Homily: 4th Sunday in Easter – Cycle A
Friends, this Sunday, the fourth
Sunday of Easter, is also commonly known as “Good Shepherd Sunday” because the
Gospel reading for each of the three years of the cycle of readings is from the
“Good Shepherd” discourse in John’s Gospel. In this passage, Jesus presents himself in the
image of a shepherd who leads his flock to fertile pastures and flowing waters
where they can satisfy their hunger and quench their thirst, and who protects
them from every danger so that they may experience a life of complete joy.
This Sunday, therefore, has
also been celebrated as the World Day of Prayer for Vocations to the priesthood
because priests, who by their ordination stand in persona Christi, that
is, “in the person of Christ”, are called to shepherd Jesus’ flock in his name
here on earth. Thus, as we celebrate
Jesus the Good Shepherd this Sunday, we also pray for the men who have already
responded to God’s call to the priesthood, and also that many more men will
respond to that same call so that Christ’s shepherding will continue and grow
in the years to come.
With this in mind, I thought
I’d take some time today to share about my own call to the priesthood in light
of the scriptures we have heard proclaimed.
Particularly, I want our young people (including Paola, our Quinceanera)
to pay attention, because God is calling each of you to some service in his
Church and you may find in my example a sign (or an echo) of your own calling
and a way to further discern who it is that God is calling you to be in your
lives.
I begin with the reading from
the Acts of the Apostles, in which we hear the end of Saint Peter’s speech on
Pentecost. After proclaiming to them the
truth of who Jesus is—both “Lord and Christ … whom you crucified”—we read that
those who heard it were “cut to the heart”: meaning, they were enlightened to
their error and felt great guilt for what they had done. In simplicity they ask, “What are we to
do?” Peter gives them an equally simple
answer: “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness
of your sins.”
As a young man I had graduated
from college with an engineering degree and began working. A “cradle” Catholic, I nonetheless was living
a very materialistic and somewhat hedonistic lifestyle: meaning that I was
mostly worried about making money, buying nice things, and enjoying a life of leisure
as much as possible while doing some kind of work that satisfied my
passions. After a few years, I became
disillusioned in this pursuit as it was proving not to be very fulfilling and
even detrimental to some of my relationships.
This is when I started to take a hard look at the choices I had made and
to ask whether the choices I made were really leading me to authentic
happiness.
In the midst of all of this, I
was questioning the faith in which I had been raised. During this, this parish hosted a mission given
by Father Larry Richards. On the first
night, Father Larry gave his famous talk on “The Truth”. In it, he challenged us to ask whether we
have ever really asked God what he wants us to do with our lives. “Because”, he said, “one day we will have to
stand before him and answer for what we did with our lives: the lives that he
had given us”. By his words and his
impassioned presentation (his kerygma),
I was cut to the heart. In other words,
I recognized how selfishly I had been living my life and felt great guilt for
it. Before I could ask “What am I to
do?”, Fr. Larry told us that there would be the opportunity for Confessions the
following night and I knew that I had to confess to God all the sins of my
selfish life and to ask for his forgiveness.
It was not enough, though,
that I ask for and receive forgiveness.
Rather, I also had to begin to seek God’s will for my life. Thankfully, Fr. Larry also provided guidance
for this: the life of prayer and study, frequent reception of the sacraments of
Holy Communion and Confession, and dedicating myself to living for others
through the works of mercy. This I
started to do, all the while making it my constant prayer that God would reveal
his vocation to me. After about 3
months, I heard him speak to me! As God
is wont to do, however, it wasn’t a voice from the clouds or a burning
bush. No angels appeared to me in dreams
and told me what God wanted me to do.
Rather, it was through the voice of my mother, spoken in a moment of
frustration for me, that God made known to me the vocation he was asking me to
accept.
In the following months, I
became more and more convinced that I was, indeed, being called to the
priesthood. I discovered, however, that
I wasn’t ready yet to pursue it. I was
too convinced that I had to pursue it in order to “make up to God” for all of
the years that I had lived selfishly.
