Witness to Jesus | Fourth Sunday of Easter
Here is the prepared text of the homily delivered April 26 at St. George Church in Waimanalo (confirmation and first holy Communion), and with the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace Community at the Kamiano Center in downtown Honolulu.
A couple has lived together for many years, and they go to their parish priest to ask to be married in the Church. When the priest asks what moved them to come, they say that their child is about to receive first Communion, and the child’s faith and love of Jesus drew them to want to be able to partake of Communion, too. That child shepherded those parents to change and be more faithful followers of the Good Shepherd.
A young person notices that a classmate is depressed lately and seems to find life very difficult. The young person goes to the classmate and asks about it, listens, then prays for the classmate. Just having someone to listen to those burdens helps the person to carry them and not fall into the darkness of deep depression. That young person who reaches out and listens has shepherded the classmate to find the hope that is found in Jesus, the Good Shepherd.
A teacher disciplines a child over and over again. At the time, the child feels picked on and persecuted. As an adult, he looks back in gratitude that the teacher cared enough for him that she would accept nothing less than the best he could offer, even when he himself thought there was nothing better in him. That teacher shepherded that man to a reform of his life, so that he was better able to follow the Good Shepherd.
Today we celebrate World Day of Prayer for Vocations [and the sacraments of confirmation and first holy Communion for these brothers and sisters of ours], and we are invited to reflect upon the meaning of call in our lives.
There are many voices that call us, and to which we respond: the voices of money, success and power; the voice of vengeance for wrongs done to us; the voice of addictions to drugs, alcohol, pornography or other destructive habits. But there is only one voice, the voice of the Good Shepherd, our risen Lord Jesus Christ, that speaks the full truth and leads us to rich and eternally nourishing pastures.
We are often able to follow the Good Shepherd because he sends us other shepherds who know and heed his voice, and they lead us to him. And in the sacraments, he empowers us to be shepherds to others, leading them not the way we think they should go, but leading them to the Lord and his healing love.
At the beginning of Mass, we were sprinkled with water to remind us of our baptism. It was there that we received our primary vocation, our call to experience the love of the Good Shepherd, to be guided by his word, and to be nourished with his own body and blood. We can easily forget the power of that sacrament, and so we remember it by the sprinkling rite.
Marriage is — or should be — a vocation, a call from God. In preparing for marriage, some essential questions for a Christian are: “Is this the person GOD is calling me to marry?” “Is this relationship an encounter with the true Shepherd of my soul, with God-made-flesh?” If we do not even ask the questions, we open ourselves to thievery and marauding and much misery.
This is not to say that God always gives us a life of extreme bliss. The great symbol of our faith is the cross, and the cross is certainly present in any marriage. But the end of the story is the Resurrection. If we fix our eyes on that, then marriages will become more enduring and more holy. It will be a way of encountering the Good Shepherd, not only for the couple but for their children and all they meet.
There is the vocation to religious life, in which a woman or a man commits to share all with a community in poverty, chastity and obedience as a witness to the world that is obsessed with wealth, sex and power, which can so easily corrupt and rob people of their human dignity. This consecration is to publicly witness trust in the Good Shepherd, who provides for all our needs and who promises us life in its fullness, so that others can be led to experience the joy of following the Good Shepherd, too.
There is also the call to holy orders, to follow the Good Shepherd as deacon, priest or bishop. Even though we clergy are far from perfect, we are called to be disciples of the Good Shepherd, Jesus, who lays down his life for the sheep.
Those who are called to ordination shepherd others not to themselves, but to the true Gate that leads us into eternal life, the Lord Jesus himself.
Whatever specific vocation the Lord is calling you to follow, you need not fear. In these sacraments we celebrate, especially the Eucharist, where we are nourished by the very flesh and blood of the Good Shepherd himself, Jesus enables us to do far more than we could ever imagine by inviting everyone we meet to enter the happy sheepfold through the gate that is the Good Shepherd himself.