Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter – B – 2015
We have a new chalice at Holy Name that we have been using since the
dedication of the new church. The artwork on it is an expression of today’s
gospel passage. At the base of the chalice there is an image of a shepherd
carrying a lamb on his shoulders and gathering other sheep around him. It
keeps alive the words of Jesus: “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays
down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). The nature of his sacrifice is
depicted by a crown of thorns around the upper portion of the chalice
together with the words, “Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei” (Latin for “This is
the chalice of my blood”). We also have a matching ciborium to hold the
consecrated hosts. It is adorned with the same image of the shepherd and the
sheep. This chalice and ciborium show the connection between this gospel
passage and the Eucharist. When we gather as the flock of Jesus, our good
shepherd, he lays down his life for us as food and drink that we may live with
him forever.
This leads us right into our series of reflections about the Eucharist
during the Easter Season. Two weeks ago I spoke about how the Eucharist is
alive. Each time we receive communion, we receive the living Jesus who
comes to feed us unto eternal life. Last week I spoke about how Christ is not
alone in the Eucharist, but that He comes to us together with God the Father
and God the Holy Spirit, and even with the saints and angels of heaven. But
before I speak of the third secret, which Vinny Flynn describes in his book,
Seven Secrets of the Eucharist, I would like to return to today’s gospel
passage.
I find it intriguing that in this short passage Jesus speaks five times
about laying down his life, and four of the five times he uses the present tense.
“A good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep… I lay down my life in order
to take it up again… I lay it down on my own… I have power to lay it down and
power to take it up again” (John 10:11-18). It appears that there is something
present tense about Jesus laying down his life. We tend to think of the
sacrifice of Jesus as something that took place at a moment in history. It was
surely a gruesome event, but it is now over. However, John tells us earlier in
his gospel that the crucifixion was a revelation of the love of God for the
world. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone
who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (3:16). The
love of God for us is not something limited to moment of the past; it is very
much a present reality. God’s love and everything else about God is eternal;
because God is eternal. And since Jesus shares in the divine nature of the Holy
Trinity, everything about him is also eternal.
This is hard for us human beings to understand because it is not science,
it is theology. We cannot prove it, but we can experience it. How can we
experience God? Through love, because God is love. Anyone who loves
another person knows that there is something about love that transcends
space and time. There is something about love that seems to remain in the
present.
And that leads us to the third secret of the Eucharist. And the secret
now revealed is: There is only one Mass. What? You may be thinking. There
are hundreds, maybe thousands of Masses happening across the globe at any
one time! Here in Routt County there are five Masses every weekend! But the
Catholic Church teaches that all of these Masses are actually participating in
the one Mass of Jesus Christ. What we celebrate during the Mass is the
Paschal Mystery of Jesus; that is, his suffering, death, resurrection and
ascension. The Church teaches in the Catechism that the paschal mystery of
Jesus is
“the unique event of history which does not pass away…
it cannot remain only in the past, because… all that Christ is—
all that he did and suffered for all people—participates in
the divine eternity, and so transcends all times while
being made present in them all. The event of the Cross and
Resurrection abides (remains) and draws everything toward life”
(#1085).
What does all this mean for us? It means that the celebration of the
Eucharist, which we call the Mass, is never an isolated, individual event. The
Catechism says that the Mass “makes present the one sacrifice of Christ
(#1330). The liturgy we celebrate “not only recalls the events that saved us,
but actualizes them, makes them present. The Paschal Mystery of Christ is
celebrated, not repeated (#1104). The Church “re-lives the great events of
salvation history in the ‘today’ of her liturgy” (#1095). “The sacrifice of Christ
and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice” (#1367).
Vinny Flynn concludes that, “in reality there is only one Mass, one
eternal Liturgy of the Eucharist, and it’s taking place in heaven all the time.
Christ, the One Great High Priest, is celebrating it, perpetually offering”
himself to the Father in the heavenly court, surrounded by the saints and
angels who sing His praise perpetually. We may think that our Mass is limited
to a particular time and place. “But, in reality, Christ is inviting us to enter in,
beyond the veil, so that he can lift us up out of time and into the Eternal Now,
into the very sanctuary of heaven” (p. 44).
When we begin to understand the Mass in this way, it is anything but
boring! The bishops of the Second Vatican Council taught that “In the earthly
liturgy we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy” (SC 8, CCC #1090).
This may be hard for some of us to believe if we are depending on the quality
of our own particular Mass: the quality of the atmosphere, the music, the
proclamation of the Word, the preaching and the prayers. But regardless of
these qualities we must remember, as the Catechism says, that in every Mass
“we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal
life, when God will be all in all” (#1327). Wow!
How do we unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy? In and through
Jesus we offer ourselves to the heavenly Father as children. As St. John told us
in today’s second reading: “Beloved… we are God’s children now; what we
shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we
shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:1-2). As God’s
beloved children we pray the Lord’s Prayer with Jesus, and gain a foretaste of
heaven until we see him as he is and become like him.
But Jesus is inviting us to become like him even during our lives here on
earth. The Eucharist calls us to love as Jesus loves, by laying our lives down
for the sheep. Those sheep may be the people with whom we live, work or
play. They may be the persons in need all around us. Today the Archbishop of
Denver invites us to join him in caring for all the sheep of Northern Colorado.
He invites us to do so through a contribution to his annual appeal. I encourage
all of us to participate in some way because we are all members of the Body of
Christ, and Jesus invites us to join him in laying down our lives for the sheep.
So now let us listen to Archbishop Aquila’s DVD presentation.