A Homily for the Second Sunday after Easter

+ Following an ancient tradition, on this second Sunday after Easter the Sacred Liturgy of our Holy Mother the Church places before us the powerful and striking image of Christ as the Good Shepherd who lays down His very life for His sheep.
 
This is a striking image. Given that we are very familiar with it, it does us good to realise that sheep are sheep, and that even given their value in the ancient world, it is more than understandable that a shepherd would not protect mere animals with his own life.
 
And yet this is precisely that which Our Lord did for His sheep—for we who have followed our animalistic lusts into the byways of sin, risking the attacks of the wolves that lurk in the shadows of the world in which we so often seek to assuage our base appetites. By offering His life in sacrifice to the Father on the Cross, Our Blessed Lord has redeemed us. He has opened the path for us to come back to Him and to His flock. He has shone the light of Easter morning into the darkest corners of our hearts and souls so that we might see Him anew, respond to the call of His voice and return to the safety of His sheepfold.
 
My brothers and sisters, let us contemplate this further in the coming days. The classical image of the Good Shepherd is that depicted in the fourth century statuette from the Catacombs of Domatilla in Rome held in the Vatican museums, depicting Christ with a sheep over His shoulders. It is a truly beautiful evocation of the teaching contained in the Parable of the Lost Sheep (cf. Mt 18) and it is crucial that the Church in our day—above all her Pastors—never forgets the solemn evangelical duty she has been given to search out and bring back those who are lost and have strayed from the sheepfold.
 
Nevertheless, I submit that this is not the image of the Good Shepherd placed before us by the Church this morning. Today the Sacred Liturgy has us contemplate the Good Shepherd’s self-sacrifice. Today, rather than looking at a beautiful statuette, our eyes are directed towards the crucifix, where we begin to grasp just what laying down one’s life for one’s sheep means. Let each of us take some time in the coming days to contemplate this, before the crucifix: Jesus Christ, eternal Son of God, gave His life in sacrifice to the Father, so that we—errant, stupid, base sheep that we are or have been—could be rescued from the just punishments our sins deserve.
 
Thus, the representation of the brutal execution of a first century Jew that is the crucifix becomes an icon of God’s love for us—a sign of hope and of light where darkness of sin and evil have reigned. (Hence the importance of having a beautiful crucifix in our homes, in our rooms and in other places—for we must never, ever allow ourselves to forget or despair of His love and all that His self-sacrifice has made possible for us, and we must witness this reality to others.)
 
And of course, as St Gregory the Great taught us at Matins this morning, “the Good Shepherd laid down His life for His sheep that He might change His Body and Blood into our Sacrament and that He might satisfy with the nourishment of His own Flesh the sheep which He had redeemed.” For what are we receiving in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist other than the Flesh and Blood of the Good Shepherd laid down and offered in loving sacrifice that we might live?
 
Again, let us put aside images of fluffy sheep and stay with the reality of the Good Shepherd’s sacrifice—a sacrifice that is renewed on each altar on which the Sacrifice of the Mass is validly offered; a sacrifice which immerses us (here, this very morning!) in the reality of God’s love of which it is the living sacrament; a sacrifice which is Hope and Life Himself offered for us, in which it is our utterly unmerited privilege to share.
 
Thus, the Blessed Eucharist—the Host and the Precious Blood of Christ in the Chalice that we adore as they elevated before the crucifix in the Canon of the Mass—is the supreme, living icon of the Good Shepherd. If we belong to His sheepfold, we rightly take our place at its celebration at least each and every Sunday and Holy Day of obligation: for otherwise we run the risk of spiritual malnourishment, and of straying away from the fold once again.
 
Dear friends, by God’s grace we find ourselves here in His sheepfold this morning. As we approach the altar let us give thanks for and rejoice in this blessing, praying all the time that through the merits of the Good Shepherd’s sacrifice on the Cross, and by our daily faithful witness to Christ, others too may heed His voice and come to live and rejoice as members of His flock. +