4th Sunday of Easter (B): Good Shepherd Sunday, Vocations Sunday

“Look to Him by whom you were made beautiful”
“The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”

John 10:11-18

We are on the fourth Sunday of Easter, halfway through the fifty-day Easter season. Every year, on this Sunday, we read a passage from chapter 10 of John’s gospel, where Jesus, through an allegory, presents himself as the good shepherd. This is why it is called ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’. The World Day of Prayer for Vocations, instituted by Paul VI in 1964, is celebrated today.

Jesus the Great Shepherd of the sheep, with the big eyes!

The allegory of the shepherd requires, first of all, the effort to identify with a reality of an age that is no longer ours, in order to grasp the message of Jesus. The image of the shepherd has such a long and rich biblical tradition behind it (particularly in the prophets) that we cannot do without it. A spirituality has developed around it (see Psalm 23: ‘The Lord is my shepherd’).

The New Testament takes up this fruitful tradition: Jesus is “the great Shepherd of the sheep” (Hebrews 13:20). It is not surprising, then, that the first image of Jesus in the catacombs is that of the ‘good shepherd’, centuries before the crucifix. On the tomb of a late 2nd century Christian we find this inscription: ‘I am the disciple of a holy shepherd who has big eyes; his gaze reaches everyone’.

The main characteristic of the good shepherd is that he ‘lays down his life for the sheep’. Giving one’s life is the greatest love. “The Good Shepherd is the sweet version of the crucified one. Sweet only on a figurative level, because the substance is the same. It is not for nothing that in John’s passage the phrase ‘giving life’ is the one that explains what ‘good’ means, and it recurs no less than five times” (D. Pezzini).

Jesus, epiphany of God’s goodness and beauty

“I am the good shepherd!”. It should be noted, however, that the Greek adjective employed by the evangelist is not ‘agathòs’ (good), but ‘kalòs’, i.e. beautiful. So the literal translation would be “I am the beautiful shepherd” or “the handsome shepherd”! This can give us another perspective of goodness. Goodness makes a person beautiful and beauty is the irradiation of goodness (Plato). Jesus is the epiphany not only of goodness, but also of beauty.

“Beauty and goodness are intertwined. […] In the Old Testament we come across the adjective tôb (also pronounced tôv) 741 times, and its meaning oscillates precisely between ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’, so that goodness and beauty, ethics and aesthetics are two faces of the same reality” (Gianfranco Ravasi). Today, the Word of the “Good/Beautiful Shepherd” could be translated into an invitation: “Taste and see how good/beautiful the Lord is!” (Psalm 34:9). He is, indeed, “the most handsome among the sons of man” (Psalm 45:3).

The world needs beauty

Beauty, aesthetic harmony, is a way to God, which perhaps we have not exploited enough, and to which humanity is particularly sensitive nowadays. Today, when aesthetic beauty is cultivated so much, the Christian is called to bear witness to beauty, reflecting the beauty of his Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18). St Augustine says: “Look to Him by whom you were made beautiful”.

We could say that cultivating and bearing witness to the beauty of Christ is a way of defining our vocation. The Pope expresses it well in his message for this Day of Vocations: “The World Day of Prayer for Vocations invites us, every year, to consider the precious gift of the call that the Lord addresses to each one of us, his faithful people on a journey, so that we may take part in his plan of love and incarnate the beauty of the Gospel in the different states of life”.

Dostoevsky wrote in his novel ‘The Idiot’: ‘Beauty will save the world’. Carlo Maria Martini took up this expression in his pastoral letter “What beauty will save the world?” (1999). He wrote: “It is not enough to deplore and denounce the ugliness of our world. Nor is it enough, for our disenchanted age, to speak of justice, of duties, of the common good, of pastoral programmes, of evangelical demands. We must speak of it with a heart full of compassionate love, experiencing that charity that gives with joy and arouses enthusiasm: we must radiate the beauty of what is true and just in life, because only this beauty truly enraptures hearts and turns them to God”. He further said:
“What drives us to seek so intensely the beauty of God revealed at Easter is also its opposite, namely the denial of beauty. True beauty is denied wherever evil seems to triumph, wherever violence and hatred take the place of love and oppression that of justice. But true beauty is also denied where there is no longer any joy, especially where the hearts of believers seem to have surrendered to the evidence of evil, where the enthusiasm of the life of faith is lacking and the fervour of those who believe in and follow the Lord of history no longer radiates”.

