Good Shepherd_Our Vocation and Love of Mothers

I can say that the highlight of my past week is hearing these two words: “Habemus Papam!”  Thanks and praise to God! for Pope Leo XIV, the new shepherd of the universal church.  Fittingly enough, today we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday.

Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”  To better understand the meaning and significance of this analogy – Jesus is the shepherd and we are the sheep of His flock, let me tell you a true story…

A man went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.   When he was in the city of Bethlehem, he watched two shepherds caring for their flocks of sheep.  To his amazement, at the end of the day, he watched the shepherds put their respective flocks in the same cave — the sheep intermingling with each other.

Wondering how the shepherds would ever be able to separate the sheep, the pilgrim arose early the next morning to observe. He watched while one of the shepherds walked some distance from the cave. At a certain point, the shepherd gave a particular call and immediately his flock ran out to him. The sheep knew the shepherd’s voice. Together, shepherd and sheep went on their way.

Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

The question for you and me is this:  Are we familiar with the voice of Jesus – The Good Shepherd - in our lives?  If not - Whose voice have we been listening to and following?

There are so many other voices out there trying to get our attention – convincing us that this or that way of life will lead us to happiness, or freedom or truth or sense of fulfillment.

Today – we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday and fittingly enough, we also celebrate the annual “World Day of Prayer for Vocations” – and on this day -we are reminded, as baptized Christians, that our central vocation is both a call to holiness and to service - either as married, or single, or as priests, or as deacons or in consecrated or religious life - to give our lives in service as followers of Jesus Christ…

All vocations flow from baptism… Through the sacrament of baptism each person receives a “call” or vocation. God calls each one of us - who are baptized - to holiness and service.   

We are the Church – the People of God and today – we are reminded that: “The vocational reality of the Church calls for a deep respect for the complementarity and interdependence of all Church vocations” (joint U.S. and Canadian pastoral plan to create a culture of vocations in North America).

Meaning – “the Church is a community and a communion of different vocations (married life, single, priests, deacons or religious), and so all its members need to be concerned about and committed to the flowering of all vocations in the Church, and not merely their own.”

We are many parts; we are all One Body…different gifts but of the same Spirit…

In each vocational commitment we are called to be loving and supportive of one another… again, regardless of the state of life you are in.

And so – on that note - I thank God for the gift of your vocations as I thank God for the gift of my own vocation.  Thank you for the many ways you witness God’s love to me in your own vocation…

So - let us pray for vocations in our Church. We need committed men and women who believe that their call to be single, or to be married, ordained or to be in consecrated life is actually from God. We need to support each response of vocation and make sure each kind of vocation is an encouraged and viable option for our children… to consider.

So - How do we discern our vocation?  How do we help others discern their vocation?  How do we prepare ourselves to respond and to remain faithful to our vocations? – to what God is calling us.

First, through Personal Prayer – spending time each day in prayer – we cannot emphasize this enough – spending time with God talking to God and asking for wisdom to know His will and for the courage and strength to do His will.  Listening is important in prayer…. Not just telling God but listening to God in prayer.

Another way is through Communal prayer, like our Mass, our Eucharistic celebration, through frequent reception of the sacraments, the reading of scripture, listening to the teachings of the Church, educating ourselves in the faith, and being of service to one another.  These are ways in which we can more readily discern the Good Shepherd’s voice in our daily lives.

Ultimately, a vocation is not defined by “doing” but vocation is a matter of  “being.” – a matter of the heart. We are called to live our lives in a generous response to the One who gave us life.

We also need to realize – what it means to be faithful to our own vocation - as we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel – what Jesus told Peter:  “Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted;  but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”

Meaning – when we decide to follow Jesus – as we continue to follow Jesus – in whatever state of life we are called to – Jesus will take us to “where we would rather not go” – even out of our own comfort zone… to do things we would rather not do… to forgive the people we would rather not forgive; to help people we would rather not have anything to do with.

As St. Francis de Sales said: “A good vocation is simply a firm and constant will in which the person has to serve God in the way and in the places to which Almighty God has called him.”  - meaning – not according to our own plans or agenda… but according to God’s will… that is why we need to pray and to listen to God everyday… that is when you are the happiest when you live the will of God.

As we strive to remain faithful to our vocations – we also need to remember -

the reality is – at times - circumstances of life are beyond our control- life’s challenges – at times - are more than we can manage or handle.

- We do not have all the answers to all of life’s questions.  We cannot solve all of the problems, and we cannot carry all of the burdens with our own strength.

- and sooner or later, we find that we are not as strong as we think we are… and we realize our weakness or the limits of our own strength , and so - we, like the sheep, must depend on the Good Shepherd… the Chief Shepherd of the flock, our Risen Lord Jesus Christ.

That is a very humbling realization to realize that truth about ourselves and yet such a comforting thought that our Shepherd is dependable. 

We only need to Trust the Good Shepherd.  He is faithful and trustworthy.  He is the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for His sheep.

On that note: In the Spirit of Celebrating Mothers’ Day:

From a Proverb: “A mother understands what a child does not say.” … so true.

St. Therese of Lisieux said that the loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother.

All of these meaning - Mothers are the embodiment – Mothers are the living sacraments of God’s love.

A mother’s love is unconditional. Our mothers love us whether we are beautiful or ugly, smart or dull, able-bodied or handicapped; our mothers love us whether we are a success or a failure in society, whether we are grateful or ungrateful.

All these qualities of a mother’s love are for us a foretaste of God’s tender and untiring love for us. And this is what we are celebrating… on Mothers’ Day.

We are celebrating Mothers’ Day because through our mothers’ hands, God cares for us when we are in need; through our mothers’ mouths God speaks to us words of consolation when we are heartbroken; through our mother’s heart God pours out to us His unconditional love that never gives up on us.

So, we acknowledge and we appreciate – cannot appreciate them enough - all mothers – and we say, “God bless you all mothers.”  We thank and praise God for you, mothers.

But – this is very important to keep in mind - of course, we cannot and should not forget spiritual mothers because it is a fact of life that there are women who cannot literally or physically be mothers – because of one reason or another… but they are so motherly – even more motherly than real mothers - in their own way.

And so I say to all of you: Happy Mothers’ Day! God bless…