Traditional Catholic Teaching -SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER

I am the good shepherd.

John 10: 14.

By his Resurrection our Lord proved Himself to be our Redeemer, and we are reminded of this fact in to-day's gospel, where He stated it plainly; for, by calling Himself the Good Shepherd, He referred to the fulfillment in His own person of many prophecies, because Isaias, Jeremias and Ezechiel had all announced the Redeemer as a good shepherd. Our Lord implied by His words that He was the Messias foretold by the prophets, and that He proved it by being in very truth a good shepherd. If He is the Good Shepherd, it must be our duty to acknowledge Him as such, and to follow His voice; in fact He meant us to understand this from the words: "I know Mine (i. e., my sheep), and Mine know Me."

We recognize Him as the Good Shepherd by His zeal in teaching us, feeding us, as it were, with the words of Divine truth. Throughout His whole life He strove incessantly to make known to us the eternal truths that we should never have learnt without Him, and that are necessary to enable us to find the right way of salvation.

When as a boy, twelve years of age, He allowed the light of His wisdom to shine forth in the Temple at Jerusalem, He showed His intense eagerness to announce the Divine revelation to men, and the same zeal was displayed in all its fullness when, at the age of thirty, He entered upon His public ministry. It never diminished, from the time when He first began to teach, to the hour of His death, and it gave Him no rest. He did not weary of travelling up and down throughout the whole of Judea, preaching everywhere the newly revealed word of God. Hunger and thirst, heat and cold, and the difficulties of the way had no power to deter Him. He taught all day long, and even by night there came to Him some who, like Nicodemus, were seeking salvation, but feared openly to confess their faith in Him. In spite of the weakness of their faith, our Lord devoted to them the hours of sleep, that He might arouse them from the sleep of sin, and bring them out of the darkness of ignorance to the light of a true knowledge of God. Neither amidst the merry-making at the marriage at Cana, nor in His agony on the Cross did He ever cease teaching. He showed Himself to be the Good Shepherd, by the ardent zeal with which He expounded to us men our holy faith, and we show our recognition of Him as the Good Shepherd when we do our best to learn of Him and to impress His holy doctrines, not only upon memory, but upon our hearts. We show our recognition of Him if the knowledge of salvation that He proclaimed is more precious to us than any other form of knowledge, and if, like St. Paul, we can say that we desire above all things to know Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Let us, therefore, beg the Good Shepherd to give us the gift of faith, to make us delight in His holy word, to help us to live in accordance with it, and to be unwearied in carrying out His teaching, as He was unwearied in instructing us.

Jesus was the Good Shepherd, and proved it by the compassion that He felt for all mankind. He grieved at seeing how many had gone astray and were lost by their own fault, and He left His heavenly home because men had turned aside from it, for in His compassion He longed to lead them back thither.

The Good Shepherd felt compassion also with the temporal sufferings of men; His Heart was full of sympathy for all in sorrow; He was ever ready to comfort the afflicted and to heal the sick. As long as He lived on earth, He took upon Himself all the needs, trials and sufferings of mankind, and even now, although He dwells in heaven. He is still the Good Shepherd, full of the tenderest sympathy, regarding all our griefs as His own. He stated this expressly when He declared that at the Last Judgment He would say: "I was poor, sick, a prisoner, hungry and thirsty." He accepts all that we do to help our neighbours in their necessities as if we had done it to Himself, and it is His will that we should see Him in every sufferer.

There can be no greater sympathy than this, and if we are convinced that He, the Good Shepherd, is filled with compassion for us, we cannot fail to trust Him most completely, and we shall never be impatient or murmur against God, for we shall know that Jesus is aware of our troubles, and if He, in spite of His compassion, does not help us at once, it must be because He sees that our suffering tends to our eternal salvation. We ought never to despond, as if we were forsaken, for our good and compassionate Shepherd is always looking down upon us from heaven. Men may forsake us, but He will never do so. Let us, therefore, beseech Him to give us real confidence in His help, so that, whatever may happen to us, we may hold fast to Him. Let us ask Him never to let us abandon Him, our truest Friend, who is incapable of deceiving us, and let us show, by our trust in His compassion, that we know Him to be our Good Shepherd.

Jesus was the Good Shepherd, and proved it by the mercy with which He welcomed sinners, rebuking them gently, arousing contrition in their hearts, and finally forgiving their sins, when in humility and sorrow they cast themselves at His feet. Mary Magdalen, Zachaeus, the man sick of the palsy, and the penitent thief on the Cross all recognized Him as the Good Shepherd; in short, every one did so to whom He said: "Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee." From the time of His Ascension to the present day, how many millions have received God's grace, peace of mind and a claim to heaven through the power of forgiving sins, which He bestowed upon the Apostles! All these millions, with heartfelt joy and gratitude, have recognized Him as their Good Shepherd. Let us do the same. Let us, too, reflect how far we have gone astray in our sins, and that, when we are off the right path, far from Him, death lies in wait for us; let us make a good confession and so return to Him; He will forgive us and sustain us by His grace on the way to everlasting life. He will lead us, as it were, to good pastures, along paths by which our souls will gain strength to do right, and grow more worthy of heaven.

Jesus was the Good Shepherd, and His infinite love, revealed in His whole life, bore witness to the fact. It was as the Good Shepherd in infinite love that He came down to earth at Christmas; as the Good Shepherd He went about doing good; as the Good Shepherd He ascended to heaven, and, still as the Good Shepherd, He sits at the right hand of the Father, watching over us and loving us. If only we recognize Him as the Good Shepherd, our hearts will be filled with love of Him. "I know My sheep and My sheep know Me." This can mean nothing but: "I Love My sheep and My sheep love Me." Let us ask Him to give us the true love of Him, which manifests itself in ready service, in willingness to obey, in, suffering and enduring all things gladly, and in laboring to please Him. As long as we are in this world, our love for the Good Shepherd will not of course secure to us the sensation of perfect happiness ; it will require us to undertake many tasks repugnant to us, but this must not prevent us from loving Him with all our hearts, for it was by undergoing so many great hardships and trials for our sake, that He proved Himself to be the Good Shepherd who really loved His flock.

Let us, therefore, bear with patience the various mortifications that the struggle to do right involves, remembering that our Good Shepherd, whilst on earth, renounced the joys of this world. Let us not be led astray by temptations, however hard it may be to overcome them; our Good Shepherd out of love of us allowed Himself to be tempted and taught us how to triumph over the tempter. Let us pay no attention if others ridicule or despise us on account of our efforts to love and serve our Lord; He, the Good Shepherd, endured persecution and scorn for our sake. However hard we have to toil and labour on the path of duty and virtue, let us never complain that our burden is too heavy, since Jesus, our Good Shepherd, thought no work and no exertion too great, if it was to do us good. Let us ask Him to enable us to show in our lives that we acknowledge Him as our Good Shepherd, by following His most holy example and shrinking from no trials and difficulties that may fall to our lot, if we really love Him. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, let us put all our faith 'and hope in Him; let Him be the love of our hearts. He is the Good Shepherd; let us turn to Him with true contrition for our sins; let us follow Him, confessing Him before men, consecrating all our life to His service and working constantly for Him to the hour of our death. Amen.

End of Sermon

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