4th Sunday, Year C - Good Shepherd Sunday & Mother's Day

 

This weekend, we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday and Mother's Day.

What a beautiful image: Jesus a loving shepherd cares for us and leads us to good pasture and safety. It’s also comforting to know we are the sheep of His flock; He knows each of us by name and calls out to us. And we, His sheep, hear His voice and follow Him.

As we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus helped Peter to understand, that He is the chief shepherd of the Church. He asked Peter, the same question three times. “Peter, do you love me?” Each time Peter responds, “Yes, Lord you know that I love you.” Jesus tells Him, “Feed my lambs, tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.” To feed the lambs, to tend the sheep and feed the sheep is what a shepherd does, that is why every pope is the chief shepherd of the Church.

Jesus Himself is the Good Shepherd, as it says in Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. To green pastures He leads me with His crook and His staff.” As the Good Shepherd, Jesus went through His Passion, but He is also the lamb slaughtered, on the Cross, so His sheep may have life and have it abundantly in heaven.

In fact, Jesus’s suffering and death occurred on the day of Passover, when the Jews slaughtered thousands of lambs to make atonement for sins.

In the second reading from the book of Revelation, John had a vision seeing a great multitude in heaven who stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding branches. They had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And they worshiped God, the Lamb, on the throne, who will shepherd them to springs of life-giving water.

The multitude in heaven wearing white robes and carrying palm branches are martyrs, and all Christians who were washed in the blood of the lamb.

Jesus is the lamb and the Shepherd, whom was slain and who they worship. And Mary is the Mother of the Lamb and the Mother of the Good Shepherd.

Did you know sheep recognize their master’s voice and even can be called by their own particular name? So when Jesus said, “My sheep, hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.” He used a familiar example of shepherds and farmers who knew sheep follow them. Shepherds can use specific names to get sheep to do what he wants.

How much more tenderly does God love us and know us by each of our names? God calls us individually by name.

Jesus used analogies of sheep to help His disciples and us today to come to understand that as our Shepherd, there are things He wants us to do and some things He does not want us to do. For example, He said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) Jesus wants us to not sin, to be faithful to God. He wanted the early Christians to listen to the apostles and do what they would tell the Christians to do, as He said, “He who hears you, hears me.” (Luke 8:13). Our Lord also declared to His apostles, “he who receives you, receives Me, and he who rejects you, rejects Me and the One who sent Me.” (Matthew 10:1-40).” With these words, Jesus gave His authority to the apostles and their successors, who were bishops and priests so we would hear His voice through the Church in every generation.

Did you know Mother's Day began almost two thousand years ago? It all began due to the people who realized the Church was their mother, at the baptismal font, where they were born into a life of grace, when they first became Christian. Through baptism, we are washed in Jesus’ blood, the blood of the lamb and shepherd. Years later, the converts returned to the church of their baptism to celebrate their faith and life in the church they were baptized and then also decided to celebrate a day dedicated to their natural mother.

Every Christian has three mothers. In my book on the Rosary, the book is dedicated to my spiritual mother, the Virgin Mary, and my natural mother, Cecilia, and My Holy Mother, the Catholic Church, the Bride of Christ. I said I pray all will be honored.

Last week at the 8am Mass, we crowned the Virgin Mary, our spiritual mother, with a wreathe of flowers. The children gave her flowers and we sang beautiful hymns. The beautiful poem by Bishop Fulton Sheen, “Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue”, was read. We prayed the Living Rosary before the statue of Mary. We do these things because we love Her.

Our natural mother will someday die, and some of your mothers have already died, which was surely one of the greatest heartaches in your life.

Our natural mother gave birth to us, raised us as children, taught us to take care of ourselves, gave us the faith and will always love us.

Our spiritual Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary died and was assumed into heaven. One may believe, She didn’t die, but fell asleep, though many saints said Mary died and then was assumed into heaven. Now that She is heaven, Mary intercedes for us and prays for Her spiritual children.

Will Holy Mother, the Catholic Church die too?​ Our Lord told Peter, our first Pope, “thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, “Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh. The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection.”

These words can certainly mean that the Church will go through a terrible time of persecution, mentioned in the book of Revelation, where those wearing white robes were washed in the blood of the lamb. The persecution will be so severe, the Church go through Her death and will have a resurrection in imitation of Jesus. These are frightening words.

Yet, they are hopeful words, because in the end-- the Church triumphs over death, like Jesus triumphed over death.

Just as the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, and the Apostle John faithfully stood with Jesus, as He went through His passion, we are called to stand with the Church, the mystical body of Christ, as She goes through Her Passion. We pray, that we will not be like all the other Apostles, who abandoned Jesus during His passion.

When Jesus was an unborn Infant, He heard Mary’s heart beat for love of Him. After His birth, He felt Her tender love for Him as She pressed Him to Her cheeks. And He would have experienced Her love day by day during the 30 yrs. of His hidden life. She was there for Him as He carried His Cross, stood and watched Him die on Calvary, held Her dead Son in Her arms, and helped place Him in His tomb. Because of Jesus’ love for His Mother, many believe She was the first to whom Our Lord appeared after His resurrection.

Because Mary is our spiritual mother, She will intercede for us during the great tribulation, as the Church goes through Her passion and resurrection in imitation of Jesus. I believe this is happening in our lifetime. And if it is, the Lord will help us through it.

As the Mother of the true God, and our mother, She has compassion on us. She helps us in our sorrows. She wipes away our tears, consoles us, and gives us peace. And through Her intercession, She will keeps us close to Jesus, as the Church goes through Her passion and we go through ours.

On Mother’s day and Good Shepherd Sunday, let us honor and give thanks to God, for our three mothers, our mother the Church, our natural mother and our Blessed Mother. May we never forget, we have three mothers and may we love them, cherish them and turn to them, in all our needs, and be faithful to them, because we need all three to help us obtain heaven, to be with Jesus, “The Lamb who is the center of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of life-giving water and God will wipe away every tear from their (our) eyes.”