people and he gave them the power to conquer their own corruption.  What do we “want” from the Lord?  We seek freedom from disease and pandemics he gives us salvation from sin.  We want to preserve our kingdoms we have built and he promises one in heaven.  We want leaders for nations to rule and he gives us himself calling us to follow his example.  We want to conquer in this world all our enemies and we are given the power to conquer the enemy of the world and victory over death.  Jesus is the promise of life more abundantly. 

The abundant life in Jesus Christ is the good news!  In him is our courage to “walk in the dark valley, I fear no evil”.  The corruption of each generation remains in a kingdom not our own but the Lord has called us by name and if “today you hear his voice harden not your hearts” salvation is at your doorstep.  Our heads are anointed with oil of salvation at baptism and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit to keep our hearts burning for truth, goodness, beauty and unity in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Open the doors of our hearts to “dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come”.  Today we pray for the doors to the church to be opened and a return to the banquet of the Lord in the Eucharist until we enter the heavenly banquet closer to us than we recognize in the mystery of faith. The call of the Good Shepherd is “follow me”.

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