Atonement for past sins is a good thing of course, but it’s not a great
reason to choose your vocation. So, I
put it aside for a while and continued to give myself to the good work I had begun
after the parish mission: the work of prayer and study, frequent reception of
the sacraments, and the works of mercy.
A couple of years later, I was
in a much better place, personally, but had become a little complacent, spiritually. In other words, my life was in much better order
according to God’s commandments, but I had stopped listening closely to God’s
voice regarding my vocation. God
intervened, once again, through the voice of someone close to me and made it
known that I had been ignoring his call and that it was time for me to hear and
respond. I was cut to the heart once
again. I went to confession and threw
myself into discernment, discovering that God was still calling me to be a priest. This time I was ready to respond. The years of prayer, study and giving myself
to being an authentic witness of Jesus led me to love God deeply, to be attuned
to his voice, and to trust that, if I followed him, he would make me supremely
happy. And so, I entered the seminary;
and the rest, as they say, is history.
My friends, whether you are
discerning God’s vocation for your life or just what God wants from you right
now, it often begins with an experience of being “cut to the heart”: that is, a
realization that you have not been attuned to God’s will, but rather have been
living more for yourself, and so experience guilt and the desire to set
yourself on God’s will once again. This
experience, though often unpleasant, is not a punishment from God, but rather a
grace: a grace that can move you to seek God’s voice once again. This is important because of what we heard in
our Gospel reading today.
In this “Good Shepherd”
discourse, Jesus says, “When the [shepherd] has driven out all his own, he
walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice.” Because God has made Jesus “both Lord and
Christ”, he is our shepherd. He has
called us and he walks ahead of us to lead us.
We will follow him only if we first have come to know his voice and to
trust him. When I first began to discern
my vocation, I had to spend a lot of time in prayer, listening for his voice
both in silence and through the Scriptures.
Having learned to hear his voice, I could then follow it when I heard it. In spite of all of my good intentions, I
would never had discovered this vocation had I relied on my own reasoning. Instead, I had to listen for the voice of my
shepherd, Jesus, and then respond. A
peaceful heart that makes frequent acts of trust (such as St. Faustina’s
“Jesus, I trust in you!”) is ready to hear and to respond to Jesus’ voice. ///
Dear young people (and particularly,
Paola), on this World Day of Prayer for Vocations, I implore you, as Peter
implored those who heard him speak on Pentecost, “Save yourselves from this
corrupt generation”! Jesus, the Good
Shepherd, wants to give you life and life in abundance! Do not seek comfort in this world, for you
were not made for comfort, you were made for greatness! Only Jesus, the Good Shepherd, can lead you
to the greatness that he has planned for you: a share in his cross that will
make you a shining beacon of light drawing more and more people into his
sheepfold: the abundant life that is communion with him. Young men, especially: ask Jesus if he wants
you to be his priest and be ready to say “yes” if he does. I promise you that Jesus will not abandon you
if you abandon yourself to him. Mary,
our Mother, is ready to help you if you turn to her and ask for it. ///
To all of us who are already living
our vocation from God: our challenge is to be witnesses to our young people by
not becoming complacent in our spiritual lives. Rather, we must continually renew our efforts to
attune our ears to the voice of the Good Shepherd so that we can hear him leading
us as we seek to live these vocations well.
Jesus’ promise of providing an abundant life is still valid for each of us,
but we must continue to listen for his voice so as to follow him.
We must also intentionally encourage
the young people in our lives to discern if God is calling them to the priesthood
or religious life, along with the possible call to Holy Matrimony. We must stop praying that God would call other
peoples’ sons and daughters to be priests and religious and start asking that God
would call our own sons and daughters, and encouraging them to follow. This is how we can build up the Church: as holy
vocations beget holy vocations. Let us not be afraid, then, to embrace this holy
work.
Friends, Jesus, our shepherd,
is leading us. This Eucharist is the green
pasture and fresh water to which he leads us to satisfy our hunger and quench
our thirst. Let us give thanks in this Mass
that he has called us to this abundant life in him (a life to which Paola will
dedicate herself more deeply in a few moments), so that we might go forth from
here to be his joyful witnesses in the world.
Given in Spanish at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish: Carmel,
IN – April 30th, 2023
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