By Pat Haggerty

The other day I was caring for my five year old grand-daughters, Jane and Rose. They are in kindergarten in a parochial school. My daughter had asked me to help them go over a prayer that they had to say over the loudspeaker. It was a prayer for Good Shepherd Sunday.  It struck me in its simplicity:  “Jesus is our Good Shepherd. He is with us night and day.  He knows each one of us.  He shows us ways to love God and one another.”

When I attended Mass on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, I thought of this beautiful, little prayer. It reminded me of the unending support of Jesus as he guides us and watches over his flock. We sang in the responsorial from Psalm 100:  “We are his people, the sheep of his flock.”

Not many of us have seen a shepherd in action. However, we know that a “good shepherd” will do anything to protect his flock from danger. So it is with the Lord. He offered himself as the paschal lamb to redeem us and give us new life. We hear in the Book of Revelation:  “For the Lamb who is in the center of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

By Pat Haggerty

“On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb.” (John 20:1) Such a discovery!  The stone had been moved and where was the Lord?

There are so many depictions of this scene that can cause us to reflect and wonder on the joy of the resurrection.  There is a radiant light emitting from the cavernous tomb.  One can see the burial cloths left behind where Jesus lay.  The huge boulder is resting beside the opening to the tomb.  Mary of Magdala is bowed down with a sense of bewilderment and extreme sadness.  What has become of the Lord?  Who has taken him?  What does the future hold for his disciples?

By Pat Haggerty

I was searching recently for a graphic to insert in a flyer for a Lenten book discussion group.  So many of the images were inspiring!  There were abstract crosses of numerous varieties; there were pictures of desert wastelands with tiny flowers emerging from rock crevices; and there were Lenten collages with crowns of thorns, palm branches and loaves of bread.  What caught my attention, however, were the sayings that accompanied the graphics.  I want to focus on three of these.

“Return to the Lord your God.”  We hear this often when speaking of Lent, but what does it really mean to us?  Do we really have to return?  What if we have never left?  We are all sinners and this is a time for us to change our ways.  We need to return to the bosom of the God who loves us and rededicate ourselves to him.

By Pat Haggerty

I had the good fortune recently of spending some time in sunny Florida. There is nothing like sitting on the beach with the sun beating on you and feeling the warmth envelop you. I am not a true “sun-bather,” so this can only last for a while. I need to be doing something like walking the beach, reading or people gazing. I usually do all of the above.

As I was people gazing one day, a thought struck me. People were dotting the beach, children were playing and numerous individuals were collecting shells, which were strewn on the shoreline. Many of those people dotting the beach were looking at their cell phones. Why? What made them step out of the moment---step out of the beauty of nature to look at a technological device? It’s all about connecting.  It’s that simple.

We all need to feel connected. We need to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. With our cell phones we can connect to friends, we can connect to our Twitter followers or our FaceBook friends. We can be a part of a larger community. We can belong!