We have here matter for a serious examination of conscience for each and every one of us, for our communities and for the Church! We often complain that people are turning away from the faith and the churches are emptying. Do our lives, our faces, our relationships, however, reflect the beauty of the “Beautiful Shepherd”?

P. Manuel João Pereira Correia mccj
Verona, April 2024

Good Shepherd Sunday, Vocations Sunday
John 10:11-18

Some paragraphs from Pope’s Message for World Day for Vocations 2024
“Called to sow seeds of hope and to build peace”

Each year, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations invites us to reflect on the precious gift of the Lord’s call to each of us, as members of his faithful pilgrim people, to participate in his loving plan and to embody the beauty of the Gospel in different states of life. Hearing that divine call, which is far from being an imposed duty – even in the name of a religious ideal – is the surest way for us to fulfil our deepest desire for happiness. Our life finds fulfilment when we discover who we are, what our gifts are, where we can make them bear fruit, and what path we can follow in order to become signs and instruments of love, generous acceptance, beauty and peace, wherever we find ourselves.

A people on the move

The polyphony of diverse charisms and vocations that the Christian community recognizes and accompanies helps us to appreciate more fully what it means to be Christians. As God’s people in this world, guided by his Holy Spirit, and as living stones in the Body of Christ, we come to realize that we are members of a great family, children of the Father and brothers and sisters of one another. We are not self-enclosed islands but parts of a greater whole. In this sense, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations has a synodal character: amid the variety of our charisms, we are called to listen to one another and to journey together in order to acknowledge them and to discern where the Spirit is leading us for the benefit of all.

At this point in time, then, our common journey is bringing us to the Jubilee Year of 2025. Let us travel as pilgrims of hope towards the Holy Year, for by discovering our own vocation and its place amid the different gifts bestowed by the Spirit, we can become for our world messengers and witnesses of Jesus’ dream of a single human family, united in God’s love and in the bond of charity, cooperation and fraternity.

Pilgrims of hope and builders of peace

Yet what does it mean to be pilgrims? Those who go on pilgrimage seek above all to keep their eyes fixed on the goal, to keep it always in their mind and heart. To achieve that goal, however, they need to concentrate on every step, which means travelling light, getting rid of what weighs them down, carrying only the essentials and striving daily to set aside all weariness, fear, uncertainty and hesitation. Being a pilgrim means setting out each day, beginning ever anew, rediscovering the enthusiasm and strength needed to pursue the various stages of a journey that, however tiring and difficult, always opens before our eyes new horizons and previously unknown vistas.

The courage to commit

In this light, I would say once more, as I did at World Youth Day in Lisbon: “Rise up!” Let us awaken from sleep, let us leave indifference behind, let us open the doors of the prison in which we so often enclose ourselves, so that each of us can discover his or her proper vocation in the Church and in the world, and become a pilgrim of hope and a builder of peace! Let us be passionate about life, and commit ourselves to caring lovingly for those around us, in every place where we live. Let me say it again: “Have the courage to commit!”
Let us rise up, then, and set out as pilgrims of hope, so that, as Mary was for Elizabeth, we too can be messengers of joy, sources of new life and artisans of fraternity and peace.

The Epiphany of God—the Shepherd who gives life
Fernando Armellini

Introduction

No wonder that, even in times of religious crisis, the majority of people continue to believe in God. However, in verifying the identity of this God, we often notice that he is quite different from the one Jesus revealed. He is a God who adapts to the justice of man. He rewards and punishes according to merits, welcomes the worship, bestows blessings to his devotees, forbids adultery. He approves the accumulation of assets and their free management. In fact, at times, he becomes a business associate. He is a God who allows killing in self-defense and, above all, he is infinitely great, all-powerful, able to gain respect.

This reasonable God found shelter also in some Catholic catechisms and is easy to accept.

But one day, in Jesus, the true God has made himself known to people completely different. He was in company with sinners and stayed with the excluded. He allowed people to spit in his face without reacting. He loved those who nailed him to a cross; he was neither omnipotent nor infinite. In the face of this weak, unable to defend themselves God, the faith of all staggered. Peter, when he vowed not knowing him (Mk 14:71), spoke—I think—in the name of the great majority of Christians.

