Sunday April 20, 2008: Acts 6:1-7; 1 Pt 2:4-9; Jn 14:1-12

In the gospel of John, Jesus Christ uses different imageries to describe himself. Last week, Jesus Christ told us in the gospel that he is the “Good shepherd” and also, that he is the “door.” In today’s gospel, he says to us, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” This revelation of Jesus to the people is important, given their pitiful situation. This revelation, assures a suffering people that they are making a right choice following him. At the very beginning of the gospel, he tells them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, you have faith in God; have faith also in me.” These words speak to the circumstances of many people in this country today. I don’t know about you, but when I look at all that is happening, my heart is troubled. My heart is troubled because I am afraid of the economy; my heart is troubled because I am not sure if before the beginning of the summer, we will be paying $5 a gallon at the pump; my heart is troubled because people I know are losing their jobs or benefits; my heart feels troubled because our soldiers are dying every day in Iraq and we haven’t got a solution yet to the problems in Iraq and most of the middle East; my heart is troubled because the cost of health care is going up and many people cannot afford health insurance and are dying in silence. There are many things to be worried about.
The words of Jesus in the gospel, are words that bring me peace of heart. These words calm my fears. It is the same words I want to share with you today, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” When we encounter fears in our lives, there are two things we can do: we either hope or despair. There is a voice always saying to us, “things cannot be better, they can only get worst.” This voice leads us to be so worried. We worry so much that the things we could have even done properly, we do them improperly. This voice tells you that Jesus cannot help you in your situation. You begin to ask, what is the essence of prayer? This voice is not from God. This is the voice of despair. There is also another voice, the voice we heard in the gospel of today, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.” This is the voice you need to listen to. It is the voice of hope; it is the voice of faith. Faith is what sees you through, during your times of tribulations. We listen to this voice because we can always count on God to be there for us. As St. Augustine tells us, “God is not a deceiver, that he should offer to support us, and then, when we lean upon Him, should slip away from us.” He always keeps to his promises and his promises are always of good and not of evil. Today’s gospel invites us to come and lean on Jesus with our troubled hearts. Why should we lean on him? Jesus tells us the reason in the gospel. He is “the way, the truth and the life.”

Jesus Christ is not just the one that shows us the way, he is himself “the way.” I know we men don’t like asking for directions. I must confess that I do not like asking for directions. The reason is because most times I do not trust the directions I will receive. My GPS even does not help either. Two weeks ago, I was celebrating Masses in Bluefield and Princeton, West Virginia. My navigation system was able to find the Church in Princeton on Saturday. On Sunday morning, it could neither found the church nor the street in which the church is located in Bluefield, West Virginia. It took two people giving me directions to get me to the church. I felt frustrated looking for the church that morning because I was running late. Supposing someone came to me at the time of the frustration and said to me, “you are looking for the way to the church? Don’t worry, I am that way. I will bring you right into the church.” I cannot imagine how peaceful I would have felt that morning. That is the offer Jesus Christ is giving us today. He is saying to you this morning, “ I am the way to your salvation; I am the way to your financial breakthrough in life; I am the way to your professional success; I am the way to peace in your family; I am the way to your academic success; I am the way to happiness in your life.” Don’t be afraid that he will not have resources for you. His resources are limitless. There are many mansions in his Father’s house, so there is enough for everyone.

We have a fundamental human craving for the truth. We desire to know the truth and sometimes we are afraid of hearing the truth. Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth” The Truth was standing right in front of him and he will not acknowledge it. Many of the problems we face are as a result of someone failing in his or her own duty of truthfulness. Jesus Christ was crucified for being the Truth and it will take many more crucifixions for many of our problems to be solved. We are afraid of being persecuted for the Truth, and thus we work harder to be politically correct, than being what we stand for. I see the Church being crucified every day in the media for what she teaches and we as the people of God must embody the identity of our teacher – the Truth. We need to know the Truth in order to be able to walk in the way of the Lord. The Truth is Jesus Christ. We are not speaking of an intellectual knowledge of Jesus, but a total acceptance of Him as your redeemer and savior. When you do this, you will begin to see him more present in your life and you will be able to cast freely your burdens into his care.

Jesus Christ offered his life on the Cross of Calvary for us that we might not perish but have life. This is the greatest love one can show to his friend. Yet, St. Paul tells us that when he did this for us, we were still sinners. This is the most compelling reason why our hearts should not be troubled. It is always said that, “a friend in need is a friend indeed.” Jesus Christ has shown us that he is truly a friend. When we were in need of salvation, Christ offered his life for us, how much more the challenges of our earthly life? We can always trust that he will be there for us. All that is required of us is that faith in him. We need to let go and let him do his job. He is God and we are not.

