4th Sunday of Easter 2026 - "I am the Gate"

 

Since the reform of the liturgical calendar we have often refered to the 4^th Sunday of Easter as Good Shepherd Sunday. For. two out of three years of the Lectionary cycle on the 4^th Sunday of Easter we read Gospel passage for Our Lord claiming “I am the Good Shepherd”.

Like a shepherd, the Lord watches over, feeds, and cares for his flock. The good shepherds of Scripture patiently care for their flocks, leading them to safe pastures, pulling them out of thorn bushes when they foolishly stray into trouble. Jesus is the Good Shepherd—the best shepherd.

But we didn’t hear this Gospel passage this year, did we? For, every third year, on Good Shepherd Sunday, we hear a slightly different message, a slightly different image. “I am the gate for the sheep,” He says.

Perhaps not as intimate of an image as a loving tender shepherd, but certainly an important one. What is the purpose of a gate? For one, the gate is an entry point. “I am the gate, whoever enters through me will be saved.” Our Lord is the gate to salvation. He is the open door through which we enter into salvation and the good pasture of the Church and the life of God.

Back in 2011, in the seventh and final full year of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI ushered in a special “Year of Faith” with a document called “Porta Fidei” the door of faith, the gate of faith. The gate of faith, the holy Father writes, “is always open for us, ushering us into the life of communion with God and offering entry into his Church. It is possible to cross that threshold when the word of God is proclaimed and the heart allows itself to be shaped by transforming grace. To enter through that door is to set out on a journey that lasts a lifetime. It begins with baptism (cf. Rom 6:4), through which we can address God as Father, and it ends with the passage through death to eternal life, fruit of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, whose will it was, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, to draw those who believe in him into his own glory (cf. Jn 17:22).”

The gate of faith is a powerful image reminding us of our ultimate goal. Yes, the Lord loves us and cares for us in this life, but the purpose of faith, the goal of faith, the destination of our faith, is heaven. And it is through Christ, the Gate, the way, the truth, the life, that leads to heaven, "one one comes to the Father except through" Him. 

There is another purpose for gates alluded to by the Lord in the Gospel today. Gates keep-out robbers and thieves. Gates guard us, they protect us from those who wish us ill.

In the spiritual life, there are certainly those who wish us ill. The world, the devil, and the flesh, lead us away from Communion with God—away from the peace and joy of the Spirit. When Jesus Christ is the gate of your life, he protects you from all that would rob us of the peace and joy and life of God.

The truth of Jesus Christ enables us to discern right from wrong—fallacy from veracity—when we come across it in the media, in propaganda, or from false shepherds. The truth of Jesus Christ protects us from the lies and heresies promulgated by the devil which bring ruin to souls and division in the Church. When Christ the Truth is our gate, all ideas and opinions must pass through Him—and if they don’t pass the Truth-Test, they can be rejected. This includes temptation—temptation is the lie that we’ll be happy if we sin. But when Christ is our Gate—the empty promise of sin which brings us ruin can be identified and rejected.

When we do fall into temptation, there wasn’t a problem with the gate, it’s us who ignore all of the warning signs, and complicitly welcome those robbers and thieves into our souls.

The Christian life entails strengthening our relationship with Christ the Gate—developing a Christian filter for our choices and words.

Is Christ the gate of your speech? The words you use, the conversation you engage in, the texts you send, the internet posts you make?

We commit sins of speech when we fail to make Christ the Gate of our speech. The Catechism lists a number of sins of speech and communication, which are often sins against the 8^th commandment. The sin of bearing false witness and perjury. The sin of rash judgment, which assumes the moral fault of a neighbor without sufficient foundation; The sin of calumny involves spreading lies. The sin of detraction is when we disclose another's faults and failing to persons who did not know them and have no business knowing them, without objectively valid reasons. In other words, damaging a person’s good name without sufficient reason, even if told in confidence.

