Paschaltide Gospel Reflection – Great Love Stories: From Good Shepherd Sunday toward Pentecost (Cycle B)

While we read the Gospel stories about the Resurrection: How the risen Jesus appeared to the disciples and how they came to understand the Resurrection for the first three Paschaltide Dominicas, the Gospel readings for the rest of the Paschaltide Dominicas are about who Jesus is in his relation to us and to the Father. Within this Christological context, Jesus also reveals the Holy Spirit, to prepare us to witness his Ascension and to experience the infusion of the powerful Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

On Cycle B, this year, we begin Paschaltide Christological Sunday reading on Dominica IV in Paschalae, also known as Dominica Bonus Pastor.  

For Dominica IV in Paschalae, Gospel reading is from John 10:11-18, and Jesus metaphorically identifies himself as the Good Shepherd, who lays down his own life to save the sheep that the Father in heaven has entrusted him to care for. Also in this Gospel narrative, Jesus describes that his relationship to us is like the trust-based relationship between the shepherd and the sheep.  As the sheep, we hear the voice of our shepherd, Jesus, and follow him, while he guides us to the greener pasture, namely, the Kingdom of God, our destiny.  This exegesis of the Bonus Pastor narrative of John 10:11-18 also gives us an impression that our Good Shepherd, who has already laid down his own life to save us on the Cross is now leading us to our ultimate greener pasture, the Kingdom of God, where there is the heavenly banquet, reflecting Psalm 23:5 and Revelation 19:11-13.

Another important factor in John 10:11-18 is that Jesus speaks of his relationship with the Father, who has sent him for us. In the Gospel narrative, he speaks of his relationship with the Father, characterized with love.  This love that bounds the Father and the Son, Jesus is agape in the New Testament and chased in the Old Testament.  By being chased, the love-bond between the Father and the Son is unbreakable.  The Father loves Jesus, the Son, as he puts it in John 10:17-18, for extending this love for His sheep, whom he is called by Him to care for, to the point of laying down his own life for.  This is where the chesed-agape love that binds the Father and the Son, Jesus, to reach out and affect us through chachamim.  This Hebrew word, chachamim, is often translated as mercy in English (eleos in the New Testament Greek, misericordia in Latin). In the Hebrew etymology, chachamim is related to the Hebrew word, rechem, which literally means womb.  This suggests that womb is the seat of mercy, and the fact that Jesus shed his blood and water while laying down his life for us on the Cross is fitting to understand that it was him showing his chachamim , as the blood and water also come out of the womb during labor into child birth. To this, the Father loves His Son, Jesus, as He was pleased that his chesed with him has touched His sheep, us, to our cores, through his precious blood and water, which are further reflected on the two rays of the Divine Mercy light (Diary of St. Faustina, 299; St. John Paul II Divine Mercy Sunday Homily, 2001, 5).

The Gospel narrative of John 10:11-18 for Dominica IV in Paschalae helps us appreciate the meaning of the Paschal Mystery, with the death and resurrection of Jesus, in light of the Father’s chesed-agape, made in the human flesh of the Good Shepherd, Jesus the Son, through his Paschal Sacrifice as he has laid down his life, touching us with God’s chachamim in his blood and water, flowing out of the chased-agape of the Father-Son unity.

In fact, as the Gospel reading for Dominica IV in Paschalae, John 10:11-18, is so, the all the Gospel readings for the rest of the  Dominicas Paschalae are great love stories – the love stories of God from John’s Gospel.   The love stories are three-fold: the love between Jesus and us; the love between Jesus and the Father; how these two love relations are related.  With this understanding, we can certainly deepen our appreciation of the Gospel Reading for Dominica V in Paschalae, John 15:1-8, in which Jesus relates himself to us as the vine and its branches.  In juxtaposition of John 10:11-18 and 15:1-8, just as Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we are the sheep and the Father is the owner of the sheep, he is the vine and we are its branches and the Father is the vine grower.  Jesus reminds us that we are the branches that the Father the vine grower did not cut off when He pruned the vine.  

Because of the Gospel that Jesus has spoken to us, we remain with him, the vine. This also suggests that we remain with the vine because of our Good Shepherd, who shed his blood and water, while laying down his own life, on the Cross.  So, Jesus calls us to remain in him to stay alive and to become fruitful.

Just as sheep cannot survive without their shepherd’s care, we, the branches, cannot stay alive unless firmly connected with the vine. It means that our existential bottom line is Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and the vine, just to reflect the Gospel readings for Dominica IV in Paschalae and Dominica V in Paschalae – John 10:11-18 and 15:1-8, on Cycle B.  As the sheep of God, our obedience to the Good Shepherd is emphasized for Dominica IV in Paschalae. On the other hand, for Dominica V in Paschalae, we are not only obedient but fruitful as we remain in Jesus so that the Father will be glorified. Indeed, our union with Jesus, just as the sheep is united with the Good Shepherd, and the branches are in union with the vine, is to reflect, “Gloria Dei est vivens homo”, as St. Irenaeus wrote in “A Treatise Against the Heresies”.   “Glaria Dei” – glory of God – is found as we are alive and well in our union with Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd and the vine. Therefore, Jesus’ invitation to follow him as we hear his voice and to remain in him is for “Gloria Dei”.   Because we are not just alive but become fruitful, in remaining with Jesus, who is the vine, our union with him is “ad majorem Dei gloriam”!

In the Gospel reading for Dominica VI in Paschalae, John 15:9-17, in continuing his Last Supper discourse on the vine and its branches, Jesus reveals that he is for and with us, as Immanuel, because of agape-chesed, from which chachamim-eleos  flows.  The shepherd-sheep and the vine-branches metaphors in the Gospel readings for the two preceding Dominicas , John 10:11-18 and John 15:1-8, are to tell us this bottom line of “love”.

