Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter (Year A, April 26, 2026)

The Good Shepherd images in the gospel are always a bit disorienting to modern western ears, because we are accustomed to a rather different pattern of sheepherding. Strangely enough, this distinction is on full display in the charming 1995 film Babe, where a little pig learns to direct sheep not by the scare tactics, biting and driving of a sheepdog, but by polite instruction and friendship. Perhaps this should be a mandatory training video for new bishops. In any case this much is true: in the ancient near East, shepherds led their sheep by voice; they did not drive them. Supposedly you could have a mixed pen of sheep, belonging to several different shepherds, and, in the morning, the sheep would separate to their proper herd because they recognized their shepherd’s voice.

While shepherds were not really any higher in the social hierarchy of the ancient near east than they are in the modern west, the image of the shepherd was all the same associated with monarchy, and not just for Israel. For Israel, though, the Lord’s choice to bring David “from the sheepfolds” to “shepherd his people,” as Psalm 78 puts it, the shepherd-king image became especially powerful. In the 23^rd psalm, probably one of the most beloved passages of scripture, the shepherd’s care for his people is personal and sacramental. God gives his people everything they need to follow him into abundant life.

Jesus is, of course, the fulfillment of all the shepherd imagery of the scriptures: both the shepherding of the Davidic monarchy and the shepherding of God himself. I wonder if this is part of why the first to hear about his nativity in Bethlehem are the shepherds. All these scriptural prophecies and images are fulfilled in one person, the incarnate Son of God. He suffered for us, indeed suffers for us, to bring us into life. St. Peter’s call to perseverance assumes that suffering and difficulty are the default state of the Church. We are able to survive them only through the goodness of our divine shepherd who neither lets us suffer alone nor lets our suffering be wasted: he gathers it all to himself and works it for our good.

The abundant life of the kingdom is the shepherd’s goal. This is the more determinative reality than the protection against false shepherds and destruction. He leads us primarily by love, not fear.

I have noticed lately a trend online where traditional or conservative Catholics complain that modern priests and bishops do not preach enough about hell. This, they say, stems from unbelief, and contributes to the contemporary lack of seriousness about the demands of the Catholic faith. Perhaps they are right. It is true that we do not hear very much about hell from our shepherds, though Church teaching remains clear that separation from God is a real possibility for all of us. Maybe we lean too much into emphasizing the classical understanding that hell is always a choice, which makes it very difficult for most of us to see how our lives might be tending in a hellish direction because we rarely think of our choices as having that sort of consequence. Although I think, like many priests, I hear enough confessions to know that the consciousness of hell is quite present with many of the faithful, and often they need reassurance of God’s mercy more than reasons to be afraid.

Whether we modern preachers are too soft on eternal judgment or not, it seems reasonable that the primary emphasis should be what our Lord himself shows us in the Good Shepherd discourse. His goal isn’t just to save us from hell: it is to bring us into the kingdom. The positive goal is far larger than the negative distraction. It is the devil who wants to convince us that hell is more interesting than heaven. The gospels’ miracles of abundance — the wine at Cana, the excessive leftovers at the feeding of the five thousand — show us over and over again that the Lord’s provisions are far greater than our lack. What the Lord wants for his sheep isn’t for them to be afraid, but for them to trust that he will take care of them and give them what they need to be safe from danger, that even when they do face dangers he will be with them and strengthen them.

And this love of the Good Shepherd is personal. Peter Kreeft writes, “We are not told to love humanity; we are told to love our neighbors, one by one, one at a time, because that’s what Jesus does to us. Humanity does not have a proper name; you do.” Of course the tradition speaks of human nature redeemed in Christ, a necessary way of speaking for theological precision, but it also speaks of the Lord’s love for us individually, and we can and do emphasize that the Lord laid down his life not for an abstract concept of humanity but for you and me.

Salvation’s personal quality isn’t just about our sins, and the Lord’s sacrifice, but also about our vocation to holiness and grace. He calls us by name and leads us. Perhaps you are familiar with these lines from St. John Henry Newman, always powerful: “God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.”

Newman’s meditation here has another portion, less often quoted, which I think is just as striking: “God was all-complete, all-blessed in Himself; but it was His will to create a world for His glory. He is Almighty, and might have done all things Himself, but it has been His will to bring about His purposes by the beings He has created. We are all created to His glory—we are created to do His will. I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; I have a place in God's counsels, in God's world, which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name.”

God knows me and calls me by my name. God knows you and calls you by your name. Remember that. Newman continues: “Let us put ourselves into His hands, and not be startled though He leads us by a strange way, a mirabilis via, as the Church speaks. Let us be sure He will lead us right, that He will bring us to that which is, not indeed what we think best, nor what is best for another, but what is best for us.” Amen.