On this 4th Sunday of the celebration of Christ, Risen from the dead, our liturgy speaks strongly of the powerful word of the true shepherd. Not the hireling, not the uncommitted or even false shepherd, but the shepherd whose heart is so right that truth rings out in his very words. The sheep know his voice and follow with full trust.

As we hear these readings today, we do so without our own shepherd. Even though the period of official mourning has ended for Jean Paul II, and we join our prayers with those of Catholics around the world, begging the Holy Spirit to choose for us another great pastor.

We have two great examples today of the power emanating from the voice of the true shepherd. We have the example of our Lord, whose resurrection we still proclaim. His words are so vibrant that after two millennia, one quarter of the worlds population claim him as their Lord. No living person has seen him. He has not been seen by a human being for hundreds of generations. Yet His words ring so true, that billions of people call him their Lord. Yes, with different levels of sincerity, and often with divided hearts, but they call themselves Christian and seek to know his voice in their lives, and his Word in their hearts. Yet, everyone makes their own decision during the course of their life as to how deep in the heart one lets his Word enter.

John Paul II, of revered memory, also had a trusted voice. People do not need to agree with you to revere you. When you speak without superficiality, when you believe what you say in the depths of your heart, when your words are consistently in defense of life and dignity and proclaiming the greatest values in living, your words have power. Look how the death of John Paul II made the whole world pause and ponder. Not another living person on earth could draw such a response by their death. Presidents, kings, queens and prime ministers were drawn to his plain wooden coffin, set upon the ground.

When you speak from your heart, people are drawn to you. Yes, even if they do not agree with you. The Church of England separated from Catholicism over five centuries ago, over a Royal Wedding. Until recent years, they remained much like Catholicism in every way, except for belief in the pope. It is a real quirk of history that after all these centuries of disagreement, on the occasion of another Royal Wedding, plans had to be postponed, because the highest political authority in England, the highest religious authority in England, and even the Royal Groom, were all drawn to the funeral of the pope! God certainly loves a colorful story.

Five weeks ago yesterday, while he was in the Gemelli hospital in Rome and entering into his final agony, the pope wrote his 27th and last letter to the priests of the world.

It was his custom to write this letter every year, in preparation for Holy Thursday, which is considered the anniversary of the priesthood and the anniversary of the mass. He compared himself to the other sick in the hospital, whose suffering he recognized and sympathized with, and he emphasized to priests that the faithful people have a right to, and a deep need for, true and sincere priests. The priest has the obligation to unite himself with Christ in every way, so that his heart becomes the heart of Christ, with all the power that it brings. His formula was simply stated, and was probably simple because he had used it himself during his own sixty years of priesthood. He invited priests to make all the words of Christ, spoken during the mass, their own words. “This is my body, given up for you. This is my blood, given up for you.” Yes, Father, make the commitment courageously to spend yourself completely, to wear yourself out entirely, to the very end, in service to all who need you, to the glory of God’s name.

The more the priest takes on the Christ-heart, the more remarkable he becomes, the more he can encourage other people to do the same. The true heart is a beacon. John Paul’s true heart, converted to a Christ-heart through years of prayer, beckoned millions to Rome at the time of his death and multimillions around the globe to ponder the meaning of his life and death. And by preferring to be placed in a simple wooded box, unembalmed, placed on the ground and later buried in the earth, he showed that this secret is available to all people, not only to popes or princes.

That we live in extraordinarily troubling times is an understatement. Human life seems to be losing its very humanity, and surrendering itself to violence and money and superficial existence. The consequences of this are seen easily in the global havoc around us. How hungry people are for a true and sincere voice. Just look at how they responded to that of John Paul’s. The scriptures tell us that, already in desolation, the world becomes even more desolate, because there are so few who think with their heart. There are so few whose heart is their center, whose heart is the source of their decision and action. We are invited today by the scriptures, and by our shepherd who is resting in the dust, to think with the heart, the very heart of Christ.

I said before we are at the moment sheep without our universal shepherd. We will always need a shepherd, no matter how old we get. We will always need friends, doctors, confessors, and those who lead us when we are weak or lost or confused. But the fact that we need a shepherd does not dispense us from also shepherding. We are obliged to shepherd those in need of our friendship, our advice, our Christ light.

For fifty years now, Father Wasson, and all those who join forces with Our Little Brothers and Sisters, have made it a mission to shepherd orphan children. The most lost, the most vulnerable. We seek them in the most difficult countries, in the most trying circumstances. We strive to bring love to them. We go where love is most needed and where it is most difficult to bring it. This is our mission. And even when all our beds are full, when our budgets are strained, when our shepherds are tired beyond words from their many struggles, we still reach out even more. We reach out beyond the boundaries of our own mission: to children living in dumps, to children with terrible disabilities, to children on the streets, to children in prisons, to children beleaguered by floods, to children in need everywhere.

It is said by ancient holy people that the Passion of Christ started when he was born. It is not limited to his final agony. His whole life was a Passion. At Our Little Brothers and Sisters, our option for the poor, our seeking Christ in his contemporary Passion, is honored by deliberately seeking out the Christ-child in aguish.

At this watershed moment, at this moment of ending and beginning, of death and new life, of continued Easter joy, let us ask God very simply that we all might be blessed with living faith. Let us ask that we might, through prayer, be lead to the Christ-heart. We ask God to make us true, and that our truth ring out in such a way as to produce fruit that will last for all people to the glory of God’s name.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. And let it be this very light that makes our hearts wise and our lives true.