April 17^th 2016.  Fourth Sunday of Easter

GOSPEL  John 10:27-30

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

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GOSPEL  John 10:27-30

I give eternal life to the sheep that belong to me.

Jesus said:

‘The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice;
I know them and they follow me.
I give them eternal life;
they will never be lost
and no one will ever steal them from me.
The Father who gave them to me is greater than anyone,
and no one can steal from the Father.
The Father and I are one.’

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

Kieran’s summary . . . How does the Good Shepherd tend to his sheep? By driving them on with blows of the stick? By shouting at them? By threatening them? No! The Good Shepherd speaks to our hearts. We follow him because we know his voice and we realize that he loves us. God does not simply communicate a system of values to us, nor a logical set of principles. What the Lord wants from us is a real relationship. Okay then, so we have this Good Shepherd who wants to lead us by speaking to our hearts. How are we going to hear what he wishes to speak to our hearts? His word can only penetrate to our deepest being if we give time to prayer, to peeling away the layers and exposing our hearts to him! Any other technique, or structure, or complicated discipline we try to use to follow Jesus is a useless imposition. The basic thing is to give time to him so that he can speak to us personally. When a man is in love he has no problem being motivated to do whatever is necessary to cultivate that relationship of love. And we will have no problem in being motivated to follow the Good Shepherd if we allow him to speak to our hearts.

God communicates with us, not through moral systems of values, nor through logical principles, but through a word that speaks to our hearts and establishes a relationship with us

The Gospel this week presents us with the Good Shepherd. Jesus says, “The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me”. The channel of the relationship between the shepherd and the flock is his voice. In the first reading, we hear of the struggle in the early Church to make the word of the Lord heard. Paul and Barnabas preach the word of God and the pagans rejoice, whilst the Jews find it difficult to accept it. The word of God that is being diffused by the disciples is not simply some sort of ritual, even though ritual is important; it is not some sort of institutional structure, even though such a structure is also necessary; nor is it some sort of wisdom that gives rise to a logical or rational framework. We become members of the Lord’s flock not by accepting some system of values but because the word of the Lord has entered into our hearts. As the psalm says, “If you do not speak to me, Lord, it is as if I descend into the pit”. Or as Jesus says at the first temptation, “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God”. The Father sends his Son to save us, and he sends him as his word. This word becomes flesh and we see his glory. It is the word of the Father that we receive. An image provides us only with the external skin of reality. The aesthetic is only aesthetic and does not save. Content is something different altogether. We can establish a relationship with a blind person very easily because we can still communicate with words. It is very difficult, by contrast, to establish a relationship with someone who has a serious hearing defect. The communication of conceptual content is what makes human beings different. It is the extraordinary distinctive capacity of humanity.

How can Jesus speak to our hearts if we do not take the time to expose our hearts and have his word penetrate within us?

The sheep of Jesus hear his voice. How important it is for us to give time so that the voice of the Lord becomes clear in our soul, to devote ourselves to prayer so that the layers fall away and we expose the true kernel of our hearts, that part of us where the word of the Lord can strike, console us, help us to change direction. How crucial it is to listen to the word of God, be known by him, and follow him. We do not follow him because of some logical conviction we possess; we follow him because of a word that has entered into our hearts. We attain eternal life through the faith, and our faith is built up through listening to the word. Both St John and St Paul speak of these stages towards attaining eternal life. To be united to the Father we must follow the Son. We follow him and are known by him because he has spoken to our hearts. Instead of abstract understanding, what we need to engage in is dialogue. We tend to search for and accumulate information about the faith, but what is needed is contact and relationship. The shepherd unites himself to us through a word that penetrates deep into our hearts.

Jesus does not move us with blows or with threats. He leads us on by communicating his word, his love to our hearts. This gives us all the motivation we need to follow him to the end.

Our shepherd does not drive us on with blows of the stick, fear or constriction. He leads us on by speaking to our hearts. It is sacrosanct that we keep this in mind. Often we try to set up educational structures that focus on external parameters, but what is essential is to move the heart. Of course it is also important that we speak the truth, but, in speaking the truth, it is vital that we make ourselves understood by the other. An important theme of the faith is that of inculturation. I must speak to you in your language; not seek to impose my language upon you. The Lord Jesus did not communicate to us in forceful terms; he did not shout at us or force us to concede to him by the logical power of argument; rather, he speaks to us with words that value our capacities for comprehension.  The shepherd governs us from our hearts, from the fact of being known by him. We hear him, we appreciate that we are known by him, and we follow him. We have no wish to go anywhere else because we realize that we are loved. This is what we must search for in our faith! There is no need to construct other disciplines, other techniques, other impositions for following Jesus! The only thing that matters is to be touched by his word. Everything else will follow. When a man is in love he knows what he must do. When a woman has a child, she knows how to take care of him because he is her life. Whenever I share true friendship with another, I find a way to cultivate that friendship. When we feel love, we know how to love in return. When a word touches our heart we feel impelled to respond.