Today’s readings: Acts 13:14, 43-52; Revelation 7:9, 14b-17; John 10:27-30
Any mention of shepherds and sheep might sound old-fashioned in urban Malta. For starters, the younger generation has likely never come across any sheep, except perhaps for Bendu’s proverbial fold.
To some, the term sheep might evoke Neitzsche’s jibe at Christianity, who had described the religion as herd morality, where, according to the German atheist thinker, people embrace values that are of no value. In a culture that rewards individualism and a certain notion of free thinking, any reference to sheep and shepherds might appear outdated or even offensive.
Yet, in a boldly countercultural move, the Church today invites us to reflect upon and to embody values that are often looked upon with similar scorn: communion and mission. This fourth Sunday in Easter is, in fact, traditionally called Good Shepherd Sunday, and is linked with vocations, especially the ministerial priesthood.
For some of today’s youth, the image of the shepherd might mean little more than a quaint remnant of the past. But for the early Christians, the shepherd symbolised Christ, who laid down his life for his sheep. Important artefacts of this image found in the Catacombs of St Priscilla and of St Callixtus in Rome, dating back to the third and fourth centuries, are clearly witness to this.
Perhaps the present so-called crisis of vocations might actually be a blessing in disguise
What we read in today’s second reading from the Book of Revelation is both paradoxical and very moving. “The Lamb will shepherd the multitude,” we read. He “will lead them to springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Therein is the key to understanding who the shepherd is. Only insofar as Jesus is the sacrificial lamb, that he shepherds us.
In today’s gospel, Jesus cries out, “the sheep will hear my voice, and they know and follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never be lost”.
The intimacy behind Jesus’s words cannot be missed. In these words, early Christians would have caught a glimpse of the lover and the beloved in the Song of Songs. There, in the garden, the beloved, symbolising humankind, listens out for the lover, symbolising God, while the beloved is filled with joy on hearing his voice.
The Courage to Teach, by Parker PalmerIn his inspiring book The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer begins with a reflection on vocation. For him, “vocation does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfil the original selfhood given me at birth by God.”
But in order to be attentive to God’s voice within me, I also need to be in touch with the needs of others, for as someone once claimed, vocation is “the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need”.
By virtue of the vocation received at our baptism, we are at once “sheep of the Lord’s flock” but also shepherds, for we are conformed to Christ, the priest, prophet and shepherd. Whatever our status in life we are called to shepherd one another, but this is only fruitful if we follow Christ, our only shepherd, and if we give our life for others as he did.
The Church is an ecosystem of a variety of ways of living this vocation. Some respond to the calling of living the vocation as shepherds in a more intense way through the ministerial priesthood, by dedicating their whole life to being at the service of the common priesthood of all baptised.
Perhaps the present so-called crisis of vocations might actually be a blessing in disguise. It is a beckoning to return to a deeper and more authentic meaning of the shepherd and the lamb in a world where many still thirst for life-giving waters, long to have their tears dried, and feel lost and abandoned.