Editor’s note: The following is Bishop Lucia’s homily from Good Shepherd Sunday.
The Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday, Commencement Weekend, Mother’s Day, World Day of Prayer for Vocations, the election of Pope Leo XIV, Institution of Acolytes, First Communion — take your pick — any one of these occasions could be our focus this Lord’s Day. Yet, sisters and brothers, the Word of God this Sunday gives a common vision to them all.
Simply put, to belong to the Good Shepherd means that we desire to follow his voice, a voice that promises us eternal rest. Indeed, you and I are hardwired in the very act of our creation to know and desire the Lord. As St. Augustine famously said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O God.” So even our deepest yearnings are a summons from the Good Shepherd to draw closer to Himself. Our prayers are but a response to the Lord, who is constantly initiating the dialogue of love within us.
And if you and I focus on the different occasions that flow into our Sunday celebration, we would find they all conjoin in the simple fact that they invite one to respond to God’s call in our lives. Pope Leo XIV spoke of this God-given invitation in his first homily as Universal Pastor on Friday. He stated:
“Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God: the one Savior, who alone reveals the face of the Father …
“In him, God, in order to make himself close and accessible to men and women, revealed himself to us in the trusting eyes of a child, in the lively mind of a young person and in the mature features of a man (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22), finally appearing to His disciples after the resurrection with His glorious body. He thus showed us a model of human holiness that we can all imitate, together with the promise of an eternal destiny that transcends all our limits and abilities.”
Brothers and sisters, is this not the call to which our short Gospel reading from John invites us to respond to? That being a sheep in Christ’s fold involves three things: hearing His voice, being known by Him, and following Him. And in fact, there is a relational exchange implied in the attentive love shown: He calls, we listen; He knows us, we know Him; He leads, we follow. As one Scripture commentator notes, “The image of God as a shepherd comes down to a sense of belonging.”
In this regard, I came across three questions that might assist you and me in assessing our sense of belonging:
- How do you and I hear the voice of Jesus? Do we even take time to do so?
- How well do you feel Jesus knows you? Do we ever struggle to bring our full selves to prayer?
- Which parts of following Jesus are easy for you and me? Which parts present a challenge at this point in one’s life?
Trust me when I say to you that even Pope Leo XIV right now in his life, is asking in some fashion these questions. Yet of utmost importance, sisters and brothers, is that the Good Shepherd can ultimately say that He knows us because He became one of us. He knows our needs, our desires, our emptiness and even our death. But as the Book of Revelation reminds us this Lord’s Day, the Lamb once slain dies no more. And we belong to Him by our going down into the waters of death at Baptism and rising to new life, and His indelible mark cannot ever be erased or taken away.
One day in my life that I can remember quite visibly is my First Communion Day. I didn’t know its exact date until recently, but I knew it was in May, and that we had May Crowning on that day as well. Yet, what has particularly stayed with me all these years is that I know Jesus came to me on that day and that I literally can’t live without him.
Over a hundred years ago, a little girl in northern France made her First Communion. She had prepared for it; she had looked forward to it with excitement. And the day finally came. This is how she described the first time she received Jesus. “I felt that I was loved, and I said to Jesus, ‘I love you and I give myself to you forever. …’ It was a fusion: Jesus and I were no longer two, I had vanished in Him as a drop of water vanishes in the ocean. Jesus alone remained.” She ended her description of her First Communion by recalling the joy she felt that day — and the joy she experienced every time she received Christ in the Eucharist.
As you may have guessed, that little girl was St. Therese of Lisieux — one of the most famous saints in the Catholic Church. She illustrates in her Story of a Soul that joy flows from the certainty of being infinitely loved by God. And every time you and I receive the Eucharist, we receive a living reminder of God’s love for us. We can say with her: “I know that I am loved. And that certainty brings a joy that nothing can take away, because I am safe in the hands of Jesus.”
So, today, no matter what we are celebrating, [remember] this simple fact: “We belong to God, and God has chosen to belong to us.” Amen.
