FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
28 APRIL 2024
Last
Sunday, we celebrated Good Shepherd Sunday.
In his Gospel, Saint John says that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He knows each of us by name, as ancient
shepherds knew each of their sheep by name.
He loves us so much that he has laid down his life for us. As the priests were sacrificing the lambs at
the altar in the temple for the Passover on the Day of Preparation, the true
Lamb of God was being sacrificed across Jerusalem on a hill of execution. By entering into death, Jesus defeated the
power of sin and death. As the Lamb of
God who gave himself completely out of love for us, he feeds us with his Body
and Blood at this Mass.
Today, the
First Letter of Saint John reminds us that we must imitate that selfless love
in our lives. He calls us children and
insists that we “love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.” We love by keeping his commandments. We keep the first commandment when we believe
in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ. If
we believe that he has loved us first, then we can keep the second
commandment. We can love one another
just as he has commanded us.
We became
children of God when we passed through the waters of Baptism. To use the image of today’s Gospel, we were
grafted as branches onto the true vine that is Jesus Christ. If we remain connected with the life-giving
vine of Jesus, then we can bear much fruit.
Like Paul and Barnabas who boldly proclaimed the truth about Jesus
Christ, we too can win believers to Christ.
In bearing fruit, we can share the great love of the Good Shepherd to each
other.
That is why
the Eucharist is so critical for our efforts to live as authentic branches of
the one vine. We were baptized only one
time when we were grafted as branches onto the one vine and became members of
the Body of Christ. We were sealed with
the Holy Spirit only once in the Sacrament of Confirmation. But we are fed with the Body and Blood of
Jesus Christ every Sunday, or every day if we choose. Because it is so difficult to love others as
the Lamb of God has loved us, we need the Eucharist to strengthen us. As Saint Augustine reminds us, we become what
we receive. Every time we receive the
Lord’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist, we are changed a little more into who
we are: The Body of Jesus Christ in our
world.
Boys and
girls, in just a couple of minutes, we will walk to the Baptismal Font. After you were baptized and grafted onto the true
vine, you were clothed with a white garment, signifying that you put on
Christ. Wearing a white garment now, you
will renew your baptismal promises and dip your hands into the waters of the
font. Then you will bring up the gifts
and receive the Lord in the Eucharist for the first time. You will receive the Lord’s promise that he
will remain with you, that the Lord will dwell with you and deepen that
indwelling every time you come to be fed by the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
The Lord
does not promise that everything will go perfectly with you and with any of us
who share the Eucharist on a regular basis.
He warns that we will be pruned. The
first reading from the Acts of the Apostles explains how Saint Paul was pruned. Before his conversion from Saul of Tarsus to
Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles, he worked closely with the Hellenists. Now they want to kill him. The disciples of Jesus are afraid of him
because of what he had done to Stephen and the other disciples. As he proclaimed the Good News throughout the
Mediterranean Sea, he was pruned many times.
However, the Eucharist sustained him.
The Eucharist sustains us, connects us more closely with the other
members of the Body of Christ, and strengthens us to endure whatever
difficulties we may experience in the future.
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