Easter Sunday 4, C May 8, 2022
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
He didn’t smell very good and he was only half-covered by the hospital gown. Introvert that I am, I was already timid and uncomfortable simply entering his room – this stranger in a dimly lit room to which I was sent as a kind of hospital chaplain intern. I was not enjoying the experience, I was not exactly happy to do it, and I wanted to get out of there. Then… something happened.
It’s hard to describe. Sort of like a veil was lifted or I was given the right prescription of glasses, but it was more than a change of vision. It was also a change of heart, a profound sense of this person: this unique individual created and loved by God. It only lasted a moment, but it was intense. What I think happened was this: for just that moment, I experienced God’s own love for this person. For just that instant, I saw him the way the God the Father sees him – not completely, that’s impossible for a mere mortal, but I nonetheless was able to participate in God’s love… to love him as God loved him despite the smell, the awkwardness, and my own limitations.
That memory is what came to mind as I read this line from the Gospel: “The Father and I are one.” I imagine it to be a tiny reflection of how Jesus looks at us always, with the Father’s love. Not that I can make myself feel that way… not that I did anything to earn that experience, but that it was a gift and one that remains close to the heart of who and what I am meant to be… close to the heart of the priesthood of Jesus Christ in which I share.
We call today “Good Shepherd Sunday” because we always read from this section of the Gospel where Jesus is giving a long description of himself as the Good Shepherd. This year, it is a small section but it is perhaps the most profound. That is because it points to the central mystery of our faith: the Trinity. Jesus is not just a teacher. He is claiming to be God, to be equal to the Father. And the Jews recognize that. The next few verses show them trying to kill him, accusing him of blasphemy. It would be, if it weren’t true.
In the Old Testament, God promised to be the shepherd of his chosen people. Jesus, the Son, fulfills that in himself, becoming the Good Shepherd. Jesus in turn calls Peter to shepherd his sheep. And he continues to call men to participate in that reality through the priesthood.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it many more times: the way to true happiness is holiness. Bound up with that fact is that our surest path to holiness is to follow God’s call for us: our personal vocation. The reason I told that story is not to make myself look good – believe me that there were lots of not so great decisions I made that summer – but to echo something of what God desires for each of us: to participate in his love, his goodness, his joy.
All of us are called to be conformed to Jesus Christ. Our identity, our happiness, our holiness are all tied to vocation, to the call to be an instrument of God. And when we cooperate with that, we sometimes experience on this earth what we’ll have permanently in heaven: the joy of divine love. There is a completeness, a rightness to being “one” with the Father in his design for us and his love for others as manifest through us. That story might stand out, but there are lots of moments similar yet differnt: elevating the Eucharist at Mass, sometimes in the midst of a homily, sometimes during a baptism, occasionally during a confession, every now and then while in personal prayer. It’s not all the time – there are far more mundane moments, humdrum encounters, and downright difficult experiences. But these moments do happen.
And they are different than just an emotional catharsis or a personal consolation. Those are moments when I feel God loving me, but these are moments when I experience a oneness with God, where He is using me in His divine plan and there is a sense of rightness.
I think many of you, if you look back, will see similar moments, particularly if you look into the experiences of your vocation. Parents, are there not any such moments when you looked at your child asleep or in some activity? Where you just sensed for a moment how you’ve fit into God’s plan of love for this child and you are one with him in loving them? Through Baptism and Confirmation we all share in a common vocation to love and serve our neighbor. Are there perhaps moments in performing an act of charity, in lobaring with love, in praying for another, in offering up your suffering, in participating in Mass where, even in an obscure way, you sense that you were one with the father? Not a smugness or superiority or pride in your own goodness, but kind of forgetting yourself and knowing that God was in it?
These are moments of vocation, of recognizing the Divine plan. God makes us in his image, he calls us to live in his likeness. As Jesus manifests the Good Shepherd promised in the prophets, as Peter manifests the good shepherd seen in Christ, as priests and bishops manifest the good shepherd to each little piece of this earth, so are we all, by Baptism and Confirmation, called to manifest God’s divine plan of love. Vocation is a cascading conformity to Christ.
So, my older people, remember that, even now, you are living in the vocation of your Baptism and your work is not done. Pray for and guide younger people to avoid squandering time in what does not satisfy. Young people, do not follow the world’s idea of success. Don’t trust your own fickle emotions to decide your future. If you would know the kind of happiness I’m promising, ask God what he is calling you to do. Today/tomorrow is the world day of prayer for vocations. It is prayer especially for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, but also for all to heed God’s call, his invitation to that conformity to Christ.
Christ says, “my sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life.” Not just long life, but life with meaning, love, with fullness… the fullness that motivated the multitude of martyrs pictured in our second reading, that inspired Paul even when he was rejected by his own people. God is calling you to your own unique share in it. I cannot promise you will not suffer – quite the opposite – I cannot promise you won’t mess up. But I can promise that what he offers, no one can take away. Hear, Follow, and truly… Live.