Fourth Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)

Peter says: the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call. That sentence is the charter of the domestic church. The promise is not made to you alone. It is made to you and to your children. The covenant includes the ones sitting at your table tonight - the baby who cannot yet understand, the teenager who is not sure she believes, the child who was baptized as an infant and is still growing into what the water meant. The promise is made to them too, and the promise does not expire because the child has not yet understood it.

Jesus says: I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. Then the sentence that captures the whole purpose of the domestic church: I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. The abundant life is not a prosperity promise. It is the assurance that the life Christ gives is full - full of meaning, full of grace, full of the presence of a shepherd who calls his sheep by name and walks ahead of them. Your family follows a shepherd who knows your children by name. He does not manage them from a distance. He calls them individually.

Psalm 23 is the prayer your family knows by heart, even if they do not realize it: the Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. He leads beside restful waters. He refreshes the soul. Even though I walk in the dark valley, I fear no evil, for you are at my side. Tonight, pray it together at the table. Let the youngest child lead it if they can. The shepherd who spreads the table before you in the sight of your foes is the same shepherd who anoints your head and overflows your cup. Your family's cup is overflowing, even on the days when it does not feel like it.

• For our family, that we would recognize the Good Shepherd's voice among the many voices competing for our attention and follow him into the pasture he has prepared, we pray to the Lord.
• For the promise made to us and to our children: that every child in this family would eventually hear the shepherd's voice calling them by name, even the ones who seem far off right now, we pray to the Lord.
• On this World Day of Prayer for Vocations, for young men and women discerning the priesthood, religious life, the diaconate, and the vocation of marriage, that the shepherd would make the call unmistakable, we pray to the Lord.
• For families walking through the dark valley this Easter season - grieving, struggling, afraid - that the rod and staff of the Good Shepherd would give them courage, we pray to the Lord.

Pray Psalm 23 together as a family tonight. Go around the table and have each person name one way the Good Shepherd has led them beside restful waters this week - one moment of peace, provision, or protection they might not have noticed if they were not looking. Then pray for vocations: today is the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. Ask God to call someone from your family or your parish to the priesthood, the religious life, or the diaconate. The Good Shepherd is still calling, and the sheep who hear his voice may be sitting at your table.

The sheep recognize the shepherd's voice. Your children are learning to recognize that voice by listening to you. When you pray, when you speak about Jesus with familiarity rather than formality, when you name the Good Shepherd as someone your family actually follows rather than a figure in a stained glass window, your children are being trained to hear the voice. The voice they learn to recognize in your home is the voice they will recognize when the shepherd calls their name.