The
Church gives us images and symbols that speak to us on our journey of faith. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, there have been shepherds who have been
called to serve the people of Israel. Moses
was working as a shepherd, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, when
the Angel of the Lord visited him and called him to the special task of
bringing the people out of bondage in Egypt. Many
generations after Moses, God sent the prophet Samuel to the household of Jesse
where he would find the youth whom God had chosen to be king. After meeting all the older brothers, it was
revealed to Samuel that the chosen king was a youth named David who was serving
as a shepherd in the fields, caring for his father’s flock of sheep. And
at almost every Catholic funeral, one of the readings we hear is the 23rd
Psalm – the Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. These
images of shepherd inform our minds and our imaginations, they foreshadow the
coming of Jesus as the Good Shepherd who is there to lead us and guide us.
Indeed, in the Gospel of John today, Jesus asserts that he is the good shepherd
who will lay down his life for his sheep, who will gather them together and
protect them. I
think that Jesus as our Good Shepherd takes on a different tone today than
maybe it did just a decade ago. We
hear stories of martyrs throughout history, of Christians being condemned for
their faith or having their voices silenced, but I think we hear in the United
States always took our Christian faith for granted, especially in the light of
the religious freedom that seemed to be the backbone of our society. Then
we started to see our country starting to become more secularized. We started seeing our openly criticized and
condemned. We are realizing that we can
no longer take the freedom to practice our faith for granted. We hear stories about Christians being martyred for their faith in
countries in the Middle East and North Africa. How
does Jesus the Good Shepherd speak to us in this new reality that we are
facing?
Just
as the image of the Good Shepherd tells a story in the midst of the reality we face as modern Christians, the stole I am wearing tells a
story as well. Back
in 1973, the democratically elected government in the country of Chile was
overthrown by a military coup under General Augusto Pinochet. People
were arrested and tortured and even murdered by the governmental authorities,
and those who saw these things happening were afraid to speak out. A group of women approach the Vicariate of
Solidarity, a special office of the Catholic Church that was set up to help the
people in these difficult times. The
ladies developed a new art form called the arpillera, which took small pieces
of fabric and that told the story of what was going on in their country. They
shipped these arpilleras throughout the world in order to tell their story and
to alert others what was going on. Everyone has a story, and from these bright colored panels depicting different
events in Jesus’ life on my stole, you would never know the history behind it. These
ladies never gave up hope. They never gave
up faith. They saw Jesus leading them
and guiding them as their Good Shepherd, leading them to reach out to others
and to speak out against the injustices they saw.
Today, as we hear these stories of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, we celebrate the
World Day of Prayer for Vocations. The
Church has been celebrating this day of prayer for more than 50 years. As we
think about vocations today in the context of Jesus as the Good Shepherd
leading us and guiding us, as the one who laid down his life for us, the flock
he shepherds, we think of the need we have for shepherds and leaders in our
faith. This
weekend, I am celebrating three baptisms of infants and young children who are
receiving the sacrament of initiation of our faith. We
celebrated the First Holy Communion of 34 children who are receiving Jesus in
that special way for the time in their lives. And
this morning, in our 10:30 mass, we are celebrating the awarding of the Eagle
Scout honor to Tripp Toole, a youth was is a parishioner here at St James and a
member of our parish’s Boy Scout troop. These
are all moments in our lives where Christ is present to us in a special
way. And they are all moments that point
to the vocation that Christ calls us to as well. Without Jesus as our Good Shepherd, without a relationship with him, we will
never hear his voice calling out to us. There
are probably some members in our parish whom God is calling to become priests
or deacons or consecrated members of a religious community. There may be some
whom God is calling to be lay leaders and lay ministers. Whatever our vocation in life, we need to
hear where Jesus is calling us in the context of that vocation.
How
is Jesus our Good Shepherd? And what
different does that make in our lives?
Those are good questions for us to ponder on Good Shepherd Sunday.
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