Believing in a God like this is so difficult: it means to pin one’s glory on making oneself humble or small for love.

Gospel Reflection

Even after having settled in the land of Canaan, and becoming a nation of farmers, Israel has always maintained a great longing for the nomadic life of shepherds and never gave up rearing sheep and goats. The wisdom of the Bedouin, who prefers his flock to the jewels and treasures, is reflected by the exhortation of the book of Proverbs: “Know well the state of your herd and tend your flock because the wealth does not last forever. You should have lambs to clothe you and goats to pay for your fields, sufficient goats’ milk to feed you, to sustain your household” (Prov 27:23-27).

The fact of spending a lot of time in isolated places with the flock meant that, between the shepherd and his sheep, a loving relationship is built. The shepherd called each sheep by name, and that it recognized his voice. Wild animals were the greatest dangers to the flock. In biblical times, hyenas and jackals, lions and bears lived in the valley of the Jordan. The shepherds, armed with a slingshot, a strong stick, made more effective by pieces of flint stuck at the end, were prepared to fight against them.

This was the social reality; no wonder, then, that the image of the shepherd is always resumed in the Bible. David is called by God “from the sheepfolds” to shepherd the Israelites and “was for them shepherd with upright heart and pastured them with skillful hands he led them” (Ps 78:70-72). The kings of Israel are often compared to wicked shepherds, instead of feeding the flock, they feed themselves, exploit, disperse and kill (Ezk 34).

God is portrayed as vinedresser and farmer (Is 27: 3; Ps 65), but, above all, as shepherd who guides, protects, nourishes his people (Ps 80:2; 23); “he gathers the lambs in his arms, and gently leading those that are with young” (Is 40:11). He takes care of Israel that has been brought to ruin by unworthy kings and promises: “I will gather the remnant of my sheep from every land to which I have driven them and I will bring them back to the grasslands. They will be fruitful and increase in number. I will appoint shepherds who will take care of them. No longer will they fear or be terrified. No one will be lost. The day is coming when I will raise up a king who is David’s righteous successor. He will rule wisely and govern with justice and righteousness” (Jer 23:3-5). It is the announcement of the Messiah who will be a true shepherd, a king after the heart of God.

Jesus’ statement “I am the good shepherd,” with which today’s Gospel begins, refers explicitly to the fulfillment of this prophecy. He is the shepherd sent by God to take care of the people who are like sheep in disarray (Mk 6:34).

A first explanation is added to the allegory: “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (v. 11).

The parable of the lost sheep is well engraved in our mind. It is narrated by Matthew and Luke (Mt 18:12-14; Lk 15:4-7). It is easy to associate the image of the “good shepherd” with Jesus who, with gentleness and immense compassion, goes in search of those who did wrong in life.

In today’s Gospel, however, the “good shepherd” is not one who is tenderly caressing the wounded sheep, but is the fighter who, at the cost of his own life, confronts anyone who endangers the herd. The reference is not to the bucolic scene of the psalm: “I will bring them back to the grasslands” (Ps 23:2), but to the figure of David who, as a young man, faced the lion and the bear that carried off a sheep. He pursued and knocked them down and plucked the victim from their mouth (1 Sam 17:34-35).

This is characteristic of strong and fearless man who is fighting against bandits and against the wild beasts which today’s gospel takes in to present Jesus.

The qualification of “good” does not refer to feelings; it does not mean sweet, lovable, but “real”, “authentic”, “brave”. Jesus is the true shepherd because he is tied so passionately to his sheep and ready to sacrifice his life for them.

To give the image even more emphasis, Jesus contrasts it with the figure of the mercenary (vv. 12-13).

The villagers, unable to lead to pasture their sheep and goats, resorted to a waged worker who took care of the flocks of all. Strict legislation specified his responsibility: he had to deal with a wolf, two dogs, a small animal, but he could flee from a lion, a leopard, a bear or a thief. In his contract there was no clause to willingly sacrifice his life for the sheep. He did not have an emotional attachment to the flock, and at the face of danger, as soon as he was allowed, he fled; he was not interested in the fate of the sheep, but the salary.

