Homily for 4th Sunday of Easter

Homily for the
4th Sunday of Easter

May 8, 2022
John 10: 27-30
Acts 13: 14, 43-52
Rev 7: 9, 14-17
St. Joseph, New Rochelle
Bridgettines, Darien, Conn.

“No one can take them out of my hand” (John 10: 28).

from the catacombs of St. Callistus, Rome

In John 10, Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd, an image that Christians since the earliest centuries have found endearing.  E.g., we find paintings of the Good Shepherd in the Roman catacombs.  Jesus the shepherd protects his flock from robbers and wolves, from anyone and anything that endangers them.  He searches for the sheep that stray and treats the lost tenderly.  He even lays down his life for the flock.

In the final section of Jesus’ words about the Good Shepherd, he identifies his sheep as those who hear his voice and follow him (10:27).  By the generous, superabundant grace of God, the entire human race may become part of the Good Shepherd’s flock—a generosity that the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and many of the Jews in the rest of the Roman world found scandalous.  But the 1st reading today tells us:  “The Gentiles were delighted when they heard [that Paul and Barnabas would bring the message of salvation to them], and they glorified the word of the Lord.  All who were destined for eternal life came to believe” (Acts 13:48).

Paul and Barnabas were opposed by Jews who both rejected Jesus and also objected to the inclusion of the Gentiles.  “They were filled with jealousy and with violent abuse contradicted what Paul said” (13:45).  Jesus’ words that we repeat at every Mass remind us of God’s intention to save the world.  He says that his blood is shed “for you and for many”—for his apostles there at the Last Supper and for many more people, not Jews alone but for the many others who will hear and receive the message of salvation that the apostles will preach and because of that word will “wash their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 7:14).

All of these, both believing Jews like Jesus’ apostles and Paul and Barnabas, and believing Gentiles, are the sheep who hear Jesus’ voice and follow him.  They become his flock which he leads to eternal life, part of “a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue” (7:9), a multitude whom the Shepherd “leads to springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (7:17).  This is eternal life, the life of Jesus’ resurrection, which Paul and Barnabas preached, which the Church of Jesus Christ founded on the apostles continues to preach.

Jesus promises that those who follow him “shall never perish” (John 10:28).  He promises that the gates of hell, the jaws of death, the powers of the underworld shall not prevail over his Church (Matt 16:18), over the power of his word of salvation.  “No one can take them out of my hand.”  No one can overpower those who follow Jesus and snatch them away from him—neither robbers nor wolves nor the prince of darkness, the lord of death, the Evil One who deceived our 1st parents and still roams the universe seeking souls to lead astray and devour.  In his 1st Letter, St. Peter warns the Christian faithful that our “opponent the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (5:8).  As we’ve been hearing endlessly in the news, the Evil One right now is roaring in rage about legal limitations that will be put soon on the slaughter of unborn human beings in many places—some restrictions holding back the bloody hand of the dark lord of death.  Satan’s allies in government, the media, and Planned Parenthood have been telling lie after lie, as is their practice, about abortion, about the Constitution, and about pro-lifers.[1]  Jesus says that the Devil “was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth….  He is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).  In these days we’re hearing from a lot of his offspring.

Amid the troubles of our world, torn by abortion violence that’s cheered on by our President and other politicians and the media, torn by violence in our streets, torn by the violence of terrorism, torn by the violence of narco-wars and of war in Ukraine and a dozen other countries, torn by the economic violence of corporate greed—amid all that, the Good Shepherd remains with us.  No one can take us out of his hand.  He seeks us when we wander off the paths of life (as all of us do sometimes), carries us on his shoulders, and leads us to eternal joy—to the banquet in his Father’s house where no one will “hunger or thirst anymore” (Rev 7:16).  We have his promise of that and a foretaste of it at this table of the Lord’s body and blood, the blood poured out for us and for many.

[1] From beginning to end, Roe v. Wade has been based on lies; its supporters continue to lie unashamedly.