This Sunday is often referred to as “Good Shepherd Sunday,” because every year on this Sunday we read a portion of the Good Shepherd narrative in St. John’s Gospel.

It isn’t only the Gospel that reflects the imagery of our Lord as the Good Shepherd, though. There is a prayer called the “Collect.” This prayer, after the Gloria and before the readings, changes every Sunday and helps set the tone for the Mass. This Fourth Sunday of Easter, it asks for the Father to “lead us to a share in the joys of heaven, so that the humble flock may reach where the brave Shepherd has gone before.”     

During the Easter Season, we are reminded that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who calls us to himself. He shows us the way to the Father by walking that way both before us, in his Passion and Resurrection, and beside us, as the Good Shepherd who does not abandon his flock.       

Let us humbly follow him so that he might lead us to the joys of heaven!     

Fr. Mike Ronayne