Fourth Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)

You had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want. Sister, read that sentence as the personal promise it is. The Lord is your shepherd - not the Church's shepherd in the abstract, not the shepherd of the people who have it together, but your shepherd, specifically, individually, by name. He calls his own sheep by name. Your name. The woman who feels unnamed by the world - overlooked, undervalued, invisible in the crowd - has a shepherd who does not manage the flock from a distance. He calls her individually.

I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. The abundant life Christ promises is not the life of endless productivity. It is the life of a woman who has been led beside restful waters and whose soul has been refreshed. If your life does not feel abundant right now - if it feels depleted, drained, and running on empty - the Good Shepherd is not calling you to do more. He is calling you to let yourself be led. The shepherd walks ahead. You follow. He finds the pasture. You rest in it. The abundant life begins with the willingness to stop leading yourself and let someone else lead.

Peter writes: by his wounds you have been healed. The wounds you carry - from relationships that failed you, from expectations that crushed you, from the invisible labor that no one acknowledges - are connected to the wounds of Christ. His wounds heal. And the healing he provides is not the erasure of your wounds. It is the transformation of them into something that produces life in others, the same way his wounds produced life for the world.

Let yourself be led this week. The Good Shepherd walks ahead, and the sheep follow. If you have been leading yourself into exhaustion - managing every outcome, carrying every burden, refusing to rest because the flock depends on you - the shepherd is asking you to stop leading and start following. He finds the pasture. He spreads the table. Your job is to sit down and eat. The cup overflows when you stop trying to fill it yourself.

Lord, you are my shepherd and I shall not want. But I have been wanting - for rest, for recognition, for someone to see the weight I carry. Today I hear you call my name. You walk ahead of me. I follow. Lead me beside restful waters. Refresh my soul. By your wounds I have been healed. My cup overflows. I let it. Alleluia. Amen.