The similitude of the “Good Shepherd” is not directed only at one who carries out in the church the ministry of the presidency, but to every Christian. Every disciple must have a heart of a true shepherd; he/she must cultivate the unconditional generosity of the Master with regards to persons.

The one who has a mercenary’s heart adheres to the minimum requirements set in the contract, quibbles over the duties more or less circumvented, and is faithful to the edicts of the law to obtain a reward or avoid a punishment.

Whoever has a heart like Jesus does not count the cost. He does not ask where his rights reach and where his duties end; what rules are laid down and what are the arrangements with the owner. A unique law follows: the “foolish” love for persons. Love knows no boundaries; it does not stop in the face of any obstacle, risk and sacrifice. Who does not love as Christ has loved will never understand his choices and his proposals; he shall judge him a dreamer, a person under illusion, an imprudent dreamer, a reckless one.

In the second part of the passage (vv. 14-16) Jesus repeats the affirmation “I am the good shepherd” to add a second feature. The true shepherd is one who knows, one by one, his sheep and is known to them.

In the Bible, the verb to know does not only have the meaning of learning. When referring to the relationship between people, it implies a profound experience, indicating the total involvement in love. It is a matter of the heart than of the mind.

This is also true in the relationship with the Lord. In writing to the Galatians, Paul reminds them that once they did not know God, but they were subjected to idols, and he continues: “But now that you have known God, or rather he has known you, how can you turn back to weak and impoverished created things?” (Gal 4:9). If you have entered into a communion of life with him, as the bride with the groom, how can you break away from his love?

Jesus is the Good Shepherd and anyone who gets involved in love for God and the brothers and sisters with the same passion.

The day in which the entire human race will make this experience of reciprocal knowledge. Jesus knows that there are still many people who did not accept his love: “I have other sheep which are not of this fold,” but a true shepherd like him will never give up to lose even one of his sheep. For this he assures: “these I have to lead as well, and they shall listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock, since there is one shepherd” (v. 16).

If this statement is taken seriously, it becomes difficult to argue that even a single man can shirk from the love of the one shepherd.

In the last part (vv. 17-18) the theme of freedom, present in this dynamic of love, is developed. Where there is coercion and fear love does not appear and the fear of God is already a sin.

Jesus showed his love because he freely gave himself: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down freely. It is mine to lay down and to take up again” (v. 18).

“To take it up again” means that the fate of the one who gives life is not death, but the fullness of life. Making it a gift is the only way to “recover it.” It’s the same principle that, with another image, will be taken up later: “Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Those who love their life destroy it, and those who despise their life in this world keep it for everlasting life” (Jn 12:24-25).
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Good Shepherd Sunday

TODAY IS KNOWN AS GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY because, in each year of the liturgical cycle on this 4th Sunday, the Gospel is always taken from the 10th chapter of John where Jesus speaks of himself as the “good shepherd”.
In today’s passage Jesus emphasises the self-sacrificing element in his own life: “The good shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep.” He contrasts the good shepherd who owns the sheep to someone who is simply hired to look after them. The hired man thinks primarily of his own welfare and, if he sees a wolf coming, he takes off, leaving the sheep to be attacked and scattered in fear and terror. Jesus, on the other hand, will not be like a hired person: “I lay down my life for my sheep.” Perhaps he contrasts himself with those mercenary religious leaders among his own people – and to be found in every religious grouping – who do just what is expected of them but have no real commitment or sense of responsibility to those in their charge.

He knows his sheep

Secondly, the good shepherd knows his sheep and they know him. There is a mutual bond of love and intimacy. That love is compared to the deep mutual relationship that exists between Jesus and his Father. “My own know me just as the Father knows me.” Again the hired man or the self-interested leader will not have such a relationship with his charges. The Second Reading speaks in similar terms when the author says, “Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children, and that is what we are.”

