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Acts 4:8-12
1 Jn 3:1-2
Jn 10:11-18 The Good Shepherd does not run away when the sheep are to be devoured, but rather lays down his own life for them. The love by which the Shepherd does that is precisely the “power” to which Jesus refers when he says he has the “power” to lay down his life. What a difference between this Divine idea of “power” and the worldly concept that says “power” consists in being able to lay down someone else’s life. In particular, the Culture of Death says that there is some kind of “power” in the “right to choose” abortion, or in the right “to determine the timing and manner of one’s death” by euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. But that is not power at all. The real power spoken about in today’s readings is the power to give ourselves away in love, to transform suffering into life-giving sacrifice (that heals others and brings salvation, as the First Reading indicates), and to ultimately be transformed into the likeness of the God who is love (Second Reading).
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