Dear Family of God,

This weekend we will be reminded by Jesus remain in Him and we can do nothing without Him, like a branch that withers when cut from the vine. So, how do we remain in Him?

How do we remain in Jesus? St. John has the answer: “Those who keep His Commandments remain in Him, and He in them, and the way we know that He remains in us is from the Spirit, He gave us.” To remain in Jesus is to keep His Commandments, “and His Commandments is this: we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as He commanded us.”

Today is called “Good Shepherd Sunday”. One of the remarkable qualities of a good shepherd is his willingness to lay down his life for his flock. Christ did that for us. He laid down His life for us on the cross. At every mass, He continues to lay down His life for us.

When I was a kid, a friend at my home parish told me, “If you get to Mass by the Gospel reading, it counts!” As a lifelong late-arriver, it’s something I have told myself many times, especially in my earlier years as a Catholic. If the “it counts” is justifiable on a pathetically minimal scale of liturgical legalism, then the Gospel reading today shows how insanely wrong-headed it is, and how helpful it is to re-think the Mass in its light.

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday. It’s a day to revisit our idea about who God is. I believe there are some people who still imagine that God’s standard for holiness is very unreasonable. People who think God is more interested in finding faults in us than in seeing our efforts to love and please Him. People who think God enjoys it when people end up in hell. The truth is all these perceptions about God is very false. Until we rid ourselves of these ideas, we will never come to a place of true love and friendship with God.