Due to social media, we see detraction and calumny, lies and unverified facts flowing like never before. Cyber-bullying, too, is rampant in many social groups, and has terrible effects on mental health for our young people. Many Catholics have fallen into the lax discipline over speech that plagues our modern world. Carelessness, cruelty, rash judgment, impatient grumbling and complaining.

The Christian life entails, putting on the mind of Christ, putting on the heart of Christ, and putting on the mouth of Christ, saying only what builds others up, leads them to truth, what is for the sake of the Gospel. Is it true, is it kind, is it necessary? “Is it true, is it kind, is it necessary”? Every word, every thought, every internet post, every text message, needs to pass through that filter. It sounds like a lot of work, but as you develop this filter, this virtue, it becomes easier and easier.

One of my favorite parts of the Mass, is right before the proclamation of the Gospel, we sign ourselves, don’t we, on our foreheads, our mouths, and on our breast, a simple, yet profound gesture. I was always taught to offer a little prayer at that point, to say something like, May the Lord be always in my thoughts, on my lips, and in my heart. We pray, at the point in the mass, that the gates of our minds might be opened to received and contemplate and understand the Gospel message, that our lips might be open to later go out and proclaim the Gospel message, and that our hearts might be open to love and live the Gospel message. 

So, may the Lord preside over our thoughts, words, and deeds this day. May nothing which is impure pass through our eyes or ears or through our lips or into our heart. May he guard us from the corruption of this generation and lead us to eternal life, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

4th Sunday of Easter 2023 - Good Shepherd Vocation Story

 

During Holy Week, before the Chrism Mass at which the Holy Oils are blessed for the year, the priests of the diocese gather together with the bishop for an afternoon of prayer and fraternity and to hear a spiritual talk. This year, Fr. Eric Garris, the new vocation director for the diocese spoke on the importance of priests sharing their vocation stories. And Fr. Garris recommended that this weekend, on Good Shepherd Sunday, that the priests of the diocese share our vocation stories at Mass. Since, that is something I haven’t really done here in my four and a half years as pastor, I’d like to take Fr. Garris up on that invitation.

I grew up in the furtherst northeastern edge of the Cleveland Diocese in Madison, Ohio. I attended public school from kindergarten through my senior year of high school, as about half of the seminarians do these days.  From very early on, I would help out in the family business. My family ran a Party Center, DeRubertis Party center out in Madison. So I grew up working alongside cousins and aunts and uncles, and of course my mom, dad, and sister, very hard workers, all of them. 

I attended PSR at my home parish, Immaculate Conception in Madison, and was an altar boy from fourth grade to eighth grade. My parents were not very active Catholics. It was my grandparents who would bring me to Mass. I can’t imagine how I’d be a priest today, had my grandparents not gone out of their way to pick me up and bring me to mass every week, promising me breakfast after church didn’t hurt in getting me there. So never underestimate the role that grandparents have in sewing seeds of faith in their grandchildren.

In high school, I enjoyed hanging out with friends, I was in the computer club, tennis team, chess team, math team, show choir, jazz choir and was very involved in the drama club, performing in plays and musicals. I also acted at several local theaters. Having very little support from my parents, my faith drifted quite substantially during high school. I quit PSR before receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation and quit attending mass and really stopped praying. I described myself as an atheist, debated and even mocked people who were Christians. So I certainly strayed from God in those years, but God was working behind the scenes to bring me home.

Out of the several colleges to which I applied, it was John Carroll University which awarded me with the most significant academic scholarship. So, I enrolled at John Carroll where I planned on majoring in Mathematics.  

During that first semester, my cousin asked me to be the godfather for her new baby. Now there were several problems there. Firstly, I had never received the Sacrament of Confirmation, so I didn’t even qualify to be a godparent in the Catholic Church. Secondly, after four years of extremely secular public education, I didn’t even know if I believed in Catholicism at that point. So, I was honest with my cousin. I made her a deal. I said, I would attend Confirmation classes with an open mind and start going to church again, but if I could not embrace Catholicism, then she would have to find another godparent for her child.