To address “love”, these words of Jesus, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), in the Gospel reading for Dominica V in Paschalae are reiterated in these words, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete”(John 15:9-11).  These words of Jesus are to teach us not only that we exist because of “love”, which is the totality of chesed-agape and chachamim-eleos, of God but also that our union with Jesus means the union with this “love” of God so that his joy may be in us and our joy may be complete. He also says that remaining in him, remaining in his love, means to keep his commandment to love one another (John 15:12), restating his Mandatum Novum in John 13:34, symbolized with foot-washing service.  To remain in Jesus, the vine, and his “love” – the sacrificial and salvific love of the Good Shepherd, we must keep his Mandatum Novum: To love one another as he has loved us. Then, Jesus tells what the greatest love of all, recalling his words in John 10:11, 17, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Because as the Good Shepherd, Jesus has already laid down his life for us, we are now understood as the friends of Jesus. However, Jesus wants us, as his friends, to do what he commands us (John 15:14). And, what he commands us to do direct us on our apostolic mission and to make our mission fruitful. Then, he repeats his Mandatum Novum again, in John 15:17, as mutual love for each other is of essence on our apostolic mission.

Because Dominica VI in Paschalae is the Dominica before the Ascension, Jesus leads his discourse on love to indicate our apostolic mission.  As the Gospel reading for the Feast of Ascension, Mark 16:15-20 on Cycle B, reminds us that Jesus commissioned his original Apostles for mission just before his Ascension, the Gospel reading for Dominica VI in Paschalae, John 15:9-17, concludes with an implication of our apostolic mission, which is to share the love of Jesus, in which we remain, with those whom we reach out.  Given Mark 16:15-20, our apostolic mission is to spread the teaching of Jesus and to bring healing as he did, reflecting our call for both spiritual works and corporal works of mercy.

Finally, the Gospel reading for Dominica VII in Paschalae, John 17:11-19, reflects a sense of farewell, as this is taken from Jesus’ final benediction before his arrest in Gethsemane upon the Last Supper. We read this because Dominica VII in Paschalae falls after the Feast of Ascension (though some dioceses replace this last Dominica in Paschaltide with the Feast of Ascension, making it “Ascension Sunday) before Dominica Pentecostes.

Jesus is speaking directly to the Father, “I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are”(John 17:11). In order to appreciate this in reflecting the time between Ascension and Pentecost, we juxtapose the Ascension of Jesus to the Death of Jesus on the Cross. Though Jesus spoke these words actually on the night before his death, they can be applied for us to remember him before his Ascension.

This prayer of Jesus reflects his love for us, directed to the love of the Father. He wants to make sure not only that we remain in him but also that we remain united as one – reflecting the unity between the Father and Jesus the Son (John 10:30). For this, we must keep his Mandatum Novum of love (John 13:34;15:12,17).  Though his visible presence may not be recognized in our eyes upon Ascension, he never leaves us like orphans, as he promised in John 14:18. That is why he has instituted the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper (Matthew 26:26-29//Mark 14:22-25//Luke 22:18-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26).  While Jesus remains with us through the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, as the Holy Spirit is infused into the bread and wine on the alter, with epiclesis, resulting in transubstantiation (as addressed by St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Ephraim), Jesus keeps his promise in John 14:18 through the Pneuma Hagion, whom he calls allon Parakleton (John 14:16).  Because “parakletos”(para + kaleo) literally means “a call to be besides “, it is fitting for Jesus to call Pneuma Hagion as another Parakletos (allon Parakleton). This means that Jesus himself is Parakletos, as translated in English as “Advocate” and “Comforter” (1 John 2:1).  This way, Jesus and we remain in union, as the Father and he is, reflecting the unbreakable covenant loyalty of chesed.  Indeed, Jesus, who is Immanuel, meaning “God with us”, remains with us, no matter where his physical appearance may be, keeping his promise in Matthew 28:20.

See, how Jesus’ Good Shepherd Discourse leads us to our commissioning for our apostolic mission.?

After reflecting on the Resurrection for the first three Dominicas in the Paschaltide, we keep our eyes ahead on Pentecost, while the First Readings taken from the Acts of the Apostles continues to inspire us for our post-Pentecost apostolic mission.

The Gospel readings above-mentioned teach us that the union that we make with one another by keeping Jesus’ Mandatum Novum of loving each other (John 13:34) as in John 15:12, 17, reflects the union between the Father and Jesus the Son.  The union is characterized by “love” (chesed) that the Father and Jesus the Son are kept in one and poured out to us as Jesus has laid down his own life as our Good Shepherd and as he instituted the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. We now have the way to the Father (John 14:6), as we are one with Jesus and with one another.

As we remain in one, the Father sends down powerful Pneuma Hagion on Pentecost, so that our union shall become Ekklesia, which literally means “being called out of “ (ek + kaleo), namely, the Church, the new body of  Christ, as Paul indicates in 1 Corinthians 12 and St. Teresa of Avila’s prayer  in her “El Castillo Interior.  Jesus , the Good Shepherd, calls us to him – not just to our ultimate greener pasture, the Kingdom but to be in union with him. So, we are united with Christ as the vine and its branches, reflecting the chesed oneness of the Father and him. And, this union of ours with Christ cannot be formed without our union with each other by keeping his Mandatum Novum of loving one another. As Jesus ascends so that Pnauma Hagion as allon Parakleton comes to us on Pentecost, we know that the Good Shepherd’s voice is actually calling us (kaleo) out of (ek) the world to become the Ekklesia, the Church, the new body of Christ.