For Our Spiritual Object Permanence and Secure Attachment: Risen Christ Starts Prepping Us for Our Apostolic Mission - 4th week (week of Good Shepherd Sunday) of Paschaltide On

For the first three weeks of Paschaltide, the Gospel Readings admonishingly remind us of our blindness and how our blindness can make us be like lost sheep. Throughout Paschal Octave, we read excerpts from the resurrection narratives of all four canonical Gospels. These remind that the disciples were like “lost sheep” in their responses to the fact that Jesus was risen. They were “lost” because they did not really believe that Jesus would resurrect on the third day from his death – though Jesus had foretold this multiple times (Matthew 16:21; 17:22-23; 20:18-19).

During the Second Week of Paschaltide, the Gospel Readings reflect how Nicodemus was lost to the soteriological truth that Jesus was teaching him (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: John 3:1-8; 7b-15; 16-21). On Thursday of the Second Week, we read a Christological testimony on Jesus, presumably made by John the Baptist (John 3:31-36), to make sure we understand who the resurrected Christ is. Through these readings from John 3 from Monday through Thursday of the Second Week of Paschaltide, we see both Jesus and the Holy Spirit in their relation to the Father. Namely, we begin to understand who Jesus, the Son, is in the context of Trinity. Then, from Friday of the Second Week of Paschaltide to Saturday of the Third Week of Paschaltide, we read from John 6 for weekday Masses.

Why do we read John 6 during Paschaltide?

John 6 is about Jesus miraculously feeding the hungry crowd out of mere five loaves of bread and two fish (vv.1-15), the crowd chasing Jesus, hoping to be fed by him again (vv.16-25), and Jesus’ Living Bread of Life Discourse in response to the crowd’s continuous pursuit of him (vv. 26-71). Throughout the narratives of John 6, we see the crowd’s blindness to the Christological truth in Jesus. And this resulted in their inability to understand the soteriological truth in him as the living flesh (sarx) as the living bread of life for eternal life. Because of this, they gave up on their chance of salvation. And we reflect on ourselves what can be our blindness to the truth in Jesus the Christ and Corporis et Sanguinis Christi. The fact that nearly 70% of Catholics truly believes that the Sacrament of the Eucharist is truly the body and blood of Christ reminds that such a vast portion of us are blind to the Eucharistic truth.

So through the blindness of the disciples to the truth of the resurrection, the blindness of Nicodemus to the soteriological truth in the baptism with the Holy Spirit (being born from the above), and the blindness of the crowd not understanding the Eucharistic truth, we come to the Fourth Sunday of Paschaltide as the Good Shepherd Sunday. The Gospel Reading of the two preceding Sundays: John 20:19-31 (Second Sunday) and Luke 24:13-35 (Third Sunday) portray risen Jesus as the Good Shepherd, who reaches out to his lost sheep, who are his disciples lost in fear, confusion, and grief, because of their blindness to the resurrection (John 10:16; i.e. Matthew 18:10-14; cf. Colossians 1:13-14; cf. 1 Peter 2:25). Risen Jesus found and redeemed his disciples lost in fear, confusion and grief due to their ignorance, in the locked upper room and on the way to Emmaus.

Then, on Fourth Sunday of Paschaltide we are reminded of our need to have the Good Shepherd, because we would be lost without him.

The Gospel Readings of Fourth Sunday of Paschaltide (John 10:1-10 (A); 11-18 (B); 27-30 (C) reflect that Jesus is our Good Shepherd. And the Gospel Readings of Monday and Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Paschaltide (John 10:1-10 or 11-18; 22-30) further reflect what it means to have the Good Shepherd. Then, from Wednesday of Fourth Week of Paschaltide on, the Gospel Readings are drawn from Jesus’ Last Supper Farewell Discourse and Prayer (John 13:31-17:26), to prepare us to be able to function without getting lost upon his departure (ascension) so that we can receive the Holy Spirit , the power (Acts 1:8), another Parakletos (John 14:16) and the Spirit of truth (John 14:17) to be sent out on our apostolic missions on Pentecost. This means cultivating spiritual maturity, comparable to what Jean Piaget describes as “object permanence”,  a baby no longer feeling anxious even his or her mother is not in sight, understanding she is still present. And this is due to what John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth describe as “secure attachment”.

Namely, what we need to achieve during these 50 days of Paschaltide is forming secure attachment to Christ, as the branches are so to the vine (John 15:1-17). In fact, through Jesus’ Last Supper Farewell Discourse and Prayer (John 13:31-17:26), Jesus calls us to be one with him as he is one with the Father (John 14:0; 17:21; cf. John 10:30, 38). And this is achieved as we die to sin and rise with and in Christ (i.e. Romans 6:10-12; Galatians 2:20; cf. 2 Corinthians 4:10-11) during Paschal Triduum.

In concluding Paschaltide, on Pentecost, we will be sent out to the hostile world – like sheep around wolves (i.e. Matthew 10:16) upon receiving the Holy Spirit.

But would we be really sheep without the Good Shepherd (cf. 1 Kings 22:17; Ezekiel 34:5; Zechariah 10:2; Matthew 9:36; Mark 6:34)?

Upon his Ascension, Christ the Good Shepherd will be in us and us in him, as he in the Father and He in him, through the Holy Spirit (i.e. John 14:18, 28). Remember, Christ is our Parakletos (1 John 2:1) and the Holy Spirit is another Parakletos (John 14:16). And his departure to the Father in heaven through the ascension does not mean his departure from us. In fact, he has promised to be with us until his return at the eschaton (Matthew 28:20), as Immanuel (Emmanuel)(Matthew 1:23; Isaiah 7:14).

We are now going through the final phase of our apostolic preparation. And Jesus says:

Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me (John 13:20).

It is because we are in Christ and he in us, as he is in the Father and He in him. And this is what we need to achieve through the 50 days of Paschaltide, as it is the essence of our spiritual secure attachment with Christ in the Trinitarian context for our spiritual object permanence.