Fourth Sunday of Easter: "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!"

With the Easter season being 50 days in length, 29 days remain if we’re to reclaim our faith and, when the Risen Lord breathes his Spirit into us anew on Pentecost Sunday, we will be living a more authentic Catholic faith. As St. John reminded us in today’s Epistle, living that more authentic faith means to “be like him.”

That frames the question we need to consider this Fourth Sunday of Easter—what the Church calls “Good Shepherd Sunday”: “What does it mean to ‘be like him’ ?”

Of course, the quick-and-dirty, easy answer is “to be like Jesus.” But, that’s no answer. It’s sort like saying “a car is a car” when asked what a car is.

What Jesus taught his disciples was “I am a good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.” He then qualified that statement, noting that his disciples are to be good shepherds especially “when the wolf comes…catches and scatters the sheep.”

So the answer to the question “What does it mean to ‘be like him’ ?” is to be able to state in complete honestly “I am the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep.”

Those two words “I am ” identify authentic faith.

Yet, how many of us are able to state honestly about ourselves,  “I am the good shepherd who lays down my life for my sheep”?

I’d venture to guess the simple that is that most of us can’t! Why? Our faith is inauthentic if only for one reason: While we may profess our faith on our lips—and in contrast to the Good Shepherd—when those wolves appear, we turn and run away leaving those wolves free to scatter or ensnare others away from their faith.

The primary wolf that exposes our inauthentic faith may very well be that particular fear, namely, the fear of being a good shepherd who speaks in such ways that other people come to love the things of God more than they love the things of this world.

This fear evidences itself in many ways. Consider three:

• This fear arises when people are deceived into believing they can be “spiritual but not religious”—which, by the way, is exactly what 88% of Catholics under the age of 40 today believe. Fearing how they will respond if we were to teach them how that’s a false belief reduces us to silence and, as a result, those folks proceed along their merry way, “spiritual” people having zero faith in a living God. The truth is they aren’t interested at all in being restricted by any moral precept in the way the conduct their lives. But, our failure to be good shepherds who lay down their lives for these sheep allows the wolves to scatter, ensnare, and devour some of them.
  
  
• This fear also evidences itself when people turn to social and political ideologies, therein hoping to discover “meaning” in their lives. Placing their faith in human beings and the power to recreate this world in their image and likeness, we fear voicing the notion that God has made us in His image and likeness and has tasked us with recreating the world as God not human beings intend. As a consequence of our failure to be good shepherds, these sheep also scatter and are ensnared, with some of ultimately being devoured by the wolves.
  
  
• This fear evidences itself, lastly, when we decide that faith is a “private” matter and shouldn’t ever be a source of division, separating us from other people and, most notably, those in our families. This mentality—“I’m okay, you’re not okay…but that’s okay”—is especially pernicious as we allow fear to keep us from voicing the most important concern as Catholics we must raise to others—their eternal life. To their moral and spiritual detriment, this failure to be a good shepherd allows the sheep to scatter and, for some of them, to be ensnared and ultimately devoured by the wolves.

When we don’t voice what the Good Shepherd has taught us, the faith we profess on our lips is inauthentic. Moreover, the Holy Spirit—given to us in the Sacrament of Baptism, strengthened by the Sacrament of Confirmation, and nourished by the regular reception of the Eucharist on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation—is near to being extinguished, if it hasn’t already been extinguished by the whisking and uncontrollable winds on this world.

When fear inhibits Catholics like you and me from speaking in such ways that other people love the things of God, we may be good if not very good people but the simple fact is our faith isn’t authentic. As a result, our words are incapable of and don’t reach those people, foreclosing any possibility save divine intervention they will open their hearts to love the things of God in the way Jesus opened the hearts of those who were listening to him.

Understanding how the wolves could threaten the people if they didn’t have good shepherds who were willing to lay down their lives for their sheep, Jesus didn’t allow fear to keep him from voicing these threats to the people God sent him. That spirit of courage gave Jesus the authority their religious leaders didn’t possess and explains why those folks heard Jesus’ voice and were motivated to follow him.

By not buying into being “spiritual but not religious,” recreating the world in his image and likeness, or accepting the “I’m okay and you’re not okay…but that’s okay” attitude, Jesus spoke to their hearts about the things of God—what today we call the “Truth of Christ.” What he taught astonished them because his words generated wonder in their hearts, the wonder of discovering something good and better...beyond anything this world has to offer.

