Fourth Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)

Even though I walk in the dark valley, I fear no evil, for you are at my side. In the evening of life, the dark valley is not a metaphor. It is the hospital corridor, the diagnosis, the funeral of a friend, the shrinking of the world as capacity diminishes. The psalmist does not say the valley disappears. He says the shepherd is at his side in it. The darkness does not lift. The presence enters the darkness. That is the promise of Good Shepherd Sunday in the evening of life: not that the valley will be bypassed, but that the shepherd will walk it with you.

Peter writes: you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. In the evening of life, the returning is the story. The decades of wandering - seasons of doubt, years of going through the motions, periods of distance from the sacraments - were the going astray. And the returning has been happening gradually, through suffering, through prayer, through the slow recognition that the shepherd was present even in the years you could not feel him. By his wounds you have been healed. The wounds of Christ heal, and the wounds you have carried through the decades have been part of the healing too, though you could not see it at the time.

Jesus says: I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. In the evening of life, the abundant life is not the busyness of earlier years. It is the depth that comes from decades of following the shepherd's voice through verdant pastures and dark valleys alike. The cup overflows. It has been overflowing your whole life. The evening is when you finally notice.