Well, it only took one or two sessions of the faith being presented in a clear articulate way by Fr. Luigi Miola, pastor out in Madison at the time, that I fell in love with the faith again, so much so that I began to seriously consider what God was calling me to do with my life and how I could best serve Him. Fr. Miola encouraged me to visit the seminary, and I attended a vocation program at Borromeo seminary on Pentecost weekend. I then raced home to Madison that very same weekend to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. And the week after that, I proudly stoodd up at the baptismal font as godfather for my cousin’s baby, who is now 21 years old.

At that vocation weekend on Pentecost Sunday, things became pretty clear. I remember kneeling down in the seminary chapel—Resurrection chapel and praying, “Lord, I think I am here for a reason. If you want me to be a priest I will be a priest, if you want me to be a monk or a hermit, I will be a monk or a hermit. Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”

Well, God spoke in a number of ways that weekend. He spoke particularly in the example of the seminarians I met that weekend. Here were young men: smart, funny, devout, and personable who loved the Church and loved God enough to give their lives in celibate priestly service. If they were willing, why couldn’t I? I wouldn’t be alone. I’d have brothers who shared my values and ideals—the highest ideal I could think of: to give one’s life for the glory of God and salvation of souls. Is there anything more important?

And God also spoke as in the examples of the priests I’d known: Priests who celebrated beautiful masses. Priests who delivered stirring, inspirational and thought-provoking and challenging sermons. Priests who offered the consoling words of mercy in the confessional. Priests who were shepherds for their parishes and equipping the members of their flocks to fight off the wolves of this dark and fallen world. I had encountered some wolves, and fallen prey to their teeth, after all. But the good shepherd had come to my rescue through these good faithful men. 

So, I entered Borromeo Seminary that Fall in 2001 as a college sophomore. Some young men struggle in their discernment of the priestly calling even after entering seminary, but my discernment was fairly “easy”. Some guys really struggle with the idea of celibacy. Now, I had girlfriends in high school and college freshmen year. I had an inkling that getting married and starting a family could lead to a happy fulfilling life, and we need holy families to carry out the mission of the Church. But, again it didn’t take but a few months to be fairly certain, that God was inviting me to holy celibacy, and he would give me the graces to live out of that call. 

During my seminary years I was able to serve at Cuyahoga Country Jail with Fr. Neil Walters, Mary Mount Hospital with Fr. Joe O’Donnell, and Holy Redeemer Parish in Collinwood with Fr. Marty Polito.  I interned at Holy Trinity Parish in Avon with Fr. John Misenko, worked with adolescents struggling with chemical dependency at New Directions Treatment Facility in Pepper Pike, and served as a transitional deacon at Holy Cross Parish (now Our Lady of the Lakes Parish) in Euclid with Father John McNulty and Fr. Jack Jenkins God rest his soul.  What do these priests have in common? Not much, except they are holy priests and desire to serve the Church with their lives.

I enjoyed my years in seminary, (and what a blessing to have our own seminary in the diocese!), and formed some of the most important friendships of my life with the men I now call my brother priests. I was ordained by Bishop Richard Lennon on May 16, 2009 along with Fr. Anthony Suso, now pastor of St. Columbkille in Parma, Fr. Matthew Pfeiffer, now pastor of St. Paul’s in Akron, Fr. Sean Ralph, rector of the Cathedral, and Fr. Christopher Trenta, who Bishop Lennon sent to study liturgy in Rome, who is now back home in Cleveland, and teaching at the seminary. 

