Third Week After Easter 2012 Themes For The Week

Several of this week's Gospel readings focus on Jesus as The Bread of Life and The Eucharist

Scripture Readings for today's Mass are here .

Click here for last year's reflections on The Bread of Life

and from 2010 here are my reflections on the Feast of Corpus Christ: 

the Body and Blood of Christ


Wednesday is the feast of St Mark The Evangelist.

Click here for last year's post on this

Some interesting facts about St Mark here

and this post written in Lent contains a reflection from the singer Nick Cave on St Mark's Gospel.

Sunday, The Fourth Sunday of Easter

   Gospel is on the theme of The Good Shepherd and is traditionally Vocations Sunday.

Click here for post from 2010
and another from last year here
and another here
and this one is also relevant  to the theme of The Good Shepherd

Abundant Life

Continuing the theme of Christ as the Good Shepherd this week and the phrase :

"I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”

This series of photos are for reflection on what that phrase means.
Images from here 

Fourth Sunday of Easter :The Good Shepherd and Me the Sheep

All the readings for this Sunday's Mass are here.

This Sunday is traditionally “Good Shepherd Sunday,” and is the World Day of Prayer for Vocations.

So many questions stem from these readings.


What’s the connection between the “Lamb of God” and the “Good Shepherd”? 

When (and why) do we feel like a sheep? 
When (and why) do we feel like a shepherd? 
The good shepherd in the Middle East goes in front of the sheep and they follow because they trust him.
No force, no fierce dogs nipping at their heels; only a well-known voice urging them on to the safety of the fold.

This is a good homily that deals with the over-sentimentalised image of God's people being seen as just passive sheep.

Jesus as the Good Shepherd is one of the favourite images in art through the centuries.

Christ was often depicted as a shepherd in Christian art of the 3rd century. There are over 100 Good Shepherd images in the underground Christian burial grounds of ancient Rome and in Chinese art Christ the shepherd features too.

This is a great link with fantastic visual imagery of Christ the Good Shepherd

So often we behave like silly sheep, but we have a shepherd we can trust, who will pick us up when we fall and carry us home. 

What does the word “vocation” mean to us? How does it refer to our present situation, right here and now?

What does it mean for our future? 

What does the ministry of priests mean to us?

What is the role of vowed religious women and men in the Church?

What about the vocation of marriage or the single life in the Church?

 Some Key phrases from today's readings below...

“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. . . .

All who were destined for eternal life came to believe, and the word of the Lord continued to spread through the whole region.

I, John, had a vision of a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation, race, people and tongue. 
. . . The Lamb who is in the centre of throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.

 



This image of Pope Pius XII may be far from the image some of us have of the way the hierarchical church has shepherded us recently.

Yet it is Christ's endless desire for every one of us to come home to our community and not to be lost in the dark. 

There are not many of us who can truly understand the love of Christ, and those who often say they do are far from the truth, because the love of Christ often makes no human sense to us.













Think about it. "What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy" Luke 15:4-5 

No one in their right mind would leave ninety-nine sheep for one. That Shepherd would be unemployed the next week. 

But in the eyes of Christ, no one in their right mind would not leave the ninety-nine.
 
It's out of perfect love Christ comes after us. This is the kind of love of someone  willing to sacrifice His life for us. 

All for a bunch of sinners. I wish I could say I understand this kind of love, but if I did I'd be lying. 

And yes, despite all my education and knowledge in this 21st Century, that's why I can still call myself a sheep, and I have come to realise that at the end of the day, I don't have to understand it.

I have a shepherd I can trust, who will pick me up when I fall and carry me home. 
Alleluia!