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OMELIE / Omelie EN

08 mag 2022
01/05/2022 – 3rd Sunday of Easter - year C COPIA

08/05/2022 – 4th Sunday of Easter - year C

Intentions for vocations

Reading 1 ACTS 13, 14. 43-52 Psalm 99 Reading 2 REV 7, 9. 14-17 Gospel JN 10, 27-30

It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first, but since you reject it and condemn yourselves as unworthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles”.

With these words Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas rebuke the Jews of Antioch in Pisidia, a city proud of calling itself a second Rome, since it was built on seven hills. After listening to them, those Jews will do anything to throw them out of their territory. Paul’s words are hard: in fact, they highlight how serious is not listening to God’s Word, not taking seriously the announcement of Jesus Christ and His gospel. This indifference or rejection means rejection of the eternal life, the communion with God, the benefits which only He can grant us from this very moment. Today we could say that it could be a refusal to be guided to the pasture by the Shepherd, to receive from Him life and salvation.

Certainly we do not want to be deprived of the benefits the reading from the book of Revelations is talking about: “They will not hunger or thirst anymore, nor will the sun or any heat strike them. For the Lamb who is in the center of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes”. The latter, who enjoy eternal consolation, are the people who have suffered for their faithfulness, “who have survived the time of great distress”, but have put all their trust in Jesus' blood, so in His sacrifice and His obedience to the Father. Their trust in Jesus has made them strong, able to suffer themselves in order to remain faithful to Him. In this world already they have been rewarded with great peace and fortitude, and in the future world they enjoy the Son of God’s glory, the Lamb who is in the center of the throne.

Lamb and shepherd is the Lord Jesus. He is the lamb who has offered His life and God has made Him shepherd, who embodies all God’s goodness towards them and gives it to them.

The prophets have described God exactly with the image of the shepherd: “the Lord is my shepherd”, says today’s psalm; and Ezekiel: “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice”. This is Jesus' task: make God’s love visible, a service to the Father, to embody his love and his tenderness towards us. By loving the Father He loves us. To take part in this task are invited also all those that have been baptized in His name.

This is why we talk about vocations: vocations, so callings to represent Jesus shepherd among the community and show all aspects of the shepherd’s love to lambs and sheep. These are the callings to priesthood: vacations to make true Jesus’s love who is praying and blessing, who preaches the Gospel, who welcomes the sufferers, sick and little ones; these are the callings to religious life: vocations to reveal the steadfastness of God’s love and His perfection, a love who is satisfying all the needs of human life; these are the callings to put together a Christian family, where love gives life shaping a communion full and stable, and it never allows itself to be unfaithful, not even when the other spouse is, because it knows it is a love which depicts God’s.

Today we pray for all vocations in the Church: we pray so it may always be given us someone offering themselves to God to show the many sides of His love, in the families, in the world and in the communion. And, by praying, we offer ourselves, available to live with the knowledge that each one of us is called by God to be always a depiction of His communion of love among the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So, we will not avert our eyes from Jesus, who is walking in front of us as a faithful and safe shepherd.