4th Sunday of Easter May 11, 2014

The Fourth Sunday of the Easter Season is always Good Shepherd Sunday. Jesus identifies himself as the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd is one who comes to his sheep and is recognized by them. The sheep recognize his voice as he calls them by name.

May Jesus the Good Shepherd give us the grace to gently lead others to become more aware of God?s love for them. I think we all agree that Pope Francis is such a beautiful example for us of the Good Shepherd. Pope Francis is calling us to serve a purpose greater than ourselves, to get over self-concern and devote ourselves to the concerns of others. That means we can?t sit behind the desks of our sanitized environments. Pope Francis reminds that the Good Shepherd should smell like the sheep. We are to immerse ourselves in the mud of human failures, human sins, and human problems. The Pope emphatically says that Church leaders must go out to the margins of human life, to where people are actually living, and understand what they are going through before we can offer any solutions that will matter.

Pope Francis understands very well the Gospel in which Jesus calls us to imitate Him as the Good Shepherd of the people we serve and love.

Have you ever wondered what kind of mother Pope Francis had? I do not know much of Pope Francis family background but I can only imagine how his mother loved him into life, how his mother loved him and in turn gave him the capacity to love others. I can imagine how his mother first taught Pope Francis how him how to pray , how to be kind, how not to live a self-centered life but to live a God-centered life and an other-centered life.

We are all grateful to Pope Francis? mother for teaching her son how to be so faithful and so loving. Indeed on Mother?s Day, we are grateful to all the mothers of our parish community. You are such wonderful example to us of how you follow the call of Jesus the Good Shepherd in the ways you lead and love and guide your family. Like each of us, I am most grateful to my own mother for first teaching me to pray and to love and to be kind.

Mothers believe in the mystery of the Incarnation. They believe that God created a beautiful world, that He loves it, and that His presence can be found in the world. His presence his found in the men and women that He has created in His own image and likeness. In other words, God?s presence is to be found in our family life, and we are to treasure the gift of our families as one of God?s most precious gifts to us.

I am intrigued by the last line of today?s Gospel: ?I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.? What does it mean for us to have life and to have it in abundance? Life in abundance means when we are loving people and when we ourselves feel very much loved. Again, it is the great gift of our mother?s love that enables us to have life in abundance ? to know ourselves as being very much loved.

Today is also the World Day of Prayer for Vocations . I had the great privilege of serving in our diocese for ten years as the Director of Seminarians and for five years before that as the spiritual director and the rector of Becket Hall ? our diocesan discernment house for candidates for the ordained priesthood. It is very humbling to mentor young men in discerning whether God?s is calling them to serve in the Church as ordained priests. This has been a treasured part of my ministry for many years.

May we as the faith community of St. Joseph?s mentor, foster, pray, and encourage young men from this parish to serve the Church as priests. This would be such a great blessing for our parish community.

I also would invite us to look at this World Day of Prayer for Vocations with a wider lens. The truth is all of us have a vocational story to share. We are to pray that each and every one of us claim the vocation, the call we receive from God. Vocation comes from the Latin word vocare that means ?to call.? God calls each of us to witness to His love in the world. This weekend we celebrate the beautiful and sacred and significant vocation of motherhood. God has called you who are mothers to share your love and faith and guidance with your children.

In our parish life, we are grateful for parishioners who have responded to the call of God to be catechists, to be involved in youth ministry, to engage in liturgical ministry, pastoral care, social outreach, our parish governance. We are grateful for the young men and women of the parish who have celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation and seek to witness to their faith by the way they live their lives. We are grateful to our parish staff who are lay ecclesial ministers in our parish community. The parish would not exist without generous service of our lay ecclesial ministers. We are grateful to the women and men of the parish who are vowed religious and who are discerning this call in their life. We are grateful for the ministry of the permanent deacon and those discerning the diaconate. We are grateful to our senior priests.

My message is all of us have a vocational story to discern. We pray that God?s call will touch each member of our parish community. Discerning God?s call in our culture is a bit of a challenge, for sure. There are so many voices in society that seek to claim our attention. The marketing voices of sex, of materialism, of greed, of individualism, and of doing my way for my own purposes without regard to the needs of others are powerful voices.

What are the voices we hear that help us to discern God?s call and what voices do we hear that prevent from recognizing the voice of Jesus as the Good Shepherd of our lives?
May we pray today for the grace to recognize the call of Jesus the Good Shepherd of our lives.