April 26, 2026 - Fourth Sunday of Easter “A”
Acts 2:14–41; 1 Peter 2:20–25; John 10:1–10
H O M I L Y
We are not yet at Pentecost, but the first reading of today’s Mass, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, describes what happened on the day of Pentecost, immediately after the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles. Peter spoke and addressed the crowd of Jews present, who had come from Judea and Galilee but also from all the countries of the Diaspora. He was so convincing that about three thousand of his listeners accepted his message and were baptized that very day.
This means that his preaching contained the essence of the Christian message—everything one must believe and all that is needed to be a true Christian. It is much, and yet it is little. His message boils down to this essential core of the Christian faith: “A man appeared among us, Jesus of Nazareth; God has made His mission known through all the wonders He enabled Him to perform; His contemporaries put Him to death; God raised Him from the dead. He was exalted in glory and received from His Father the Spirit, which He poured out on His disciples as He had promised.”
This is the core of Christian preaching. Everything else is merely an elaboration of it. The Apostles and the early Christians subsequently developed this teaching by recalling—and reminding us through their writings—all that Jesus had done and said while He was among them. And, of course, each of them recounted these words and events to us as they had personally experienced them and according to the effect they had had on him.
The Gospel account we read today is a fine example of the complementarity among the Evangelists. We know that the Evangelist John often sheds light on the events and words of Jesus in ways different from those of the other Evangelists. Matthew and Luke recount a parable of Jesus about the lost sheep, in search of which the shepherd goes, even leaving the other ninety-nine sheep alone. In John’s Gospel, this very simple and brief parable becomes a lengthy allegory in which Jesus presents Himself as the Good Shepherd who cares for His flock, unlike hired shepherds or thieves.
We must not interpret this parable through our Western lens, for the images within it clash in a disconcerting way. Jesus presents Himself both as the shepherd of the sheep and as the gate of the sheepfold. Nor should we look for a moralizing lesson here about what a good sheep ought to do. It is the shepherd and his attitude that Jesus is speaking to us about.
The sheepfold He speaks of is not a place separated from the rest of the world, where one is protected from all outside influences and keeps the gate tightly shut. No, the sheepfold is the assembly of those who have believed in Jesus. When Jesus, the Shepherd, comes, He opens the gate so that the sheep may go out. Jesus’ followers are not called to withdraw into themselves, to seek safety in a cozy intimacy. They are called to go out, to follow Jesus on the paths of the world.
The shepherd, as described by Jesus, does not come to act as a master within the sheepfold. On the contrary, he does not even seem to enter the sheepfold. If He has the gatekeeper (who is undoubtedly the Father) open the gate for Him, it is to call the sheep out. The fold Jesus speaks of is the People of Israel, who throughout the Old Testament were so prone to turning inward. Jesus comes to call His sheep, each by name, to leave this confinement and follow him on the paths of His ministry. He has other sheep, who are not of this fold—that is, who come from the Gentile nations. He calls them too; and all will form one flock. This flock is not called to return to the fold, but to follow Jesus in His universal mission, through the desert of humanity.
It is fairly easy to understand how Jesus is the Good Shepherd. How is He also the gate? For Jesus does indeed say, “I am the gate.” He is the gate because, in the wall of human misery, He has opened passages. He came to his own, and His own did not recognize him; they set up a wall against him. In that wall, His wounds opened up passages. When Thomas put his hand into the wounds in the feet and side of the Risen Jesus, he recognized the Master’s voice and cried out, “My Lord and my God.” As Peter says in the second reading: “Christ suffered for you… so that you might follow in His footsteps… It is by His wounds that you have been healed. You were wandering like sheep; but now you have returned to the shepherd who watches over you.” It is through the gaping holes of His wounds that He is the Gate.
Christ still suffers, even today, in his sisters and brothers. To recognize Him these days, we must place our hands in the gaping wounds of our brothers and sisters who are the victims of all fratricidal wars. Let us recognize the suffering Christ in all these victims of our wars and open our hearts and arms wide to welcome them.
Armand Veilleux