Baa-ram-ewe! Baa-ram-ewe!

Fourth Sunday of Easter April 30, 2023

Acts 2:14a, 36-41 Ps 23: 1-3a, 3b4, 5, 6 1 Pt 2:20b-25 Jn 10:14 Jn 10:1-10

Baa-ram-ewe! Baa-Ram-ewe! To your God, your Church, your Faith be true! Sheep be true! Baa-ram-ewe!

Now that I have your attention; for those of you who did not recognize what I just said, that was an edited quote from the movie “Babe,” which I’ll get to later.

[Our Gospel reading today is about Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Now this theme of shepherds and sheep is not foreign to the people in Jesus’s time, and it is a recurring one in the Old Testament. God was often portrayed as a shepherd. For example, Psalm 23, which is our Psalm reading for today, he is described as a protective shepherd; and in Ezekiel Chapter 34 he is portrayed as a good shepherd in contrast to bad ones.

David the greatest king of Israel, is also portrayed as a shepherd in Psalm 78. And in passages like Jeremiah 23, God promises to raise up new shepherds who will follow David’s legacy.

Therefore, it was natural that Jesus compared himself to a shepherd as we read today in John’s Gospel message. He is our Great Shepherd, The Good Shepherd, born out of the house of David, come to lead his people to verdant pastures and restful waters.

Now being a shepherd is not an easy job or life to live. Sheep are pretty defenseless creatures, and shepherds have to protect them from all kinds of predators like wolves and marauders. Sheep also have a tendency to stray from the flock, making them especially vulnerable. Shepherds must endure the hardships of being away from their homes and putting up with simple food and harsh weather while pasturing sheep. Their lives can be endangered when confronted by desperate predators. Over time, sheep learn to recognize their shepherd’s voice, which makes it easier to separate different flocks when flocks are mixed together for grazing or protection.]*

As we look closely at our Gospel reading, Jesus talks about entering a sheepfold through a gate. I had to ask myself what is a sheepfold? Well basically it is a sheep pen where sheep are gathered together and there is a gate whereby the sheep and shepherd can enter and leave. The sheepfold was designed to keep the sheep together so they would not wander off, and to provide protection from predators. Too help keep predators out, many sheepfolds were large areas of land enclosed by stone walls.

In the sheepfold there would often be different flocks of sheep brought in by different shepherds, which is why it was important that not only the gate keeper recognize the shepherd, but that the sheep recognized their shepherd’s voice.

Day after day, the shepherd would lead his sheep in and out of the sheepfold through the gate, leading them out to pasture to eat, to water to drink, and then back again into the sheepfold. And the sheep would follow the shepherd because they recognized his’s voice. Larger flocks of sheep would be tended by multiple shepherds with a head shepherd, and the sheep would know and recognize each shepherd’s voice.

We are the sheep, but do we recognize our Shepherd’s voice? Do we recognize his voice through others whom he has sent to lead us and to guide us? Do we guard ourselves from being misled or misguided? How do we learn to recognize our shepherd’s voice? We’ll get to this shortly.

First, I want to share with you a story about a pig named Babe that came out in a movie back in 1995. Babe was a young pig who befriended all the animals on this one farm, and because of his kind and gentle ways, the animals would listen to him and would line up “in order” for him. Upon seeing this, curiosity led the farmer to take the pig out to his sheep to see what would happen and waala the sheep listened to their friend the pig and the pig became their ‘kind’ and ‘gentle’ sheep herder.

The farmer then has this crazy idea to enter the pig into a sheep herding competition. But the sheep at the competition would not pay heed to anything the pig said because they don’t know him. The farmer’s sheep dog then runs back to the farm asking for help from the farmer’s sheep for their friend Babe the pig. Under strict conditions, they agree to give the dog a sort of password for Babe to use when speaking to the other sheep.

And so, Babe calls out to the sheep with the following words: Baa-ram-ewe! Baa-ram-ewe! To your breed, your fleece, your clan be true! Sheep be true! Baa-ram-ewe! Upon hearing these words, the sheep listen to and follow the instructions the pig gives them, and Babe wins the competition.