One shepherd and one flock

Thirdly, the good shepherd deeply desires that many other sheep should come to identify themselves with him. “There are other sheep I have that are not of this fold, and these I have to lead as well.” The ultimate goal is that “there will be only one flock, and one shepherd”, that the whole world will be united together with its God and Lord. This is the meaning of the Kingdom which is at the heart of the Gospel message.
This is a goal which preoccupies us still today. There are still so many millions of people who have not yet heard the message of a loving God, a God who sent his only Son to die for them. They seek meaning and happiness in their lives by pursuing all kinds of other goals which inevitably turn to ashes: material abundance, status in the eyes of others, power over others, mistaking pleasure and hedonism for happiness…
In so doing, they reject Jesus the Good Shepherd. “Because the world refused to acknowledge him, therefore it does not acknowledge us.” This is something we must learn to accept as a fact, even if it is hard to understand and even harder to take.
No matter how closely we follow in the footsteps of our Shepherd, in fact, the more closely we follow him, the more likely it is that we will be rejected and even attacked. More tragic still, however, there are so many people who claim Christ as Lord, many of them very good and sincere people, who are often divided, even bitterly divided among themselves.
Here, more than anywhere is there a need for all to follow one Shepherd and form one flock. Otherwise how can we give witness to the love of Christ if that love is lacking among the servants of Jesus?
Lastly, there are those who, though incorporated through baptism into the Body of Christ, consistently behave in a way which totally distorts people’s understanding of Christ and his call to discipleship, fulfilment and happiness. Probably, most of us have at one time or another failed in our call to give witness to the truth and love that is to be found in Christ.

Giving life willingly

Jesus emphasises that, in giving his life for his sheep, he is doing so of his own will. It is not just by force of circumstances. His death is to be the living proof that “the greatest love a person can show is to give one’s life for one’s friends”. This is the proof that Jesus truly is a Good Shepherd.
On the face of it and looked at with purely secular eyes, the life and mission of Jesus seemed an utter failure. Even Jesus’ friends and admirers must have shaken their heads in sorrow as they saw him die on the cross. Jesus himself said “It is finished.” But, for him, the words had a completely different meaning.
As Peter tells the assembled Jews in the Temple in today’s First Reading, “This is the stone rejected by you the builders, but which has proved to be the keystone. For of all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved.”
As Jesus himself says in the Gospel today, “I lay down my life of my own free will, and as it is in my power to lay it down, so it is in my power to take it up again.” And so it was. The Second Reading contains part of an address Peter gave in the Temple after he and John had cured a crippled beggar at the Temple’s Beautiful Gate. The healing of the man in the name of the crucified Jesus through the agency of Peter and John is the proof that Jesus is risen and working among us.

Vocation 

Lastly, all of this is intimately linked with the second theme of this Sunday. Not only is it Good Shepherd Sunday, it is also “Vocations Sunday”. On this day we are especially asked first of all to pray that the Church may be provided with the leaders needed to do its work of spreading the Gospel.
We know that at the present time there is a critical shortage of such leaders, at least in the traditional sense – priests and religious. But, while we may earnestly pray that our Church be supplied with the leaders it needs, there can be a tendency among us to pray that OTHERS may answer that call. We do not see ourselves as included. We may pray earnestly for more young people to offer themselves as priests and religious but clearly exclude our own children.
But the problem is a wider one. We have for too long given a much too narrow meaning to the word ‘vocation’. We tend to limit it to a calling to be a priest or a member of a religious institute. But, in fact, every single one of us has a vocation. For most of us, probably, it is what we are now doing be it as spouses, parents, teachers, doctors, civil servants, running a business, salespersons… or whatever.
Nevertheless, each one of us should be asking ourselves today:
Is what I am spending my energies on every day my real vocation?
Is this what God wants me to be doing with my life?
How is what I am doing giving witness to my Christian faith?
What contribution am I offering to making this world a better place for people to live in?
To what extent am I a spreader of truth, of love, of justice, of freedom, of tolerance and acceptance…?
And, if I am in a position which would be difficult to change (as a spouse or parent or holding a particular job), how, within that situation, is God calling me to greater service of my Church and my community? Am I giving something through my life or am I just using society (and even the Church) to get what I want?
God is calling every single one of us to work for the Gospel. For a small number it may be as a priest or religious – and that call can come at any time in one’s life. But there are hundreds of other ways of serving the Church and helping to build up the Christian community. Where is God calling me to make my own unique contribution based on the particular talents God has given me?
If every single one us were to answer that question sincerely and to act upon it, I am confident that our Church would have all the leadership it needs.
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