In short: The people followed Jesus because he was the Good Shepherd who didn’t allow fear to keep him from courageously laying down his life for his sheep.

As much as art can stir up the heart and imagination to envision reality from a variety of perspectives, many of those portraits of the Good Shepherd seeking out his lost sheep and bringing them back to the safety of the pasture may have done a disservice across the centuries. Similar to the way Christmas crib Catholics grasp onto the infant babe in swaddling clothes and don’t venture with him to Good Friday and the Crucifix, those portraits of the Good Shepherd inspire us to envision Jesus seeking us out when we’ve wandered away, all the while failing to remember that Jesus taught his disciples to say “I am the good shepherd who lays down my life for my sheep.” It’s much easier to say “I told you so! Suffer the consequences of the decisions you’ve made!” That’s what people of inauthentic faith do.

As St. Peter clarified our mission: We’re to seek out the stone that’s been rejected and to make it the cornerstone upon which we construct an authentic faith.

For example, I was speaking last Sunday afternoon with a parishioner I’ve known for 20+ years. A lot of Catholics live in his neighborhood and he related the story to me about one family—the husband is Catholic and his wife isn’t—is worried his marriage may go belly up. That this husband was willing to do something most men fear doing, namely, to share his story—his hopes, fears, and pain in wanting to “do the right thing” precisely because his Catholic faith is important to him—didn’t “just happen.” As my friend told me, they have conversed about their faith and questions about it in passing on previous occasions.

Bringing this story to me, the parishioner wanted to know if there was something about St. Joseph I could provide him that could help this fellow work through the challenges confronting him.

Take note:

• The parishioner knew Pope Francis has proclaimed this year the “Year of St. Joseph” and has been reading and learning about what St. Joseph might have to teach him to be a better husband, father, and grandfather. Do you?
• As a good shepherd, he wanted to help a lamb who wasn’t yet wandering away but very well may wander away given the challenges confronting him. How many people have you attempted to save from the wolves this past week...month...year?
• To that end, this parishioner asked me to be a good shepherd by providing him some tools he could use to be a good shepherd. Have you asked your shepherds to help you fulfill your role in being a good shepherd who lays down one’s life for one’s sheep?

That’s what it means to have authentic faith!

Having taught us what it means to be the Good Shepherd, the Risen Lord has missioned us to be good shepherds by witnessing courageously to our faith by laying down or lives for our sheep. At any given moment, those sheep may be family members, neighbors, or coworkers. They may also be people who see in us a light breaking through the darkness threatening their faith, generating wonder in their hearts—the wonder of discovering something good and great beyond anything this world has to offer. And they take the risk to share their story.

That represents our challenge from scripture this week: To remain in the Truth of Christ so that fear will not inhibit us from giving voice to the Truth of Christ today.

How, then, are we “to be like him,” as St. John taught?

Disciples who are sincere about living an authentic faith strive to be good shepherds of their sheep who’ve wandered off and are now threatened by the wolves. By his life, Jesus—the Good Shepherd—taught us how to do that:

• First: Never to be far from God our Father. Jesus prayed, studied and debated scripture, and applied it each day of his life. This week: Pray, study, and discuss if not debate scripture with others.
• Second: Be alert for those“wolves”—the power of evil that threatens faith. Pope Francis has called these wolves “the current mentality” that denies the Truth of Christ. This week: Identify the wolves that are threatening the sheep whose shepherd you are.  
• Third: Courageously seek out the wandering sheep. This week: Translate “I am the good shepherd who lays down my life for my sheep” by voicing the Truth of Christ that will set them free and raise them up to new life in Christ.

This week, let us seek “to be like him” asking God the Father to bring us close to Jesus, to follow Jesus, and to be amazed at the things Jesus teaches us. In this way, we grow close to God our Father, the people God places in our midst, and speak with authority—the authority of the Truth of Christ.

Contemplating this Good Shepherd, we will see in him were we should go and learn what to say. Then, we will develop a more authentic faith by listening to this Good Shepherd’s voice so that others will experience what it means to have life in his name: “The Lord is risen, he is truly risen! Alleluia!”

On this day, the words of scripture will be fulfilled:

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.

As the Psalmist reminded us today:

By God our Father this has been done and it is wonderful to behold. Blessed are you who come in the name of the Lord!

See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God! That is what we are when we live an authentic faith.

Yes, indeed! “The Lord is risen, he is truly risen! Alleluia!”

Through this belief, may each of us understand better at the end of this fourth week of Easter what it means to be like him.