Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Vigil
April 20, 2024
To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/4.20.24_Landry_ConCon_1.mp3
The following text guided the homily:
* This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday.
* The Fourth Sunday of Easter each year is called Good Shepherd Sunday, because on this day the Church focuses on the tenth Chapter of the Gospel of St. John in which Jesus reveals the relationship he has with each of his faithful followers. Jesus first reveals about himself: “I am the Good Shepherd.” He discloses the way he seeks to relate to us. And that self-revelation leads to a disclosure about who we are: we are his people, the sheep of his flock. We respond with some of the most famous words God has ever inspired, saying, “The Lord is my shepherd. I want, I lack, for nothing!” We mark this truth in the heart of the Easter Season each year, because it is the heart of our Easter joy: with the Risen Lord Jesus as our Shepherd, with our being his beloved sheep, we truly have it all!
* But it’s key for us to believe and live by those famous words of Psalm 23. By them, we publicly confess as Catholics that our treasure is Jesus, that if we have him, but don’t have everything else in the world, we still recognize how rich we are. In the midst of a consumerist society, in which we’re bombarded with advertisements that pretend that we’ll be happy only if we obtain what they’re selling, that we’ll be fulfilled only if we have money and houses, fame and fortune, power and position, we focus instead on the Jesus the Good Shepherd, risen from the death, as the pearl of great price. We confess that what Jesus provides, the relationship we have with him, is far more fundamental to happiness in this world, and absolutely essential to eternal felicity with him in the eternal sheepfold, than anything and everything else.
* Throughout the Good Shepherd discourse Jesus gives us in the tenth Chapter of St. John, roughly a different of third of which we get each year, Jesus reveals that he does for us essentially three things. For us to be good sheep of the Good Shepherd, we need to allow him to shepherd us in these three ways:
* First, he knows us, calls each of us by name and leads us out. He knows us and his sheep know him. We are not a number, just one of a vast multitude. We are unique to him. He knows our story. He knows us like no other, our strengths and weaknesses. And we are called to know him in return, to live in relationship with him, to relate to him, for example, like Mary and the saints, like Mary Magdalene and so many reconciled sinners. And knowing us as he does, he calls us. He gives us a vocation. We hear his call and recognize his voice. And that call is not a one-time summons, rather, as our Shepherd he guides us always. We not only have to hear that call but need it — tofollow the Good Shepherd as he leads us sometimes down dark valleys, sometimes onto verdant pastures, and ultimately to the eternal fold. This is the first characteristic of him as our shepherd and ourselves as his sheep: the personal relationship he, risen from the dead, wants to have with each of us.
* Second, as Good Shepherd, he lays down his life for us. “No one,” he says, “takes my life from me; I freely lay it down. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again.” That’s what Jesus does in his passion, death and resurrection.
