I want to begin this Sunday by wishing a happy Mother's Day to all the women here present who have received the great gift of motherhood. At the end of this celebration, we will have a special blessing for you, who are also a great blessing for your children and your families. May this month of May, dedicated to Mary's devotion, help you to feel the close presence of the one who, with her yes to God's mysterious plans, received the great gift of being the Mother of our Savior.
On the Fourth Sunday of the Easter Season we celebrate what is usually called Good Shepherd Sunday. Not only do today's readings speak to us of this beautiful image, which appears in both the Old and New Testaments, but the liturgy itself refers to it in the prayers of this Holy Mass. Here, at St. Anne, our sanctuary is presided over by the icon of the Good Shepherd. In this image, it is no small detail that Jesus is represented with the marks of the Passion. It is, then, the Risen Christ, whom we are celebrating in this Easter season and who, in today's Gospel, invites us to follow him to Paradise.
I believe that this is the dominant idea of today's Liturgy: our Good Shepherd leads the sheep that listen to his voice to the happiness of eternal glory. The second reading has offered us the vision of heaven in which the slain Lamb shepherds his sheep and leads them to the springs of living water. We have heard in the Holy Gospel the Lord say of his sheep: "I give them eternal life so that they will never perish". For its part, the opening prayer of today's Mass invited us to ask God to lead us "to a share in the joys of heaven, so that the humble flock may reach where the brave Shepherd has gone before”. In today's concluding prayer we will say: "Look upon your flock, kind Shepherd, and be pleased to settle in eternal pastures the sheep you have redeemed by the Precious Blood of your Son.”
"God wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim 2:4). God wants everyone to go to heaven, and that is why Jesus died for everyone. Salvation is offered to every person who desires to accept the mystery of Christ in his or her life. However, not everyone reaches the goal. Condemnation is a real possibility, which should lead us to take the Christian life more seriously and to work with greater zeal for the salvation of souls. In the same chapter 10 of John's Gospel, in which the passage we have just heard is found, Jesus clearly distinguishes between his sheep and those who are not his sheep. To the Jews he says: "The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness to me, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep" (Jn 10:25-26).
Therefore, to reach salvation, it is necessary to belong to Jesus' flock, and he has clearly told us today that his sheep are those who LISTEN to his voice and FOLLOW him: "my sheep listen to my voice, I know them and they follow me".
In these words, listen and follow, Christ is summarizing the attitudes that are necessary for us to receive eternal life and attain salvation. First, listen: that is, welcome, receive, embrace with all our soul, meditate in silence on the Word of God, disregard the voices of the world that are contrary to Jesus and the Church, mold our soul according to the Word of God, frequent the sacraments, give quality time to our daily conversation with the Lord in prayer. Then, to follow Christ: that Jesus who carries the cross, who allows the persecution of his flock, who gives his life for us and invites us to give our lives for him. To follow is, then, to live by his Word; to trust that, after him, we can never be lost; to give witness to our Catholic faith and to the resurrection with a holy life, with our works and our words; accepting the teaching of the Church in a spirit of faith and obedience and adjusting our personal, sexual, social and family life to that word that saves us.
Dear brothers and sisters: today let us ask Jesus, who in this Holy Mass is not only our Shepherd but also the lamb offered in sacrifice and the pasture on which we feed in the Eucharist, that we may always be sheep of his flock so that no one may ever take us out of his hand, so that nothing and no one may ever separate us from him and that we may thus merit, after the crosses and persecutions, but also the joys and consolations of this life, to reach the eternal pastures of paradise.
