SUNDAY HOMILY FOR 4TH SUNDAY OF EASTER (YEAR A)

SUNDAY HOMILY FOR 4TH SUNDAY OF EASTER (YEAR A)

HOMILY THEME: THE ONLY WAY

BY: Fr. Cyril Unachukwu CCE

HOMILY: God knows us in and out! He knows our strength and our weaknesses; He knows we are human with a well-chosen heavenward orientation; He knows what we need most and He never ceases to provide for us and to take comprehensive care of us and to keep us save under the protective shade of His wings. These God made manifest in His Son Jesus Christ, who came in human form that we may have life and have it to the full. Truly, “the Lord is our Shepherd: there is nothing we shall want.” May we be faithful and stable members of the Sheepfold of the Good Shepherd; Amen.

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is also known traditionally as the Good Shepherd Sunday . This title is inspired from the Gospel Reading that is always taken from the tenth chapter of the Fourth Gospel. In this part of the Gospel according to Saint John, Jesus identified Him as the Good Shepherd. Also, this Sunday is known as Vocations’ Sunday in which the Church universally prays for increase in genuine vocations to the Priesthood and to the Religious Life. The portion of the Fourth Gospel that is read today (John 10:1-10) made it very clear that Jesus is the “Gate of the sheepfold.” Jesus is the only way and the one entrance/access we have to the Household of God and to our heavenly Father; He is the only path that leads to our heavenly Homeland. He knows the way! He also knows the best way to sustain us on our journey back to God from where we came. Only in and through His Divine Sonship can we become sons and daughters of God and only through Him can we reach God. This makes Him the Good Shepherd who knows where to give His flock the best of pastures! Without Christ, we lose entirely the necessary orientation that keeps us safe and secure. Without Christ, we make ourselves vulnerable and susceptible to the tactics and antics of that destructive, poisonous and heinous stranger who “comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” Without Christ we live outside the physical and spiritual confines of the promises of God and we disconnect ourselves from the benefits of the New and Everlasting Covenant in His blood. Christ is the only spiritual umbilical cord to our comprehensive nourishment and sustenance. As God’s children, it is indispensable to recognise Christ as the Good Shepherd and to subscribe and affirm and live our membership of His sheepfold.

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Christ the Good Shepherd wills that we cooperate with Him to build and sustain a happy, peaceful and united sheepfold. This is possible when we collaborate with Him and with all those He has given the privilege to share in His function and duty of shepherding. Unfortunately, sometimes we decide to abandon the Good Shepherd and His faithful collaborators to go after a stranger. It is true that together, we belong to the sheepfold of Christ. But also, Christ never stops choosing and appointing some persons to collaborate with Him in the pasturing of the Sheepfold, especially why still on pilgrimage in this world. These persons need our prayers and cooperation to succeed in this duty entrusted to them. This divine choice is seen in the ministers of the Church, especially in the Pope, who has the primary duty of pasturing the sheep of Christ. This is also true of all the Bishops, priests, deacons, religious men and women, of parents and catechists, of civil leaders and of all those who have received pastoral responsibility in diverse and particular ways. It is always the Good Shepherd who is at work in them. Firstly, they must be rooted in the Good Shepherd and recognise that He is the one and only ultimate Shepherd of us all, even though they have been called to collaborate with Him in a proximate way by the power of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, building a happy, peaceful and united sheepfold requires our collaboration and open-mindedness with the Good Shepherd and with those He proximately carries out His function of shepherding. The success of Saint Peter’s preaching in the First Reading (Acts 2:14, 36-41) was partly borne out of this kind of disposition for after hearing his words “they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the apostles, what must we do brothers ?” All they needed, just like us, was a return to the Sheepfold for “we had gone astray like sheep but now we have come back to the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls” (I Peter 2:20-25). It is unnecessary and fruitless to obstruct the process and progress of conversion, individually or collectively. Collaboration with the Good Shepherd requires docility of the will and an innermost conviction that He is the only way. As often as we say yes to Him, we are collaborating in building a happy, peaceful and united Sheepfold; and we are also building ourselves up.

May God bless and sustain our Pope, Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Religious Men and Women and all the leaders of God’s people and fill them with His Holy Spirit. May the Church be blessed with more vocations to the Priesthood and to the Religious Life and may the Light of Christ, the Good Shepherd, guide and lead us through the right path and situate us in the place of the best of pastures, and may He bring healing to the whole world; Amen.

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