My life could have turned out very differently, had it not been for faithful Catholics living their faith, Catholics like YOU: My grandparents who brought me to mass every week, my Aunt who would pick me up from John Carroll and bring me back home to Madison so could attend Confirmation classes; my pastor, Fr. Miola for his clear and faithful teaching...I don't think I would have been convinced by watered-down theology, even back then; the priests and seminarians who witnessed to their love of the priesthood; and, yes, it’s hard for me to say, even the Jesuits at John Carroll. As I was rediscovering my faith, it was a Jesuit Priest, Father Joseph Schell, may he rest in peace, who helped me develop a personal prayer life with the exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola and encouraged me attend silent retreats.

I had very very secular anti-Catholic friends who thought I was crazy for going back to the Church, who began to look at me almost as an enemy after committing to the truth of the Catholic faith. But, once you realize that the Catholic faith is true, you are forever changed by that realization.

So, again, never underestimate the power of sharing your faith with non-practicing and fallen away Catholics...I know...I was one! or those who do not seem as committed to the faith as you are. The Good Shepherd sought out lost sheep, he went to the places where sinners ate, meeting them where they are with the truth of the Gospel, and we must do the same.

So, that’s part one of the vocation story: from altar boy to atheist to seminarian and priest. Part two: the first fourteen years of priestly service, will have to come at another time. 

Please pray for vocations, that young men will hear the Lord’s call to discern a priestly vocation. We will need priests until the end of time, so pray that the Good Shepherd will inspire young men to follow in his footsteps. And consider how the Good Shepherd might be calling you to reach out to those nephews, nieces, and grandchildren who have drifted away. My grandparents promised me breakfast after church: the promise of hashbrowns, toast and jelly, bacon and sausage links is all that it took. Bribe them with food. Get them to Church. It’ll change their lives. For the glory of God and salvation of souls.

4th Sunday of Easter 2021 - The Good Shepherd Feeds, Guides, and Protection + Vocation Sunday

 In Saint John’s Gospel, Jesus uses many different titles and images to describe himself.  “I am the bread of life” he says.  “I am the vine, you are the branches”?  “I am the resurrection and the life,” “I am the Way, the truth, and the life”?  In today’s Gospel Jesus uses a very tender image, when he says, “I am the good shepherd.”

Several Good Shepherds are found throughout Scriptures.  Abel, son of Adam, was the first shepherd in human history.  For bringing to God the firstlings of his flock, the Lord looked favorably on Abel and his offering; yet tragically Abel also became human history’s first murder victim, killed by his jealous brother Cain.  

Abraham was a shepherd, as was Jacob.  So was Jacob’s favorite son Joseph, who was shepherding his father’s flock when he was betrayed by his brothers.  Moses was shepherding his Father-in-law’s flock when he stumbled across the burning. Before becoming king of Israel, David was a shepherd.  And the prophet Amos was a shepherd before being sent by God to denounce Israel’s idolatry and hallow prosperity.

Shepherds who were murdered, shepherds who became kings, shepherds who gave God’s law and spoke in the name of the Father, shepherds who became heads of great families.  In Jesus, we see all these things wrapped up into one.  He is a shepherd who was a prophet, who revealed God’s Law, who was also betrayed and murdered, yet also a King, and head of the great family, the Church.

Scripture describes God Himself as a Shepherd.   The 23rd Psalm is probably the most beautiful literary expression of God’s shepherding care.  The Psalm tells us that God is the Shepherd who feeds us in green pastures, who leads us to safety, who protects us in dark valleys.  He feeds, he guides, he protects.

On the 4th Sunday of Easter, ever year, we read from the 10th chapter of St. John, and recall that Jesus IS the Good Shepherd, who feeds, guides, and protects.

How does he feed us?  The 23rd Psalm says that he “prepares a table for us in the midst of our foes”.  Amidst all of the evils of the world, the good Shepherd gathers us to be fed by his Word. For “not on bread alone does man live, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  We are then fed with the supersubstantial bread of the Eucharist. Without this food, the flesh and blood of our Lord, we do not have life within us.

