Shepherd us

In today’s homily, I reflected on cherished memories of growing up in a faith-filled family, where attending Mass and praying the rosary were pivotal. I shared the bewilderment I felt as a child during the Passion readings, especially when we, the congregation, would cry out “crucify him.” I then turned to the boldness of Peter in the Acts of the Apostles, confronting the Jewish leaders, and the familiar sense of Catholic guilt. Exploring the Gospel of John, I focused on the profound theme of love and how God’s love transforms us, inviting us to conform to it for a life of true freedom and fulfillment. As we journey through this Easter season, let us embrace the hope and salvation that our faith in Christ promises. – Fr Richard Healey

RH (00:00:00) – As you know, I grew up down in the country, down in the Bega Valley, and my family was pretty kind of religious. We would go to mass each Sunday, which made us very, very active, very religious. And we would also pray the Rosary each night as a family. And I’m sure I’ve told this story before that, you know, if we paid attention during the, the, the rosary and we didn’t snore too loudly when if we did fall asleep, that the, the lolly box would, would come out at the end of the rosary. And if you’d been good, you would get three lollies. If you hadn’t been quite as good, you might only get two. But there was this, you know, this, this system that was there in place. But I remember lots of things happening at church, and particularly during this Easter season, you know, where things were a little bit more elevated and more stuff was kind of happening. And, you know, various moments in a child’s mind that became much more focused, you know, like Palm Sunday, when you would gather outside the church with the palms and then process into the church that was, you know, always a great moment.

(00:01:12) – And then we would all be given missiles for the passion readings, and the whole congregation would take the part of the crowd. And I remember as a young boy joining with the rest of my family when it got to to that part where the crowd would cry out, crucify him at us. A little kid just thinking, this is kind of a little bit strange and kind of weird for a little child to be calling this out thinking, but isn’t Jesus like the good guy in this story? Why are we calling to to crucify him? And, you know, I still think it’s it’s still a bit odd that those communities that do choose to to get the whole community to, to call it out, I mean, we just make the choir do it because, you know, they’re grown ups and they’re a little bit more capable, perhaps, of being able to understand the role that they’re playing in that great drama. But Peter, today in the acts of the apostles, you know, we get a number of the the great speeches that he makes after Pentecost, after that incredible moment of transformation when he received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

(00:02:21) – And he was so emboldened by all of that. And in every single one of those speeches that he makes, he really has it at the the Jewish leadership that is there. He doesn’t let them off the hook in any way. You know, this stone that you rejected has become the cornerstone. He’s very much, you know, an embodiment of Catholic guilt, you know, really driving home to those people that you’re the ones who killed Jesus. And there is still this hope of of salvation. And for all the goodness of, of that, that boldness that that Peter has, it’s left a kind of a taint within Christianity over the years that we can kind of feel this sense of, well, why did Jesus actually die in the end? You know, was it just as this absolute punishment of this wrathful and vengeful God? But Jesus himself today in John ten, gives us a slightly different perspective that I think really changes our whole sense of of why the crucifixion happened, why Jesus went to the cross in the final section of our reading today.

(00:03:39) – And Jesus makes it very clear that as the good Shepherd, as the one who has this tenderness and this desire for the flock, he’s not the hireling. He’s not going to run away when the wolf comes. He’s there to protect it. He’s there to lay down his life. But that it is this absolute choice that he’s making. It’s not something that is forced upon him. He offers it. He longs for that. He pours himself out because that’s what love does. This is this impulse of love that he has so profoundly experienced and encountered, that this is the love that has just so infused within him and so captured him and so captivated every part, an element of his life that he just longs to express, that longs for us to understand the depth of that love that the father has for us. The second reading takes up the same theme, and so often we’ve imagined that the love of God is this something that we have to earn, something that we have to strive in order to be made worthy, that it’s only to the extent that we become perfect only.

(00:04:59) – To the extent that we clean up our act, that we get rid of all of the sin, get rid of all of the junk, we are able to be conformed to the image of Christ. Only then does God actually make us capable of being loved. But one John three today tells us ponder, to consider, to think of the love. And it’s not begrudgingly measured out. It’s not the love that God just kind of uses a thimble and drips out this tiny little quantity of love. Okay, you’ve earned a little bit more love, so we’ll give you another drop of his love. Think of the love that the father has lavished on us. Lavished. It’s such a provocative, rich word. You know that sense of of this. You know, the abundance, the absolute abundance of God’s love is made available to us. And Jesus in the midst of that experience is so overwhelmed that, of course, he wants to share that love. Of course he chooses to lay down his life, to protect the sheep, to protect every form of violence that is there.

(00:06:11) – As the wolf represents everything that is negative, everything that is trying to attack us, that Jesus will stand in the way of, that Jesus will be the one who will God and protect us in order to allow us to taste the love that the father has lavished on us, that love that is so freely given and so freely made available to us. Again, not because we’ve done anything to deserve it, not because we have got everything together. Not because we have never sinned or never turned away. It’s just this love that is so freely offered and so freely made available to us. But there are the consequences of that, that one John continues to to ponder upon, you know, the gift of what we will become, the we have already. We already are the children of God. But what we are to be in the future has not even yet been revealed. But when it is revealed, we know that we shall be like him. Because that’s what love does. When we love something, we become somewhat like the thing that we love.

(00:07:22) – You know, though we see it in people who are, you know, are passionate about particular topics or subjects that when they devote themselves to that, they become more conformed to that image, more conformed to that topic. You know, they begin to think about it. They begin to dream about it. They begin to alter their waking experiences a molded and shaped by that dream, by that passion, by that desire, that hobby, that political interest, whatever it is that we slowly conformed to that, to the extent that God’s love becomes the thing that that we desire, that we slowly begin to be changed by that, and then we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he really is. That’s the gift of this transformation that is available to us. So the good Shepherd is longing for us to be formed and fashioned by his love, because he so wants us to share in that same choice that he’s made. He lays down his life and he invites us to do the same.

(00:08:26) – He invites us to be so conformed to his love that we willingly embrace that as the only way that we can live, the only way that we can find freedom. It’s not in all of that sense of the Catholic guilt and and wanting to to be suppressed, but it’s in that abundance of his love that we find our life that’s indeed allow the father today to lavish his love upon us, just to rest and to receive, to be renewed by his love, to let that image of what we will be when God reveals himself in all his fullness before us, to allow us to allow that to captivate us, to capture us, to inspire us, so that we can respond to the love of God by laying down our lives as well.