FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
25 APRIL 2021
At
special Masses today and next weekend, we invite our second graders to be fed
by the Eucharist for the first time.
Even though most of us are separated from farming, the image of a
shepherd is powerful for our children.
In fact, our children have been formed for their First Holy Communion
through the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.
Founded in the 1950’s by Bible scholar Sofia Cavaletti and Montessori
educator Gianna Gobi, this method of religious education uses the principles of
Montessori education to introduce children to biblical images and liturgical
themes. In preparing to receive their
First Communion, our children have not been presented with content to be
memorized, but invited into a relationship with Christ, the Good Shepherd.
Montessori
principles hold that educators should be responsive to “sensitive
periods:” those times when children are most apt to
learn particular things. Different
elements of the Good Shepherd story appeal to different sensitive periods in
their growth. In the second grade, our
children need the protective love of their parents. The Good Shepherd demonstrates his protective
love for them as they receive the Lord in the Eucharist for the first
time. As our children mature and begin
to develop a sense of morality, the Good Shepherd continues to accompany
them. They learn that his protective
love is also a forgiving love. It is a
love that ventures out to seek the lost sheep.
Adolescence is for them a sensitive period for heroism. The Good Shepherd leads and guides them as
they discern the right path to choose in their lives.
Montessori
education ends with adulthood. But the
Good Shepherd invites us to deepen our relationship with him for the rest of
our lives. We are like Mary Magdalene,
who recognized the risen Lord when he called her by her name on Easter
Sunday. We listen to the Lord’s voice
and trust that the Lord loves and knows each of us by name. Listening to him speaking directly to us by
name, we adults share in the shepherding work of the Lord. We are not hired hands. Instead, we freely lay down our lives for the
sake of the flock. We make daily
sacrifices out of love for those entrusted to our care. Parents of First Communicants are reminded to
sacrifice one hour every Sunday to bring their children to the Eucharist, so
that the Good Shepherd can continue to walk with them at all the sensitive
periods of their lives. We even trust in
his guidance when we are confronted by death.
Psalm 23 tells us that we shall want for nothing when we follow our
loving Shepherd. The Psalm reminds us
that the shepherd carries us on his shoulders through the dark valley to dwell
in the house of the Lord.
At the time
of Jesus, shepherds would provide green grass and water for their flocks by
day. At night, they would gather their
sheep into a sheepfold, where they were safe.
Carved into the rocks of the hills, these sheepfolds had no gate. Instead, a shepherd would lie across the
opening of the sheepfold. If a wolf or a
thief tried to enter, they would awake the sleeping shepherd. Shepherds gave up their lives to protect
their sheep. That is exactly what Jesus
Christ has done. He is not only our Good
Shepherd who accompanies us at every sensitive period of our lives. He has willingly laid down his life on the
cross.
As the Lamb of God raised from the
dead, he now feeds our children for the first time with his very Body and
Blood. He continues to nourish us and
form us into a more intimate union with him and with our brothers and sisters formed
by baptism into his Body. The first Letter
of Saint John reminds us that we are God’s children now. What we shall be has not been revealed. That is why the Good Shepherd is the dominant
image on our triumphal arch. We are
those sheep being drawn to him. By
trusting in the Good Shepherd at every sensitive period of our lives, we will
see him as he is and eventually know his complete revelation for us.
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