Now it’s not quite that simple for us. There is no password or passphrase for us that will help us recognize Jesus’s voice through the Shepherds he has left His Church. If we want to recognize our Shepherd’s voice, we must spend time with him as he leads us in and out of the sheepfold. Through the waters of Baptism we enter into the Church, the sheepfold. Through reading and studying Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church, we grow in faith, knowledge and wisdom as we begin to know more about our Shepherd. Through prayer and the Sacraments, we enter into a relationship with our Shepherd, and through the gift of the Holy Spirit begin to recognize his voice.

In our first reading from Acts, it was through the power of the Holy Spirit that Peter, our first Pope, whom later in John’s Gospel was called by Jesus to feed and tend his sheep and by doing so Jesus handed over to him his shepherd’s staff so that his sheep would not be left without a shepherd to guide them when he would ascend to the Father, was able to raise his voice and proclaim the good news about this same Jesus who was crucified, but whom God raised up and made both Lord and Christ. And so many came to believe and were baptized.

Now because we are sheep, many of us often stray from the flock and become lost. We are often misled and misguided by what the world offers us and teaches us. Yet in our second reading today, Peter reminds us that our Shepherd willingly gave himself up and bore our sins so that we could be healed and return to the sheepfold.

At Mass we are reminded of our Shepherd’s gift of reconciliation during the Penitential Rite when we cry out “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy” and the Celebrant responds with “May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life.”

And that is where our Shepherd is leading and guiding us to; Everlasting life with him. But following where the Shepherd leads us does not mean we will have an easy life to live, rather the journey is long and hard, yet he refreshes our souls and blesses us with many experiences of his verdant pastures.

Recently for me, as a Deacon, we began a new Adoration ministry in our Parish for men to spend an hour before the Blessed Sacrament with other men as we prayed together for our spouses, and all the women in our lives. As men we are called to be the spiritual leaders of our domestic Church, to help our spouse and our children to follow our Good Shepherd. To help them listen to and recognize his voice, but how if we ourselves are not learning to recognize his voice and to follow him? We as men must lead by example.

For me, this new ministry is a verdant pasture, which I hope will bare much fruit for all the men who participate and for their families. As we began this ministry, I asked our Lord in prayer, how do we grow this ministry? How do we get more men, not just in our parish, but surrounding parishes and throughout the Archdiocese to participate? Not as I want, but as you want Lord. What more can we do besides putting announcements in Parish Bulletins, sending out emails, and creating Facebook events?

That been said, a few months ago I received an email request to complete a Deacon Survey about what we as Deacons are doing as part of the Eucharistic Revival here in the United States. So, I responded to the survey about the e5 Adore ministry since it is about men coming together to spend an hour of Adoration with the Blessed Sacrament. I did not know where that would lead and forgot all about it. Then about two weeks ago as I’m praying, asking the Lord to help me grow this ministry, one of my Deacon classmates shares with me a picture of an article in “The Deacon” magazine, a national publication by Our Sunday Visitor, where my response to the survey question about Eucharistic Revival was included.

That’s not all, just this past week I received a call from Adam Wright, the host of Roadmap to Heaven which airs weekday mornings at 7:00 AM on Covenant Network Catholic Radio. He was scrolling through Facebook, saw our event and wanted to know more about it, so he called me and after a brief conversation, asked me to come to the radio station to do an interview with him about e5 Men and e5 Adore. So, this past Friday afternoon I went down to the radio station, and we pre-recorded the interview, which will be included in this Monday morning’s programming, not just here in Saint Louis, but on 48 radio stations across 5 states. I’m like, wow!!! Praise you Jesus!

Now I don’t know if the number of men who attend e5 Adore here at J&A will increase as a result of either of these two occasions. But I did receive and hear his message loud and clear that if I put my faith and trust in him, and follow where he leads me, he will guide me to verdant pastures, refresh my soul, and bless the work I do in his name.

What about you? How are you learning to hear and follow the Shepherd’s voice? Where is he leading you? When is it reassuring to know that he is watching out for you? And how do you see yourself helping to “shepherd” other people as a follower of Jesus?

In closing I leave you with these words: Baa-ram-ewe! Baa-ram-ewe! To your God, your Church, your Faith be true! Sheep be true! Baa-ram-ewe!

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* Adapted from the New American Bible – The Catholic Youth Bible (Revised edition): - page 1399 “Jesus, the Good Shepherd” [Pray It!]. - page 1081 “The Good Shepherd” [Pray It!].