This week, we celebrate the 4th Sunday of Easter, a Sunday that is also known as “Good Shepherd Sunday,” which becomes evident in our gospel passage. But the Easter season is also a time when we celebrate the development of the church in the first century, and that theme is made apparent in our first reading from Acts.

In the season of Easter, we celebrate the development of the church and, specifically, the early Christian community of the first century. There is no doubt that the early church would not have developed amid the hostility of the Jewish hierarchy toward the preaching of the apostles without the power of the Holy Spirit.

There are several readings for Easter depending upon the Mass you attend this weekend; you will hear one of three gospels.

The readings for Palm Sunday are far too lengthy to copy into a reflection, and they are scriptures with which we are all familiar. Palm Sunday celebration begins with a processional gospel proclamation of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem from the Gospel of Luke.

Just as the season of Lent should remind us of our need to do penance and to seek God’s forgiveness for our transgressions, it should also remind us of God’s mercy in granting us that forgiveness. God’s mercy is the theme of our readings this week.

Our first reading this week from the Book of Exodus is entitled: “The Call of Moses.” This is a passage we are all familiar with wherein we are told that God called Moses from a burning bush to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land.

A covenant was very important in ancient times and was understood as an agreement between two parties, usually between a greater and a lesser king.

When we read the scriptures, we tend to assume that what we are reading is a contemporary account of the events described, that what we read was written down about the time the events occurred and, therefore, we have a pretty accurate account of the events described. Such is not the case, and the Book of Deuteronomy is a prime example of the authorship of the book coming hundreds of years after the events described.

We are about to enter the season of Lent, which begins on Wednesday of this week as Ash Wednesday. Lent is a penitential season calling us to the conversion of our hearts.

Jesus calls us to a higher standard; one that most of us will find difficult to adhere to. We are to love and offer charity to everyone, as Jesus does. We are to set a standard of charity by our actions that will be an example to others and cause them to follow that standard as well.