Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A (2026) - Fr Paul Rowse, OP

We need a God who doesn’t need us. Our needs are big and simple: from God we need life and we need our mortality to be dealt with. If we have a God who needs us, he will be too weak to satisfy those needs. How could we follow someone who is looking to us for his needs, we who live just until our mortality gets the better of us. No, we need a God who doesn’t need us.

The Lord warns us that whatever, whoever is not himself will steal, kill, and destroy us. That doesn’t have to happen all at once. A thief who steals something from our home every day until there’s nothing left is no less a thief than the one who takes everything in one hit.

Think of other religions and philosophies of life, and how they meet our needs. They do not bestow life. They do not overcome our mortality. And so, bit by bit, they rob their adherents of life. They need us to bring life to them, without which they do not exist. Their genius lies in being able to change the way we feel without changing us at our most fundamental level. Bit by bit, if we belong to them, we are stolen away, killed off, and destroyed.

But we have Christ and he has us. He needs nothing from us, but rather gives us everything. He is the Word through whom all things were made. Christ is the rising Son of God whose day is dawning in us even now. He gives over the life we need, rather than grabbing it out of our hands. Christ conquered our mortality and grants a share in that victory to all who ally themselves to him.

Bit by bit, we are coming alive in Christ. The final resurrection is indeed coming for those who belong to him. If we repent of our sins, put our faith in him, and do good, we shall rise as Christ has risen. But the final resurrection isn’t the only way we rise. We also rise under grace, when we become more and more the best version of ourselves. The evidence for this will be a comparison you make with yourself as you were a decade ago. Similarly, please God, you will be an even greater person in a decade from now. And so, we are inching towards Christ’s eternity even now, by his work in us, by his work on us.

This Good Shepherd Sunday, we shall be praying for priests, more priests, and better priests. We have such need of men made strong by Christ, who will pass on heaven’s gifts during their ministry. For we are to rise up to greater heights while we yet live and take into our mortal bodies the living Christ, who alone meets our needs. He who does not need us yet wants us, and calls priests to be ardent and gentle pastors after his own heart. To whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen. Alleluia.

Fr Paul Rowse, OP is the Parish Priest of Camberwell East, Victoria.