4th Sunday of Easter Season – Jesus, the Good Shepherd (Jn 10:1-18)

The Qualities of the Shepherd and the Expectations on the Sheep

Introduction

-          This Sunday is important in two ways;

·         It is the good shepherd Sunday

·         It is the Sunday of vocation

-          In this Sunday let us remember our duty to pray and wish for more vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Let us also pray for our shepherds that they may be guided by the Spirit and lead the faithful to our eternal Shepherd.

Content

-          Today’s gospel passage depicts the qualities of the Good Shepherd and qualities the sheep should have.

-          The main qualities of Good Shepherd as narrated in the gospel are;

1.      He knows the sheep

§  The knowledge of our Shepherd is beyond our understanding.

§  It is a perfect knowledge about each of His sheep.

§  In the gospel of Mathew (10:30) we read, “Even the hairs of your head have all been counted”. He knows us in detail, our anxieties, worries, difficulties, weakness, tensions, talents, abilities, etc.

§  God says through the prophet (Jeremiah 1:5), “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb”.

2.      He loves the sheep

§  God says (Is 49: 16), “I have engraved you in my palms”.

§  If God loves us why He allow suffering?

·         We see a sheep on the shoulder of the Shepherd in the picture of Good Shepherd. Why is that sheep presented in that way? Our scripture professor told us that there was a practice among the shepherds of those times that they would break the leg of the most straying sheep in the flock and carries it on the shoulders for three to four weeks till it get cured. By that time, the sheep would special connection with the shepherd. After that treatment that sheep would never go stray or never get in to dangers.

·         The times of brokenness in our lives are therefore a time to cling on to the Shepherd and understand His love and care.

3.      He lays his life for the sheep.

§  On Good Friday we celebrated how Jesus laid his life for us, sinners, for saving us from the powers of evil.

-          The expectations of the Good Shepherd about the sheep are mentioned in the gospel, such as;

1.      The sheep must know the Shepherd

§  To love a person properly we should know him. In the marital relationship, the problems arise with the lack of proper understanding and knowledge between partners.

§  We should know the Shepherd in order to love him. The character, words and deeds of our Shepherd are written in the Bible. It is our duty to read them, reflect and meditate up on them.

2.      The sheep must listen to the Shepherd

§  There are many voices that we are open to in today’s world. Most of the voices are of the ideologies of this world such as consumerism, capitalism, materialism etc. (eg: television, radio, and other mass media). Many of them are misleading voices.

§  In order to realize the voice the Shepherd, we must spend time in prayer and silence, and tune our mind to the real voice of our Shepherd.

3.      The sheep must follow the shepherd

§  Following needs confidence and faith.

§  We are following the crucified Christ, whose ways are different from the ways of the world. We can expect sufferings and difficulties in the process of witnessing His values. Our consolation is His promise that He will be with us always (Mt 28:20).

Conclusion

-          Let us understand and experience our Shepherd who knows us, loves us and lays his life for us.

-          Let us be the sheep who meet His expectations by knowing Him, listening to Him and following Him.

3rd Sunday of the Easter – The appearance to disciples in Jerusalem (Lk 24:35-48)

Share the Divine Experience

Introduction

-          Stories are all time attraction in human history. We remember and communicate most of the information in story form.

-          There was an old friend of mine who was a veteran of the Second World War. He used to tell the war stories to us. He used to repeat the same stories when ever gather. I might have heard more than a dozen times the stories of war and how he escaped from dangers. He cannot be blamed for this repetition since these incidents are so crucial in his life.

-          We repeat and share the incidents and stories that have touched us. The sermons of the apostles were story telling about what they have experienced from Jesus. In the first reading we heard of the story telling of Peter after healing the crippled man.

-          In today’s gospel we see the disciples share the Emmaus story - their unforgettable experience with the other disciples, the meeting of the risen Lord.

Content

-          Sharing the message of Jesus has two results.

1.      It fulfills our duty to obey Jesus’ commandment - to proclaim the Good News.

§  1^st reading – Peter proclaimed the name of Jesus after healing the crippled man in the name of Jesus. Peter invited the audience to repent and believe in Jesus.

§  Experiencing and sharing are two sides of the same coin. If we experience God’s mercy we are accountable to share it with others so that others would come to know the goodness of God.

§  How to experience Christ? It is through sacraments, prayers, other spiritual exercises, in loving others selflessly and in charity.

§  Witness Christ through

·         Life of faith

·         Acts of faith

·         Words of faith

2.      It makes us grow in the experience of Christ.

§  When the disciples were sharing their experience Christ stood midst them.

§  When we share the experience we re-live the experience. It makes Jesus present in our life and in the life of those who listen to it.

§  It makes all to grow in faith.

-          What to share? It is our experience with Jesus, our knowledge of the Word, our personal moments of life where we experienced God’s love and mercy, our prayer experience, the stories of God’s love and power in the Bible, etc.

