IV Sunday, Easter, Year B

Good Shepherd Sunday, Vocations
Brenham, TX

Act 4:8-12
Ps 118:1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 28
1 Jn3:1-2
Jn 10:11-18

My brothers and sisters of Brenham:  As our academic year is finishing this week, I am sad to say that this is my last weekend here in Brenham.  I am incredibly grateful for all the love and hospitality that you have shown me in these past few months.  It has gone by incredibly fast and I wish I could stay longer.  When I first came here, I desired to have my assignment here for more utilitarian reasons: to improve my Chinese and to eat ice cream.  However, as I have been coming here about twice a month, my desires changed: I started to get to know you, to work with you and to serve you.  My seminary studies in Houston keeps me fairly busy during the week and one would think it a burden to drive out here twice a month.  By the time I have to head back to seminary, I don’t feel exhausted or even tired, but rejuvenated, reinvigorated, energized.  Every time I have come, it has been a great pleasure to serve you and to worship with you and you have shown me tremendous love and hospitality.  Believe it or not, I have learned much from you and I stand here today as a product of your generosity and care.


Like Peter in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, I stand before you today to testify that all the good that you see in me and the good that I have done is because of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the stone rejected by the builders that has become the cornerstone and that there is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.  

We have all known rejection. We have all known how it feels to be discarded or used by either those around us or our friends and family, by the ones we love.  Jesus knows that feeling all too well.  He was rejected, persecuted, accused, tortured, and finally crucified.  We do not have a God that does not know what it means to go through the trials and tribulations of life.  And now, the tables have turned.  Through the Resurrection in this Easter time, we exclaim His praises and glory in His triumph over sin and death.  He has radically changed the face of this world and all creation looks to Him now.  He is now the cornerstone, the most important piece, the solid rock, upon which to build our lives.  As the psalm today says, It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man,… better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.  We, sometimes through own sinfulness or fault, deserve punishment and unfortunate consequences.  However, sometimes the greatest tragedies are the most difficult to pin fault.  Yet again and always we turn to Him to lift us up out of the dregs of sorrow and suffering.

For myself, I have had a good life and been provided for; it has been comfortable and I can’t really complain.  Compared to other people, I had no dramatic conversion, no spectacular miracles for God to scoop me up out of iniquity.  I was actually pretty behaved in college.  But my non-Christian friends were surprised that I called myself a Catholic Christian because they did not see Christ dwelling in me.  But I did everything I was told to do in college. I went to Mass every Sunday and all days of obligation, I prayed when I was in trouble, and I did the bare minimum.  By the world’s standards, I was a fine upstanding young man.

That was not enough.  I still felt far away from God.  But it was not He that moved, but I was the one who was falling away by not trying to get closer to Him.  When I realized this, I rededicated my life – not trying to do the bare minimum, but to fall in love with Him each and every day of my life.  If the Christian faith that I professed truly meant something and were not just words that I said each Sunday, that meant I would really have to live it out and change my life.  It didn’t happen overnight, but over the course of months and years.  He was patient with me and guided me along the way.  I still made mistakes but as long as I kept trying to hear His voice I would never go astray for too long.  Almost seven years ago, I felt a strong call to the priesthood.  It’s not a story I can tell here because it would take too long.  But let’s just say that it has radically changed my life for the better.  Therefore, I stand before you today to witness to you that Jesus has done, will do, and will continue to do the same for you as He has for me.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd as we hear in the Gospel today.  He is the Good Shepherd that lays His life down for His sheep.  He guides His sheep caring for them and His flock listens to Him.  He knows His sheep and His sheep know Him.  He cares for us as if we were His flesh and blood.

That is why I love the passage from First John today; See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.  If God is the Father and Jesus is the Son, and if we are baptized into Christ, do we not also become the sons and daughters of God? Are we not also of the same flesh and blood when we eat His flesh and drink His blood in the Eucharist?  That is called Communion: that oneness of Body is not just a warm fuzzy feeling, it’s a reality that is truly expressed as we read it today in the Holy Scriptures.  WE ARE GOD’S CHILDREN NOW and though we may not see everything now, it will be revealed to us in the end.  We are God’s children, we are His sheep, we are His flock, and Jesus is the Good Shepherd that leads us to eternal life.

Our Lord also speaks of the hired man – who is not a true shepherd because He works for money.  He has ulterior motives and does not seek the sheep for the sheep’s sake, but seeks his own life and has no concern for the sheep.  This is why we have men and women who go out to evangelize with the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience.  These three vows show to the world that they, following the example of the Good Shepherd, serve the people given to their care with true motivations and honest intentions.  In the priestly vocation, men offer their obedience to their bishop, live chaste celibate lives, and though they do not take a promise of poverty, live as simply as possible not seeking material wealth.  This shows to the world that they are here for you, giving their life to serve you, to worship with you, to bring you closer to God, and if they must… one day die for you.

Today is known as Good Shepherd Sunday and is also known as the World Day of Prayer for Vocations.  The Good Shepherd is an excellent analogy for us to realize the connection between the Good Shepherd that is Our Lord Jesus Christ and the bishops, priests, deacons, and religious men and women that serve us, our diocese, and the whole world.  The passage of the Good Shepherd is about reminding us that God is in control; that God will provide for us; that He has even laid down His life for us.  The Good Shepherd does not send a hired man but He sends bishops and priests in His Person, alter Christus, to shepherd His flock and keep them until He comes again.  The Good Shepherd reminds me what I am called to do now as a deacon and in a month’s time as a priest:  that I must serve you, the people of God, with my complete self, my whole being, and with my life if I have to --- that I must be the Good Shepherd out of His love that He shown to me and out of His love for you, leading you back to Him.

Please pray for vocations to the priesthood and religious life.  We need them, we need Good Shepherds in our parishes and leading the faithful to God.