IV SUNDAY OF EASTER: THE GOOD SHEPHERD

The Good Shepherd from the Catacomb of Domitilla, 3rd century

Jesus presented himself as the good shepherd. He said: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (Jo 10:11). Nowadays, this means very little for many people, but I still remember, in my childhood, seeing a shepherd moving from place to place, always looking for the best pastures and the safest place for his flock. The first generations of Christians were so impressed that the oldest images of Jesus found in the catacombs (from the second century ad) represent him as the good shepherd.

The image of the shepherd was used already in the Old Testament to explain the duties and responsibilities of the leaders, be it religious or political. Many of them were bad leaders, caring only about themselves, abusing their position and oppressing the people that they were supposed to serve. Jesus, as the Christ, presents himself as a good shepherd, who gives:

• Protection
• Guidance
• Care

The good shepherd does not rest until he finds the lost sheep. And he is ready to die so that they may have life.

What kind of shepherds are our leaders – our religious and our political leaders?

BACK FROM NTAMBU

Church of St. Andrew Kim, Ntambu

Yesterday afternoon, I came back from Ntambu, where I spent two weeks, giving a workshop to the catechists. Ntambu is a faraway place, out of the main road to Mwinilunga. It was like a forgotten place, until Fr. You, a Korean priest, came. He built a big and nice church. Then the sisters followed, and a nice hospital was built. And so Ntambu became an important place. It is indeed a nice place to live in. And I was happily surprised: you can see development taking place. People dress like in town. 

Most of the houses are covered with iron sheets; many of them are built with burnt bricks, and you can find plenty of big houses, seeing here and there the satellite dishes and the solar panels. When Fr. You arrived there, people where isolated and cut off from the rest of the province. He tried to provide transport, and people were very grateful for that. Now there are people with trucks offering transport for people and goods. It would be good to find the same effort in all rural areas of Zambia. The government must make an effort to provide essential infrastructures, like roads, and to guarantee a market for the local products, mainly maize.

The group of Catechists that took part in the workshop.

I was impressed as well by the commitment, the vitality and the youth of the catechists who took part in the workshop.

TOGETHER WITH THE WHOLE CHURCH WE SING ALLELUIA

The Lord is risen.

With joy sing Alleluia.

The Lord is risen.

He is our victory!

For us the gates of heaven

he has opened Alleluia.

He is the Lord of life

and his love is everlasting.

Proclaimed it aloud:

in his victory,

the Lord brought salvation.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! 

May the blessings of the risen Lord

fill your hearts with joy.

Happy Easter.

GOOD FRIDAY: THE SCANDAL OF THE CROSS

The cross stands for all the suffering and the evil present in the world. It was a terrible way of inflicting the death penalty. And thousands of people underwent such punishment. The Romans used it profusely, mainly on slaves and on the dominated nations. The cross went together with shame and curse. 

For the Jews it was unconceivable that the Messiah should undergo such punishment. That’s why Paul call it a “stumbling block” or “the scandal of the cross” (Gal 5:11). In spite of that scandal, Paul says openly that he preaches the “Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1:23). For the Greeks, such preaching was “foolishness”, a complete nonsense. However, the message of the cross, “to us who are being saved is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).

With Christ’s suffering and death upon the cross, the cross became for us a sign and instrument of blessing and salvation.

A man of sorrows

The words of Isaiah, read in today’s liturgy, help us to understand Jesus’ death on the cross:

“a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering,

a man to make people screen their faces;

he was despised and 

we took no account of him.

And yet ours were the sufferings he bore,

ours the sorrows he carried.

But we, we thought of him as someone punished,

struck by God, and brought low.

Yet he was pierced through for our faults,

crushed for our sins.” (Is 53:3-5)

Carrying our pains and our sufferings, Jesus transformed them in sources of life.

Let us not be afraid of the cross of Christ, because there is no salvation without his cross.

PALM SUNDAY: Psalm 22:8-9,17-20,23-24

The cry and the anguish of a suffering man.

On the cross, before dying, Jesus prayed the Psalm 22, which starts with the words: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

It is the complaint of someone who put all trust in God; it is the cry of the anguished person, who feels abandoned and lost, in total darkness without the slightest glimpse of light to give him hope. It sounds like a cry of protest and accusation, close to despair. In this Psalm, we are presented with a person that is completely on his/her own, without a protecting hand or a kind face to make the suffering bearable.

Some people reproach a sick person in acute pain, who complains, accusing that person of lack of faith. Such mentality is far from Jesus Christ or from many passages of the Old Testament (see, for instance, the book of Job). There is a Bemba proverb that says: Icikalipa, cumfwa umwine (What hurts is felt only by the one in pain). And when the pain is overwhelming, from the deep of our souls and our bodies, a cry of anguish will come out. Most of the times, that cry does not mean lack of faith; it just means acute pain.

We must remember that the Psalm is a prayer addressed to God; and it is not a prayer of despair at all. In darkness, lost and confused, experiencing the silence of God, one cries out and brings his/ her pain into the open; and then one throws himself/ herself in the hands of God, being sure that he knows best, and that, in spite of his silence, he is present. 

O Lord, do not leave me alone,  

my strength, make haste to help me! (Ps 22:20)