Sunday the 11th of May 2025 - The Fourth Sunday of Easter

Acts 13:14, 43b-52/ Ps 100(99)/ Revelation 7:9, 13a, 14b-17/ John 10:27-30

In a society that has increasingly moved away from mainstream religions there is a need to replace what faith gives with substitutes. This manifests itself in many ways as people search for methods of replacing what an established religion will provide in areas of mindfulness and feelings of wellbeing. From the starting point of understanding that human beings are spiritual creatures it is natural for us to look towards something beyond. History tells us that from the very early appearance of human beings they have looked towards something greater than themselves and built temples, altars, and other structures to help them to find and honour something greater.

In abandoning an attachment to mainstream religions people still seem to crave those things that religion brings. We seem to need ceremony and ritual involving community gatherings and formal events. Symbols and emblems are adopted to foster identity with one group or another. Rules and guidelines are created for those drawn towards a particular group leading to a collective identity with a common purpose or providing some meaning for existence. The outcome seems to be that if there was no religion to follow or adopt, we invent one. People who wish to deny any kind of spiritual involvement must work far harder to deny their draw to the transcendent than those of faith who find it quite natural.

Without a belief in something beyond this short life on earth we are left searching for complete fulfilment during an earthly lifetime. Life is full of ups and downs often with many challenges, few people manage to live entirely fulfilled and contended lives and now there is a strong movement towards deliberately ending life when it no longer provides what is considered to be worthwhile. This is a dangerous path to follow when many people will have experienced some very low times in their lives but have come through them to better and stronger experiences. A decision to end a life at a particularly low point might avoid some suffering but at the expense of missing the joy of coming through such a time. Our Christian faith gives us the ability to look far beyond our short lives in the here and now, even to eternity.

The readings today show how the word of God spread out to the whole world after it had been rejected by the people it was meant to come to first. The message of redemption was always one for all people, but it was to start in the hearts and minds of the Jewish people, the chosen people of God, the people to which God gradually revealed himself through the scriptures. In the first reading Paul and Barnabas were rejected after the people had been turned against them by leaders who were more concerned about their power on earth than their eternal salvation. This allowed Paul and Barnabas to turn to the gentiles, the non-Jewish people, people from every nation, tribe, and language who accepted their teaching with joy.

The conversion of Paul is not so much a conversion but a dramatic realisation of who Jesus is. Paul was a committed Jew and initially saw Jesus and his teaching as a threat to all he believed in until he was brought to the point where he understood that Jesus was the Messiah long promised in scripture. Jesus was a Jew, Paul was a Jew, as were the Apostles, they all practiced their Jewish religion even after Jesus had died and risen. Paul held on strongly to his Jewish heritage throughout his life and we have accounts of Peter and others going daily to the temple to pray as they always had done. The difference now was that the Jews who were to become known as Christians understood Jesus to be the Messiah and they gathered in their homes to celebrate the Eucharist, the sacrament instituted by Jesus and left for us until his return. We do the same at mass which contains readings from the Old Testament and the Psalms, the ancient prayers of the Jewish people. As St Augustine said, ‘The New Testament lies hidden in the Old, and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New’. The New Testament does not replace the Old rather it completes it and reveals the person of Jesus for who he is, it is through the Old Testament that we can understand the New.

We are the flock shepherded by Jesus, the sheep that recognise his voice. We might not like being referred to as sheep and we can be mocked for thinking that way. The truth is that we are fallen and under the influence of sin. This causes us to stray often, and we sometimes think we can survive alone without the guidance of anyone, but this will not be the way we achieve redemption and eternal life in heaven. We, like sheep, need care and guidance and we get that from Jesus who calls us to himself and shepherds us towards eternal life with him. Our Christian faith gives us trust and confidence in Jesus our shepherd and the leadership he left on earth through St Peter and his successors right up to Pope Leo XIV today.

As we continue to celebrate Easter let us willingly listen for the voice of Jesus our shepherd and seek to follow him with courage, perseverance, and confidence not going our own way when tempted to do so by the world. Jesus is our way, our truth, and our life, there is no other way to eternal life in heaven than through him.

God Bless Brendan.