I am the gate: At 2:1, 1 Pet 2, and the Good Shepherd in Jn 10 (Fourth Sunday of Easter)

## The Fourth Sunday of Easter – The Good Shepherd (Year A)**Scriptural Texts:*** **First Reading:** Acts 2:14a, 36-41 * **Second Reading:** 1 Peter 2:20b-25 * **Gospel:** John 10:1-10This Sunday, the fourth of Easter, is celebrated as the Good Shepherd Sunday (Year A). The three readings focus on the image of the shepherd and his sheep.**I. First Reading: Acts 2:14a, 36-41**Peter concludes his Pentecost speech with a powerful affirmation: “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). The proclamation of Christ’s lordship is the core of the early Christian message. The crowd, moved to the core, asks, “What shall we do?” (v. 37). Peter responds, inviting them to repent and be baptized “in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins” (v. 38), promising the gift of the Holy Spirit. This day saw about three thousand people convert and receive baptism (v. 41). Peter’s speech marks the birth of the Church: from proclaiming the resurrection to baptism, all in one day, through the opening of the Holy Spirit.**II. Second Reading: 1 Peter 2:20b-25**Peter encourages believers to endure unjust suffering, modeling themselves after Christ who, though innocent, suffered for us (v. 22-23). He offers Christ as a sacrifice for our sins, saying we should die to sin and live for righteousness (vv. 24-25). The image of the shepherd and scattered sheep from Isaiah 53 is applied to Christ: he is both the sheep and the shepherd who sacrificially gives his life for all.**III. Gospel: John 10:1-10**Jesus presents himself as the Good Shepherd in this famous parable (John 10:1-10). He is the door through which the sheep enter to find safety and pasture. Those who do not enter through him will be stolen and perish, but those who do will be safe and secure. Jesus identifies himself as the good shepherd who knows his sheep personally and protects them from danger.Jesus uses an image from Palestinian pastoral life. What enters through the gate of the fold is the shepherd; the gatekeeper opens to him, the sheep listen to his voice, he calls his sheep by name and leads them out. They follow him because they know his voice (John 10:3-4). The Pharisees do not understand the image. Jesus clarifies: “I am the gate for the sheep” (v.7). Those who came before him were thieves and robbers; the sheep did not follow them. “I am the gate; if anyone enters through me, they will be saved. They will go in and out and find pasture” (v.9). The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus came “that they may have life, and that they may have it abundantly” (v.10). The parable describes the relationship between Jesus and each believer with three elements: mutual knowledge (the shepherd knows his sheep by name, the sheep recognize the voice of the shepherd), security (entering and exiting through the gate provides protection), and fullness (not just survival but abundant life).IV. Mary and the sheep that never strayedIn 1 Peter 2, the passage quotes Isaiah 53, stating that Christians were once like sheep scattered before returning to their Shepherd. Mary is the singular exception: the sheep that never strayed. By grace of the Immaculate Conception, Mary never followed the path of the lost sheep; she never needed to be reclaimed. John 10 states that the shepherd calls his sheep by name and they recognize his voice; at the Annunciation, the angel called Mary by name, “full of grace,” and she immediately recognized the voice of the Eternal Shepherd of Israel. Mary’s response to being called by name was the fiat: the sheep that follows the shepherd without hesitation. Acts 2 narrates the birth of the Church on Pentecost with three thousand baptized; Mary was present in that Upper Room (Acts 1:14), Mother of the community that was born. Each of these three thousand entered through the gate of Christ, which Mary welcomed into her womb thirty-three years earlier. The Sunday of the Good Shepherd invites the disciple to recognize the voice that calls him by name, as Mary recognized, and to enter through the gate that offers life in abundance.