A Commentary and Reflection on the Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Easter – Year B. The Liturgical Sense of the Scriptures Podcast, by Catholic Author and Theologian David L. Gray. READINGS: Acts 4:8-12, 1 John 3:1-2, John 10:11-18.
The Liturgy of the Catholic Mass Reminds Us of Our Purpose as Sheep
In light of the fact that Christ Jesus is the glory of the God-man and the fulfillment of our Eternal Father’s hope for man’s destiny, whenever our Lord speaks about Himself in the Biblical narrative, the theological and ontological implications of those utterances have as much to say about Him as they do about us. In the case of today’s Gospel Reading for the Fourth Sunday of Easter – Year B from John 10:11-18, Jesus offers the fourth of His seven “I Am” statements, saying, “I am the Good Shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep,” the focus of this image should be as much on us as it is on Him. However, centuries of Christian art and prose have narrowed on the image of Jesus spoiling a baby lamb. The prominent images and iconographs of a sheep carried on the shoulders of Christ Jesus can be found among the oldest images of Our Lord drawn on the stone catacomb walls of Rome.
Indeed, there have been and will continue to be tomes written about how trustworthy the Lord’s protection of us is. Christ Jesus, the shepherd of Psalm 23, provides for us so bountifully that we lack nothing. He gives us to rest so well that we can lay comfortably in green pastures rather than on stoney and barren hills. He leads us to water so good that it refreshes not just our body but also restores our soul, and, with Him, there is no fear of evil overtaking us because He does not lead us into danger nor abandon us to the enemy. As the Psalm concludes, with this shepherd, all the days of our life will be blessed.
Again, much has been written, drawn, painted, and sculpted, and more remains about Christ Jesus, the Good and Perfect Shepherd. However, what about us? What is the story of that sheep being carried on the shoulders of its master? Why did it stray off? Was it all alone? Was it wounded? How long is He going to carry it? Where is He taking it? The answers to these questions might be interesting to some and could even be helpful to others. However, we are still missing the story here. We are still burying the lead. The lead of the story is that sheep are created for service. They are not pets. They are not meant to be pampered or carried around. They are cared for and protected by the shepherd only because they have a purpose to fulfill for him. Everything about sheep, from its wool, flesh, skin, fats, bones, and intestines, is purposed to be used. In this way, the sheep reminds us of love and hate in that even after we die, the things people have taken from us continue to live with them. In offering up every part of its body and life for the service of others, the sheep reminds us of the Sursum Corda of the Mass, which asks us to lift up, to offer up, to return, to sacrifice, back to God everything that He has given us; the priest exclaims, “Lift up your Hearts to the Lord” In demanding that we offer up the everything that is keeping us alive, he could have just as well demanded, “Die for Lord today,” and we could have been like lambs being put on the altar and accepted that sacrifice, saying, “We die for the Lord today.”
Truly, the sheep need more protection because not only can they not defend themselves well, but they do not have anything of their own. Everything the sheep has and is made of has a demand, a lien, and a price on it. The sheep is not its own. It is just a slave like we are to Christ, but we are worse off than the sheep because we do not even have our own image. After all, we were made in His. We do not even have our own breath because He gave us His. Everything good in this life comes from Him, and He magnanimously shares it with us, not to own, lest we be haughty and selfish, but that we might share in His divinity. We participate in His love, truth, mercy, graces, gifts, virtues, appetites, desires, hopes, fruits, etc. so that by sharing in them, we might become more like the author of those things we are sharing. It is like someone sharing their fire with a cold stranger. Being gracious for their mercy might inspire you to imitate them and share what you have with a stranger in need one day. By participating and sharing the divine goods, we create an entire economy where no one has anything of their own, but they have everything they need.
In today’s Second Reading from Acts 4:8-12, Peter remarks on the cruelty of the fact that they are being persecuted because they shared those divine goods by healing a cripple man in Jesus’ name; the only name, Peter says, “given to the human race by which we are to be saved.” The dark world is not inclined to love or pursue the divine good because they believe God’s goodness is beneath them and is contrary to their ambition to take but not give. Even when the world tries to imitate God without God with them, by creating an economy of solidarity and sharing, it devolves into a communism where the elites have more, and the rest have less.
It would be easy to opine that the world should just imitate Catholics. I wish they thought of us when they saw the image of Jesus carrying around a sheep. I wish we could join with the author of today’s Second Reading from 1 John 3:1-2 and say, “The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him,” but how should the world know us when we do not know ourselves? We need to become far more dependent on His grace and mercy, which begins by realizing that we are not only sheep with nothing of our own, and everything we do have will be taken from us, and that we are also slaves whose debts have already been paid by the only one we were created to serve in freedom and truth, Christ Jesus the King of Kings and the Shepherd of Shepherds.
This is just one way how the readings at Mass this Sunday connect to the liturgy and how the liturgy is forming us how to live our lives in the world. Be in the world what you have received through the liturgy.
