A Homily for the Second Sunday after Easter

+ The beauty of the image of the Good Shepherd, employed by Our Lord Himself in respect of Himself, shines through the centuries of the Church’s life and mission as one of the most powerful, instructive and consoling analogies in Sacred Scripture. Christian art has depicted it often. The Vatican Museums boast the fourth-century marble statue from the Catacombs of Domitilla depicting the Good Shepherd bringing home a wayward sheep on his very own shoulders. We wayward sheep can take great comfort in this.
But Today’s Gospel teaches us that Our Lord is the “good” shepherd, who not only goes after the straying sheep (cf. Mt 18:10–14; Lk 15:3–7), but who “lays down his life for his sheep.” This is extraordinary. Certainly, sheep were an important commodity in the ancient world, more so than today. And to go to great lengths to bring back a lost sheep is praiseworthy. But no shepherd laid down his own life for the sake of stupid animals!
Here we find the power and indeed the instruction of this image. For Our Blessed Lord Himself will lay down His very life for we stupid, sinful sheep. He did so on Calvary, as today’s Epistle so beautifully recounts. He would have done so for even just one of us. He did so for me. Yes, for me, worthless as I often believe myself to be, the Eternal Son of God became man and suffered and died so that I might be redeemed, receive the forgiveness necessary for my sins and live!
Here it is appropriate to recall once again the exhortation of Pope Saint Leo the Great:
“Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God's own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God's kingdom.” (Sermo 22 in nat. Dom., 3:PL 54,192C)
My brothers and sisters, there is enough here to contemplate and to sustain us in our Christian life for many a day and night. Despite my travails and worries, whatever shape or form they may take, howsoever heavy the burden of the day or no matter how dark the night may be, in this reality we find hope – indeed we encounter Hope Himself!
So too, we encounter Him unlike anywhere else – truly, substantially – at this altar where Our Lord, laid down in sacrifice, is offered for our healing and sustenance. As Saint Gregory the Great taught us at matins this morning, the Good Shepherd nourishes the sheep He has redeemed with His own Body and Blood.
This divine reality takes us well beyond the capacity of the image of a shepherd, into the reality of God’s love and mercy for each one of us. For we are not stupid sheep, but unique persons made in the very image and likeness of God, loved by Him and offered the consummation of that love for all eternity if we persevere in His ways.
No doubt this is why the image of the Good Shepherd enjoys such prominence in art and literature and in ecclesiastical teaching and preaching and is the model for and the standard by which the pastoral clergy, particularly those in high office are to be judged.
In his Rule for monks our Holy Father Saint Benedict applies the same standard to the father of the monastery, insisting that he too search out the lost sheep, that he takes care not to lose any of the sheep entrusted to his care, and reminding the abbot that on the day of judgment he shall have answerer to Almighty God for each one of them.
Such an exceptionally high standard should motivate us to pray earnestly for those with such responsibilities, for as the Fathers of the Church as well as monastic history, ancient and modern, makes very clear, the phenomenon of frightened or worldly clergy or of impotent, negligent abbots, who flee from the wolves and who look to their own interests first is, sadly, not a new one.
Indeed, the call to lay down one’s life for one’s sheep sounds a note that is utterly discordant with the worldly policies that abound in our times which seek to ‘protect’ human life at all cost, at times even preventing pastors from reaching their flock in extremis.
We must pray then, particularly in this Holy Mass, that this call is heard ever more clearly by those to whom the Good Shepherd addresses it in our day. Additionally, we must not neglect to pray that young men shall hear and attend to this same call and themselves accept the God-given vocation to lay down their lives for His sheep. +

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