The Fourth Sunday of Easter is called “Good Shepherd Sunday” because the Gospel is always about Jesus’s description of himself as the Good Shepherd, who knows, loves and is willing to lay down his life for his sheep.

Today our Church also celebrates the World Day of Prayer for Vocations when we pray that more men and women will accept the call of the Good Shepherd to serve the Church as priests, deacons, religious sisters, and lay ministers. The Josephites are blessed to have two sons of St. Francis as priests, Bishop John Ricard and Father Roderick Coates. The Sisters of the Holy Family also have been blessed with several vocations from St. Francis, among them Sister Laura Mercier and Sister Cabrini Turnbull. Our parish is also blessed to have Carson Mack preparing to become a priest for the Diocese of Baton Rouge and James Pappillion for the Permanent Diaconate. Let us continue to pray, support and encourage vocations from our parish.

The New Testament has many different words to describe the Risen Christ. Perhaps the most familiar is the image of the Risen Christ as the Good Shepherd who knows each of us by name, who loves us with an unconditional love, who laid down his life on the cross to save us from sin and death and who promises us that if we place our faith in him, we will share his Risen Life for all eternity. How blessed we are to have such a Good Shepherd!

Psalm 23 beautifully expresses the love and care of our Good Shepherd. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. In verdant pastures he gives me repose. Besides restful waters he leads me, he refreshes my soul. He guides me in right paths for his name sake. Even though I walk in a dark valley, I fear no evil, for you are at my side with your rod and staff that give me courage. You spread the table before me in the sight of my foes. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come.” Whenever the stress and strain of daily life gets us down, we need to turn to Psalm 23 as a source of hope and strength. Jesus, the Good Shepherd will be our source of hope, strength and healing when we turn to him in prayer, in the Eucharist and in the other Sacraments.

By Baptism and Confirmation, we are called to be good shepherds to each other, to love, support and encourage one another each day, to remind each other what St. John says in todays second reading, “see what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. Beloved we are God’s children now, what we shall be, has not yet been revealed. When it is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

So we pray: Risen Lord we thank you for being our good shepherd. We thank you for the love and care you have for every one of us. We thank you for laying down your life on the cross to forgive our sins and your rising from the dead to bring us eternal life. We look forward to the day when we shall be like you, when you transform us and enable us to see you face to face. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.