My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In Jesus’ time, the leaders of the Jews, the Pharisees and Sadducees, were false shepherds who tried to prevent the people from following Jesus, but they failed. They then killed the Shepherd, but in vain. He rose from the dead and His flock increased by the thousands and will keep increasing until the end of time.
We are surely fortunate to belong to the sheepfold of Christ – His Church. We surely are blessed to have the Son of God as our Shepherd, who came among us in order to lead us to heaven. Do we fully appreciate our privileged position? Do we always live up to our heavenly vocation? Do we know His voice and listen to Him? Do we always do what He asks of us?
In order to answer those questions, I would like to suggest two ways that would help us to belong perfectly into Jesus, our Good Shepherd: First, it is very difficult for us to come directly to Jesus our God, but easily approach Him through Mary our Mother. Even Jesus, the Son of God, also came to the world through the womb of Mary. Thus Mary, through her response to the Angel Gabriel, became the channel of grace to human beings; Jesus her Son also became the “gate” into Eternal Life. This month, the month of May, we are with the whole Catholic Church honoring Our Lady in very special ways: expressing our respect to our Lady, offering her flowers, coming to our Lady for intercession and loving our Lady as if she is the only Mother for each one of us.
Secondly, we are approaching Pentecost, so we should prepare ourselves to receive the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes, He will convict us of our sins, prove us wrong about sin, justice and condemnation, and pierce our hearts with the realization that we, though our sins, were part of the mob that killed God. Once St. Francis of Assisi preached: “Nor did demons crucify Him; it is you who have crucified Him and crucify Him still, when you delight in your vices and sins.” We must stop denying reality. We were guilty of murdering God. This guilt should immediately lead to repentance, freedom from guilt and the outpouring of the Spirit in a new Pentecost. Come Holy Spirit and make us belong to Jesus, our Shepherd.
Finally, we are celebrating “Mother’s Day” this weekend. Somehow our mother is a shepherd, in a sense of tender love, compassion and affection. As the Vietnamese slogan says: “With a mother in a family, her children still have everything but without a mother, her children have none.” Please do something for your mother, such as buy her a ticket to the Parish Dinner on May 24. On behalf of St. John’s Parish, I would like to wish our mothers a HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
With love,
Fr. Thuong Hoai Nguyen, Pastor