IV SUNDAY OF EASTER
JESUS IS THE GOOD SHEPHERD
By our Pastor, Fr. Carmelo Jiménez
We are in the middle of the Easter season and this Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Church dedicates to pray for vocations, for those people who consecrate and give their lives as Jesus did. I want to start by saying all vocations are a gift of God’s love. Remembering the message of the second reading: the special love of the Father for us, who calls us his children and sends us so that the world will know him. However, the central theme for this Sunday is Jesus is the Good Shepherd.
St. John the Evangelist, not only indicates the personal goodness of a shepherd, but especially qualifies it as Jesus’ mission as well. Jesus presents himself as the only genuine Shepherd, authentic, worthy of trust, the one whom we can follow. And that’s what matters at the time that Jesus speaks and the time when the Evangelist wrote: many presented themselves claiming to be the savior, but none bore the mark of authenticity, none were worthy of trust and they led the people to destruction. Jesus is the only savior that says what we hear in the first reading: “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” (Acts 4: 12). And he’s willing to take his mission to the end and to give the generous gift of life: “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for their sheep” (Jn 10: 11). The evangelist compared this to the hired man who is more aware of the salary than the welfare of the sheep. The evangelist is also thinking of the pastors of the Church. His message for them is: look at the true Shepherd and draw your conclusions. Jesus gives his life freely, no one snatches it from him violently: “I will lay down my life for the sheep… This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again” (Jn 10: 15b. 17-18). A beautiful interpretation of Jesus’ death is: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15: 13). During the Mass, we pray: “Indeed, though we once were lost and could not approach you, you loved us with the greatest love: for your Son, who alone is just, handed himself over to death, and did not disdain to be nailed for our sake to the wood of the Cross. (Eucharistic prayer for reconciliation 1)
On April 25, 1999 I was ordained a priest, exactly on the 4th Sunday of Easter, the Sunday of Jesus the Good Shepherd. As a very significant day for the whole Church, I have always prayed to be a good shepherd, not by title but in life and in actions. It was the Tzotzil Indians who taught me the meaning of the good shepherd. Days after my arrival to Chenalho, which is a small village on the top of the mountains of Chiapas, the catechists told me, they would not call me father, they would call me Carmelo, and when the community said so they would call me Totic Pale (Father). After a few months, during a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Guadalupe, the day we walked the longest distance, my feet hurt, and I was tired, I preferred not to eat lunch but to sleep under a burning sun. In the evening of that day, the coordinator of the pilgrimage asked me to give him some time to speak before I gave the blessing and dismissed the people. At the end of the Mass he said: “Carmelo got hurt today, today he was hungry, he walked with us, today he felt as we felt. Do you want to call him Totic Pale?” The community responded “yes”.
That experience marked my life and I understood that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who walks and suffers with each of us. Jesus’ love is not for a group but he loves us each personally, he knows our names. In every sorrow in which we suffer, is he the first to suffer, and every joy, he is rejoicing with us, whether we tell him about it or not. Jesus loves us so he gave his life for our freedom and if he sees us lost, he goes out to search for us, he carries us and returns us to the fold.
Let us thank God the Father for His infinite love, because in Christ we have the hope of salvation and eternal life. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, have mercy on our beloved ones, those who have died and accept them into the Kingdom of God. And for us, help us and guide us to arrive one day to contemplate God’s face in eternity. Amen.