The Beautiful Shepherd
Easter's fourth Sunday
Announcements for May 7, 2022:
If you need anything at all, please be in touch with me.
BANNS of Ordination: Deacon Wade James Trainor will be ordained to the Sacred Order of the Priesthood on Saturday, May 28, 2022. If you know of any reason why this man should not be ordained a priest in the Catholic Church, please contact Rev. Edward Rama, Vocations Director in the Diocese of Paterson, at 973-777-8818 ext 715.
For the month of May, we’ll have an image of Our Lady of Pochaev displayed in the church narthex. We encourage you to pray the novena, a Ukrainian devotion, during the month. You can find copies of the novena on the Adoration table, near the image - it is also printed in this weekend’s bulletin.
The LGA Pro-Life Club wishes to extend thanks and gratitude for your support during their Divine Mercy Diaper Drive. They raised $1050 and collected approximately 4,000 diapers!
Visit the OLMC Parishioner Portal for all of our recent announcements.
Dear Saints,
First of all, Happy Mother's Day! Although there is no specific liturgical commemoration of the day, this is one secular feast we should celebrate without reservation. Check out my bulletin article this week for more.
This weekend we celebrate the Fourth Sunday of Easter, which is also known as Good Shepherd Sunday.
In the 10th chapter of Saint John's Gospel, Jesus says: I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep.
This is an astonishing statement: that the relationship of the Shepherd to his sheep reflects the inner reality of God's own Triune life. The loving fellowship - the perfectly fulfilling and everlasting interpersonal exchange - of Father and Son is ours as sheep of the Good Shepherd!
But that word - good - doesn't quite catch the full meaning of what Jesus says here. The word can also be translated as beautiful, which gives us some sense of the sheer attractiveness of Jesus' summons to trust and follow him.
It's right that Good Shepherd Sunday is also celebrated as the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. The Good Shepherd calls us (from vocare in the Latin) to follow him in the way of self-gift, on the path that he has pioneered for us.
On this path each one of us has a vocation, a call within the call. Jesus entrusts to us some specific participation in his mission, a particular way we are to bring God's love to life in the world.
That would sound overwhelming - no, it would be overwhelming - were it not for the fact that ours is simply a response to the Beautiful Shepherd's loving summons.
I love you, my friends, and I look forward to seeing you soon.
In the Peace of our Risen Lord,
Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
Preparing for Mass?
Check out this weekend's readings:
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Christ as the Good Shepherd
Philippe de Champaigne, 17th century