‘Good Shepherd Sunday’:

SOUL FOOD FOR HUNGRY ADULT COMMUNITIES: April 21, 2013: Fourth Sunday of Easter.

If you would like ‘10/10 Vision’, go to John 10:10, where Jesus tells the disciples (=us)   ‘I have come that you may have life, and have it to the FULL!’

(And if you want ‘20/20 Vision’ that will light up your eyes and your face, go to John 20:20 – ‘The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the LORD.’  The ‘disciples’ are us, today, in our generation and world. The Risen Lord is with us, too.)

This Sunday, the Fourth of Easter time, our reading is always from John Chapter 10, that chapter that is so full of images of shepherding, and where Jesus speaks of himself as ‘the Good Shepherd’, and as ‘the Gate of the sheepfold.’ For Jesus’ Jewish listeners, the image was all too familiar. God ‘shepherding’ his people was a thread through all their history. And it was an image that they kept very alive,- the covenant that declared  ‘Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.’ – the heart of their Jewish faith. The Lord is their shepherd.

The Mezuzah, on a Jewish doorpost, a reminder of faith and of identity,- like our Holy Water Font on our doorpost.

THE MEZUZAH is a parchment scroll that is placed in a special container and attached to the doorpost of a Jewish house. It is a daily reminder ― and a public declaration ― of Jewish identity and faith. (It is like our HOLY WATER FONT, also a reminder of our faith and identity). The Mezuzah refers now both to the scroll and to the container.

The scroll contains the first two paragraphs of the “Shema” prayer, declaring the oneness of God, and commanding us “to write [these words] on the doorpost of your house and on your gates” (Deut. 6:4-9). The second passage (Deut. 11:13-21) teaches that Jewish destiny, both individually and nationally, depends upon fulfilling God’s will. 

This is the first passage on the scroll: (Deuteronomy 6:4-9): 4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

This is the second passage on the scroll,-  Deuteronomy 11:13-21)  13 So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul— 14 then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and olive oil. 15 I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. 16 Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. 17 Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you. 18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.

On the reverse side of the mezuzah scroll is the Hebrew name of God, Shaddai. This name is an acronym for “Guardian of the Doors of Israel.”

One of the earliest images of Christ,- found in the catacombs in Rome: a youthful Jesus as Shepherd of his people

There is a covenant of love, of total giving, of un-limited love or agapé, between God’s people (us) and our God- ‘our Father’. That’s what the ‘shepherding’ is all about, in God and in our communities: we are a people, a community, a parish where the Lord our God is ‘the guardian of the doors’ of our hearts and eyes and ears and thoughts- of our whole person. And we are a community committed to the same agapé towards one another and towards the whole world and all aspects of human life,- in love with intellectual life, political life, economic life, with art, music, imagination and creativity. ‘I consider nothing human to be alien to me’ ( ‘Nil humanum a me alienum puto’) said the Roman writer, Terrence, in one of his plays,- to the great rejoicing of the gathered crowd.

And in every faith-community of the disciples of Jesus, we have a care for the charism, the gift,  of shepherding among us, and give encouragement to those among us who have the gifts for that kind of service of our community,- those currently acting as our ‘pastors’ or shepherds, and those with gifts who might become future ‘pastors’ or shepherds in the community. We pray constantly that the LORD will send us the shepherds we need, here and in other places. ‘Pray the Lord of the harvest that he will send labourers into his harvest.’ (Luke: 10:2)

The Lord is our shepherd. We are shepherds to each other, gathering each other to fullness of ordinary life, along with Jesus our shepherd.

Pope Francis in audience with the media

Click here if you would like to read the text of Pope Francis’ homily when talking to priests on Holy Thursday morning, at the Mass of Chrism: it is a wonderful reflection on the meaning of priesthood in the Christian community.

For more on the Mezuzah in Jewish tradition, click here: http://www.aish.com/jl/m/mm/48948731.html

Gospel for this Sunday:  John 10: 27-30

LETTER TO SINEAD, MARK AND FRIENDS,- young adults together.

Dear Sinead, Mark, and Friends,

‘The Lamb will be their shepherd’. 

There was a Pope who was greatly loved by many of an older generation; he was John the Twenty Third,- loved like our new Pope Francis is. He was only in the job for a few years before dying of cancer, but he began a great renewal in the Catholic Church. He called a world-wide council of all the bishops of the world. It began just over 50 years ago, and, because it took place in the Vatican, it is known as the (Second) Vatican Council. Why do I mention this? Because Pope John wrote a letter to all the Catholic bishops of the world, before the Council began. He encouraged the bishops to be ‘Good Shepherds’ to their people,- but then added ‘but remember, your people are not sheep!’

I mention all this because this Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Gospel is about

A very early painting of Jesus, the Good Shepherd,- in the catacombs in Rome. See how young Jesus is!

Jesus, the Good Shepherd. And we’re not sheep, either, – we are people, intelligent, questioning, searching, creative, and sometimes lost. A good ‘shepherd’ of people listens to them, knows them by name, knows their needs and questions and doubts and struggles,- and the shepherd never leaves them, but rather would give his very life for them, if needed. And the Latin word for ‘shepherd’ is Pastor! And that’s what any priest is about,- with his people in God’s name, among them, knowing them, having a care for them at all times, and praying for them and carrying them, even as they pray for him and carry him.

The Gospel today,- from Chapter 10 of St. John,- is very short,- just four verses, vv.27-30. The whole chapter is full of ‘shepherd’ imagery- including the words of Jesus ‘I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD’ (verse 14).  Today we hear Jesus saying to us: ‘the sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life (-that’s full life, even now!-); they will never be lost and no one will ever steal them from me. The Father who gave them to me is greater than anyone, and no one can steal from the Father.’

And then Jesus adds: ‘The Father and I are one’.  Simple as that! It’s a Wow statement for us,-  Jesus and the Father are one!   Later, in John’s Gospel, at the Last Supper, Philip says to Jesus, in exasperation almost: ‘Jesus, show us the Father and we will be satisfied!’ And Jesus responds: ‘Philip, have I been with you all this time, and you still  do not know me? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father, so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me’:  (That’s in John Chapter 14, verses 8 to 10).

Earlier, John had written, about Jesus of Nazareth: ‘The Word was with God. The Word was God… and the Word became flesh and set up his dwelling among us.’  (John Chapter 1, the very start.) That’s Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Mary, Son of God, we’re talking about,- the Risen Jesus who is among us in our communities and families and hearts, with the wounds in his hands and feet and side. He is LORD!

And by the way, in the first reading for this Sunday,taken from the last book of the Bible,

'From his heart will flow rivers of living water' (John 7:38); detail from window in St. Clement's Redemptorist College, Limerick.

there is this phrase: ‘the Lamb…will be their shepherd and will lead them to springs of living water.’  That’s Jesus for you!

Hope you like this image of Jesus for yourself, a shepherd who will give his life for us, his ‘sheep’/people/friends.

Thanks! Have a great week! Jesus is Risen!

Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.  seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie

P.S. You can listen on Youtube to all of Chapter 10, in John’s Gospel, about the Shepherd. Click here.