Today, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, is Good Shepherd Sunday and the 58th World Day of Prayer for Vocations. Shepherds tending flocks of sheep are some of the earliest characters in scripture. Abel, the son of Adam and Eve was a shepherd. Other Old Testament sheep tenders are Rachel the wife of Jacob, Zipporah the wife of Moses and David, probably the most famous shepherd in scripture. The shepherd’s job is to lead the sheep to pasture, protect them, and keep them together and safe.
Speaking through the Prophet Ezekiel (Ezk 34:11), the Lord God says: “I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep.” In today’s Gospel from John 10:11, Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.” The Greek word John used for “good” is kalos which means model or ideal. Like God, his Father, Jesus sees his mission to lead the lost sheep of Israel and those “who do not belong to this fold.” Jesus is the shepherd who will bring all the sheep together as “one flock” with “one shepherd.” When St. Peter addresses the elders of the early church in 1 Peter 5:2-4, he reminds them to willingly tend the “flock of God in your midst,” as God does, striving to “be examples to the flock.”
God’s flock still needs men and women to shepherd them towards the Kingdom of Heaven. Our Holy Father Pope Francis asks us to pray for vocations to the priesthood and to the consecrated life. In his Message for the 58th World Day of Prayer for Vocations 2021, the Holy Father says, “8 December last, the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of Saint Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church, marked the beginning of a special year devoted to him (cf. Decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary, 8 December 2020). For my part, I wrote the Apostolic Letter Patris Corde, whose aim was ‘to increase our love for this great saint’…. God looks on the heart (cf. 1 Sam 16:7), and in Saint Joseph he recognized the heart of a father, able to give and generate life in the midst of daily routines. Vocations have this same goal: to beget and renew lives every day. The Lord desires to shape the hearts of fathers and mothers: hearts that are open, capable of great initiatives, generous in self-giving, compassionate in comforting anxieties and steadfast in strengthening hopes. The priesthood and the consecrated life greatly need these qualities nowadays, in times marked by fragility but also by the sufferings due to the pandemic, which has spawned uncertainties and fears about the future and the very meaning of life. Saint Joseph comes to meet us in his gentle way, as one of ‘the saints next door’. At the same time, his strong witness can guide us on the journey.”
During the next week please pray for good shepherds to lead our Church in the future.
God, source of creation and love,
you invite each of us to serve you through the gift of our life.
May your grace encourage men and women
to serve the Church as priests, sisters, brothers, and lay ministers.
Make me an instrument to encourage others to give of themselves,
and challenge me to do the same.
Amen