Secondly, Jesus the Good Shepherd guides his flock.  The 23rd Psalm says, “he leads us in right paths for his name’s sake.”  How does he lead and guide us? He certainly leads by example. He teaches us by the virtue and goodness of His own life, how to give ourselves away in self-sacrifice. We are to be poor in spirit as he was poor in spirit. We are to be pure of heart as he was pure of heart. We are to work for peace, feed the hungry, cure the sick, preach the word, pray, as he. By studying the faith, by following in Jesus’ own footsteps, by looking to the example of the saints, we learn how to walk rightly. Jesus guides us to become the people God made us to be, and shows us what it really means to love one another and love God.  

Finally, Jesus the Good Shepherd protects his flock.  Jesus tells us that there are thieves and robbers who seek to steal, slaughter, and destroy His flock. There are wolves who want to seize and scatter the flock.  Yet, at his Holy Name it is the thieves, robbers, and wolves who scatter. Demons flee at the mention of his name.  We can be assured that any evil we must face, we face with him at our side.  The Christian is never alone.  When we are assailed by the fiery arrows of the enemy, we have the protection of his grace. When we are bombarded with the worldly errors that we draw us away from the Truth, he protects us by sending his apostles and prophets into our lives. In the moment of temptation, he protects us by sending his Holy Angels to remind us of our Christian identity. When we begin to despair of our salvation due to our many sins, he protects us by reminding us to hope in his promises.

The Good Shepherd does not fail to feed, guide, and protect his flock; rather the unhappiness and sin in our lives is always a result of failing to head our shepherd’s voice.

This Sunday is a special World Day of Prayer for vocations to the priesthood.  As I mentioned last week, the Church needs men who believe rightly, teaching rightly, and practice rightly. This week we pray that the Good Shepherd might inspire many young men to become shepherds in the new millennium.  We need priests who will feed and guide and protect the flock, don’t we? 

The Good Shepherd continues to call young men to serve the Church as priests and all of us have a responsibility to help them hear the shepherd’s invitation.  Parents, grandparents, god parents, encourage your sons to prayerfully incline their ear to the shepherd’s voice—the consider the calling to the priesthood—to be the shepherds the Church needs.

The Diocese of Cleveland is blessed to have one of the greatest seminary systems in the country, and honestly, probably the world. I know for a fact that there are Vatican Cardinals who look to Cleveland to see how Cleveland has been so successfully in attracting so many young men to discern the priesthood, and how we are retaining so many young men.

As Bishop Pilla would often say, our seminary attracts young men who could be very successful in the different professions—men who could be doctors, lawyers, professors, movers and shakers. And yet good young men in our diocese continue year after year, to take the risk, to devote the time to discern God’s call. It is certainly a sure sign that the Holy Spirit is at work, when a very talented and gifted young man dares to ask the question, is God calling me to a life of holy ecclesiastical service? Is the Shepherd calling me to shepherd?

Our culture is becoming increasingly secular, and we need men to help us remain faithful to the Master—men who will proclaim the unchanging Good News of Jesus Christ and its bold message of salvation with conviction. May God raise up many good and holy priests to help us be holy, to help us work out our salvation, to equip us for the work the Master has for each one of us—to be his instruments in the world, that He may feed, guide, and protect others through us for the glory of God and salvation of souls. 

4th Sunday of Easter 2020 - I am the gate

Since Vatican II we refer to the 4^th Sunday of Easter as Good Shepherd Sunday. Two out of three years of our cycle of Scripture readings, we read of Our Lord saying to his audience in the Gospels “I am the Good Shepherd”. His pronouncement certainly evokes images of shepherds watching over, feeding, teaching, and loving his flock. I always think of an image from my childhood of Jesus carrying the baby lamb in his arms. The good shepherds of Scripture patiently care for their flock, leading them to safe pastures, pulling them out of thorn bushes when they foolishly stray into trouble.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd—he knows us…intimately! And as we spend time under his care,  guidance and protection, we begin to recognize his voice amidst all the conflicting noises and voices of the world. Wonderful.

