Bishop Paul's Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter

Abu Dhabi.

Below is the full text of the homily delivered by Bishop Paul Hinder for the 4th Sunday of Easter.

Readings of the Day:
Acts 4:8-12; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18

As a child, I have grown up in a small farm with cattle. From my early years, I learned how to handle the cows with their individual name and particular character. When we spoke at the table about the animals, everybody was familiar with the situation. Later, as a priest, I had often again to do with peasants and shepherds in the mountain region of Central Switzerland, where I had to bless the sheep, the goats and the cows. Like earlier during my childhood back home, I experienced again the close relationship of the shepherds with their cattle and the care they took for them. When it happened in some rare cases that a shepherd neglected his duty and was treating badly the animals, he was fined or even dismissed.

In today’s gospel, Jesus introduces himself with the words “I am the good shepherd.” He also explains what makes a shepherd good. It is the sense of responsibility for the sheep and the courage to risk his own life for the good of them. Jesus mirrors himself when he says, “The good shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep.” He is not running away when a wolf comes but stands up to defend and protect the sheep from evil and evildoers.

The good shepherd does not limit his task to the distant observation by field glasses. He has to be close to the animals in all kinds of weather and has to go uphill and downhill in order not to lose them out of sight. He knows exactly which animals belong to his flock, because he lives among and with them, as Jesus says, “I know my own and my own know me.” And he knows them by name. In the first chapter of John’s gospel it is said, “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” Living among the sheep the good shepherd is getting the smell and the dirt of the cattle and sometimes their bad and uncontrolled reactions, even the resistance. Remember the word in John’s gospel, “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.”

However, the good shepherd does not give up, even if it costs his life. Jesus says, “I lay (my life) down of my own free will.” He does it out of love, as it is said in the same gospel of John: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). To believe in Jesus means to listen to him and to gather around him as he said today: “They too will listen to my voice and there will be only one flock and one shepherd.” For it is the task of the shepherd to gather what is scattered and to bring together those who got estranged one from the other. Jesus, the good shepherd gathers; the devil is the one who scatters and divides. Jesus dies on the cross as the shepherd who finally attracts the lost, as he predicted, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (Jn 12:32). This is the good shepherd who gathers the lost sheep around him while offering his life.

Brothers and sisters, today we pray today in a particular way for priestly vocations in the Church. We ask God that he may awake among us people with a heart, shaped according to his own heart; ready to give their lives for the others and not to satisfy themselves. Unfortunately, it happens every now and then that shepherds instead of leading and protecting the flock from evil are in fact doing the job of a wolf and scattering again what the good shepherd has gathered. For this reason, we should not only ask the Lord to choose good people as shepherds but also to keep them faithful in their vocation even at difficult times.

The goal that we all – shepherds and sheep – have to reach, is beautifully expressed at the end of today’s second reading: “My dear people, we are already the children of God but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is.”

Dear friends in Christ, never lose sight of this promise that “we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is”. When the divine Shepherd comes again to judge the living and the dead, he will make the sorting along with the question, if we have been shepherds for those who needed special care: the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the prisoners, and so on. Will he then recognize us as his brothers and sisters who deep inside are like him?

Let us pray to the good shepherd that he may shape us according to his heart.