A homily for the fourth Sunday in Easter
I’ve preached on this image before. This image of cats in the bathroom, over the sink, perched on the light fixture. What’s going on in this picture is that they’re trying to get away from me. What happened was, last year sometime, I noticed this very thin cat in the patio. So I put out food and then two cats in the patio.
I put out food, and Francisco said, I think they’re kittens. And I said, no, they’re not kittens. They were kittens. It ended up being a lot of cats, probably abandoned cats, people moving sad, but left and they are foraging now. So we trapped them all and took them to the SPCA who neutered them and gave them back. So you have to keep them till they’re healed.
And now. So I brought them in and they freaked out every time they came in the room because they’re, undomesticated. They’re unsocialized, they don’t know what people are. And so I would interact with them and as they got domesticated, socialized, I find new homes for them. We went from 11 down to to finally one. One was just not.
He just wasn’t getting it. Slow learner was, he would be mad at me. He would visit me. He would jump at me. He was not, adoptable, but I would feed him and I would hold, pet him with the stick, and he would hit his at the stick and beat at the stick. But it’s a stick.
And if you want to eat, you have to suffer through this thing. And he did. Eventually. He just ignored the stick. So one day I said, I’m going to feed him and pet him with my hand. I may lose my hand. After reattached at the hospital, I’m going to pet him with my hand instead of the stick. And he took and he accepted the my hand.
And from there he became my friend. He grew to like me. And here’s a shot of him playing with a ribbon. It became a domestic housecat. Adoptable? No, because with everybody else he will take your face off. But with me at least, he likes me and tolerates me. This, I think, is a good image for Jesus, the good Shepherd.
Today’s gospel. He says, my sheep recognize my voice. They hear me and they follow me. And I think, how do we recognize the shepherd’s voice? How do we recognize Jesus as shepherd? But spending quality time that cat got domesticated because I made that cat spend quality time with me. And I think that’s how we get to have recognized Jesus is great Shepherd, and they communicate with Jesus’s good Shepherd and eventually be in his arms as Jesus is good Shepherd
Teresa of Avila writes, “prayer means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.” I think if we don’t take time in relationship with Jesus, in prayer, with Jesus, serving Jesus, being and reading his Word, or sharing his sacraments, we won’t recognize him when we need him. We won’t will be like the cat hiding on top of the the light fixtures in the bathroom instead of in his arms.
So that, I think, is the call of today’s gospel. Jesus is good Shepherd, but are we good listeners? Are we good sheep? Are we his sheep?