Every, third year, however, on Good Shepherd Sunday, we hear a slightly different message, a slightly different image. Before the Lord identifies himself has the Good Shepherd, he first explains, as we heard in the Gospel today, that he is the gate for his sheep. “I am the gate.” He says.

Well, what is the purpose of a gate? For one, the gate is an entry point. “I am the gate, whoever enters through me will be saved.” Our Lord himself is the gate to salvation. He is the open door through which we enter into salvation and good pasture and the life of God. His identification to be the gate, is very similar to his self-identification later in John’s Gospel when he says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”

How do we enter through the gate of Christ? Through faith. Right belief and right practice. Faith is the doorway to salvation Our Lord opened for us through his death and resurrection. Back in 2011, in the seventh and final full year of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI ushered in a special “Year of Faith” with a document called “Porta Fidei” the door of faith, the gate of faith. The gate of faith, the holy Father writes, “is always open for us, ushering us into the life of communion with God and offering entry into his Church. It is possible to cross that threshold when the word of God is proclaimed and the heart allows itself to be shaped by transforming grace. To enter through that door is to set out on a journey that lasts a lifetime. It begins with baptism (cf. Rom 6:4), through which we can address God as Father, and it ends with the passage through death to eternal life, fruit of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, whose will it was, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, to draw those who believe in him into his own glory (cf. Jn 17:22).”

What a beautiful image, through faith, through baptism we enter through Christ the gate into the life of God, into the divine life which begins now in this earthly life and endures into eternity.

There is another purpose for gates alluded to by the Lord in the Gospel today. Gates keep-out robbers and thieves. Gates stop those people, those ideas and beliefs, those attitudes and actions, which deprive us of the life of God. When the Jesus Christ is king and Shepherd of your life, he acts as a sort of gate which protects us from evil in the world which seeks to enter our minds and hearts and rob us of the peace and joy and life of Christ.

The truth of Jesus Christ and that of his Church filters and protects us from the lies and heresies promulgated by the devil throughout the world, lies and heresies which cause division in the Church, ruin to souls and our separation from communion with God. The truth of Jesus Christ enables us to discern right from wrong—fallacy from veracity—when we come across it in the media, in propaganda, or from false shepherds.

This image of a gate, a Christian filter, is a important for the moral life as well. Often in the confessional, I’ll hear sins confessed like gossip, you know, speaking things about others which we have no business talking about, or saying hurtful, cutting, or cruel things to our loved ones or strangers when we become angry. Sins of the mouth, right? sins of speech. And I often give the following advice, I say, Christ must always preside over our speech. We need to have a Christian filter of our words. Before we say anything, ever, we must discern, is it true, is it kind, is it necessary, would Christ say these words? As Peter writes in today’s second reading, “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When he was insulted, he returned no insult; when he suffered, he did not threaten” And so must we.

Part of the Christian life is developing that filter of saying only what builds others up, what is for the sake of the Gospel. Is it true, is it kind, is it necessary? It sounds like a lot of work, but as you develop this filter, this virtue, it becomes easier and easier.

One of my favorite parts of the Mass, is right before the proclamation of the Gospel, we sign ourselves, don’t we, on our foreheads, our mouths, and on our breast, a simple, yet profound gesture. I was always taught to offer a little prayer at that point, to say something like, May the Lord be always in my thoughts, on my lips, and in my heart. We pray, at the point in the mass, that the gates of our minds might be opened to received and contemplate and understand the Gospel message, that our lips might be open to later go out and proclaim the Gospel message, and that our hearts might be open to love and live the Gospel message. But also, we are asking the Lord to keep from our minds, and lips, and hearts, any lies or heresies which might be contrary to his Gospel truth; we are asking Him to serve as a Gate and as Gatekeeper.

So, may the Lord preside over our thoughts, words, and deeds this day. May nothing which is impure pass through our eyes or ears or through our lips. May he save us from the corruption of this generation, and lead us to eternal life, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.