Conclusion

-          Let us be the people who experience God, spread the message of His Kingdom and grow together to the risen Lord.

Easter Sunday (Jn 20: 1-9)

Called to Run

Introduction

- Wish you all the blessings of the Risen Lord.

- This is the greatest feast of catholic religion. Without resurrection there is no Christianity.

- If we ask to ourselves ‘which is our favorite feast’, the answer would most probably be ‘Christmas’. It may be because of the decorations, lights, shopping and lots of gifts that we exchange.

- A priest once said, ‘we are the people of Easter, but

we like to be the people of Christmas, and

we live like the people of Good Friday.

- The resurrection of Jesus reminds us that we are the people of resurrection.

Content

- There is a verb in today’s gospel repeated several times – ‘run’.

o Mary Magdala ran to the tomb,

o She ran back to Peter and other disciple,

o Peter and the disciple ran to the tomb.

- Usually we run in an emergency situation. In danger or in fear we run. But in today’s reading they ran with wonder and joy, to spread the message that Jesus is raised. They ran with fear and joy.

- The Risen Lord calls us to run;

o Run away from darkness to the light of Jesus.

§ We call the Saturday after Good Friday as ‘Black Saturday’. It is because the light of the world is buried in a rock cut cave. We sometimes live in that state without seeing the light. Our unnecessary tensions, worries, unforgiven wounds, sinfulness etc. burry us forever inside the tomb.

§ Know that Jesus was powerful to remove the big stone of the tomb and enter into resurrection. Jesus would help those who are with Him to remove the big stones that hinder our growth towards Jesus.

§ Let us run upholding our faith and hope in the Risen Lord.

o Run towards our brothers and sisters who are in darkness.

§ Mary Magdala ran to Peter and other disciple to share the experience. Peter and other disciple too run to their friends to share their experience.

§ Jesus asks us to run to our brothers and sister who suffer from the symptoms of Good Friday or Black Saturday. The symptoms are disappointment, over worrying, despair, hopelessness, etc. It is a feeling that there is nobody to help them to get out of their ‘tomb’, by removing the ‘big stone’ of their life that hinders the light.

Conclusion

- Let us live as the children of the Risen Lord.

- Let us uphold faith, hope and love to run from darkness to life.

- Let us also run towards our brothers and sisters to share our faith and hope so that they too may enjoy the experience of Resurrection.

Palm Sunday - Entrance to the Holy Week

Love and Live Christ

Introduction

- By today’s liturgy we enter into the Holy Week where we meditate the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus our Lord. Let this be a week of spiritual blessings.

- A story of two brothers - Two brothers came to the city in search of job from their native village. The rented a room lived together that room. The elder brother was an honest, hard-working and God-fearing man and the younger a dishonest, drug user, used to gamble and with many evil desires. Many a night the younger man would come back into the apartment late, drunk and with a lot of cash and the elder brother would spend hours pleading with him to mend his ways and live a decent life. But the young man would have none of it. One night the younger brother runs into the house with a knife and blood-stained clothes. “I killed a man,” he announced. In a few minutes the house was surrounded by police and the two brothers knew there was no escape. “I did not mean to kill him,” stammered the young brother, “I don’t want to die.” By now the police were knocking at the door. The elder brother had an idea. He exchanged his clothes with the blood-stained clothes of his younger brother. The police, by seeing the elder brother with the bloody cloths and knife, arrested him, tried him and condemned him to death for murder. He was killed and his junior brother lived. He died for his brother. The younger brother became a new man and began to follow all the good virtues that his brother showed to him and led thereafter a life of thanks giving to his brother.

- This is what happened two-thousand years ago on Calvary. Jesus gave his life for us sinners by taking all our sins up on his shoulders. By the cross we all are saved.

Content

- What should be our response to Jesus’ love? Our response can be summarized into one phrase, “LIFE OF GRATITUDE”.

o How to express our gratitude to Jesus? We say to Jesus by looking at the cross ‘thank you Jesus’. It is good, but we are called to do much more than that.

o For example we usually do not thank our parents for bringing us in to the world, for giving us nourishments in our younger days. Instead we live a life of gratitude by loving them, obeying them, taking care of them and respecting them.

- Therefore our gratitude to Jesus must be expressed in two ways; Love Him and Live Him.

o Love Jesus

§ It is an emotional attachment to Jesus. We grow in our emotional attachment to Jesus by observing the various pious practices such as reading the gospel passages on the passion and death of Jesus, going through the stations of the cross, visita iglesia, by hearing and seeing about the passion of Jesus and so on.

§ Let us spend time to meditate on the passion of Christ in this Holy Week.

o Live Jesus

§ It calls for a renewed life.

§ It invites us to have a conversion experience as the younger brother in the story had.

Conclusion

- This Holy Week is meant for coming closer to Jesus our savior by loving Him and living Him.

- Let us meditate on the saving mysteries of Jesus and enter into a renewed life.