I leave you with these words for the week, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

Acts 2:14a, 36-41; 1 Pt 2:20b-25; Jn 10:1-10 (April 13, 2008; Fourth Sunday of Easter)

Three imageries are used in the gospel of today: Jesus the good shepherd; Jesus the gate; and we as the sheep. There is a relationship that exists between the three. The good shepherd brings his sheep from the hills after grazing to the sheepfold where he is the gate to the sheepfold. The sheepfold had stoned walls about 5 feet high and the door was about 2 feet wide. The job of the shepherd was not an easy job because he had to work seven days a week, works almost throughout the whole day and he had to protect his sheep from the wild animals such as mountain lions and wolves that were after his sheep. Another difficulty also was that he had to protect the ship from the robbers who come to steal them.

In some ways, we too are like the sheep. We are as vulnerable to the wild animals and robbers as the sheep. St. Peter tells us that “our enemy the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for who to devour.” We are exposed to the evils on the television and on the internet. Going on the internet and you see pop ups that come up with pornographic materials. On TV, there are all these shows that feed our minds with a lot of evil. There is violence in our society, many innocent people being killed by people who are themselves victims of a failed society. We are being plagued by health, financial and family problems. The family is under attack by secular forces that promote same sex marriages, abortion and contraception, pre-marital and extra-marital sex. In Matthew 9:36, Jesus Christ uses the imagery of the sheep to describe us. After performing many miracles, Jesus Christ looked at the crowd that was made up of the sick, the poor, and the disadvantaged, and he was moved with pity. His heart was moved with pity because “they were troubled and abandoned like sheep without a shepherd.” That is our reality most of the time. We are like sheep without a shepherd. It is like nothing is permanent for us. All our hopes for the future seem to be dashed. Things are changing so fast and we are helpless. All the high hopes we had when we were in college seem to be eloping. Just yesterday, everything seemed to be happy, today it is all pain and sorrow. Just a few years back our economy was booming, things seem to be alright and we were buying all these big homes, today those same homes are being foreclosed; just a few days ago, your health seemed to be alright, today, you are on heavy prescriptions. Today, you might be happy that you have a good job, next week you might be told that your company is outsourcing your job or the company is moving to China. We are helpless. The good news today is that we have a shepherd. We have a good shepherd that is ever vigilant – the one that will watch over us and keep us safe from the mountain lions, the wolves, and the robber who seek to take us away from us. What the evil one does given these circumstances is to deceive us that God has abandoned us, we should stop believing. I want to assure you today that the good shepherd is diligently watching over you, just hold firm to him. The question is not whether he will watch over you, the question is whether you will continue to hold firm to him and give him the opportunity to watch you. What our enemy the devil does is to feed you with despair, to make you think God has abandoned you. As St. Peter tells us, our best weapon is to hold on to Jesus, and we can only do that with our faith in him.

Sometimes, we all like sheep are dumb. As a little boy, I had the privilege of being with sheep in the fields grazing. One of the things you notice is that if the lead sheep stops, all the other sheep also will stop. If the first sheep enters into the pond, every one of them will as well. We like sheep just some times follow the crowd and do dumb things. I think about those women who wear high hills boots that make them very uncomfortable to walk in the snow during winter. They have to wear them because according to the fashion magazines, these are the shoes in vogue. I think about young students who will not wear their jackets on a cold winter morning to school because everyone in their click is not wearing one. Even though they might feel very cold, they will pretend they are not cold. I think about many of us who vote for a candidate in the election because Randy Rhodes on the left and Rush Limbaugh on the right have asked to vote for such a candidate. We do not live convince and convicted lives. We just follow the crowd. No matter how dumb we may be, the good news today is that, Jesus our good shepherd still accepts us because we are his own.

In Isaiah 53:6, we are told, “all we like sheep have gone astray, each person going his own way …” Like sheep, sometimes we just wander away. The sheep does not decide to wander away from the shepherd. The sheep does it gradually, unknowingly. It keeps moving away from the rest. Rarely do I find people who tell me they woke up one day and decided to leave the Church. I frequently find people who gradually started wandering away from the church, first by leaving Mass immediately after communion, and then by coming every other week, and then gradually they start coming only once a month and then once a year, and so on and so forth. The good shepherd has taken our sins upon himself. He has patient love for us and he wants to bring you back to the sheepfold.

We like sheep, listen to the voice of the shepherd. I think about that Verizon commercial, “Can you hear me now?” The good shepherd is calling you, can you hear him now? Like the sheep hears the voice of the shepherd, we too must hear the voice of Jesus calling us to himself. It is only in hearing his voice that we can have abundant life. If we do not listen to his voice, we will try really hard, get frustrated trying, yet we will not have fulfilled lives. Let us come to him and be filled with life abundantly.