Thought for the week - 11 May 2025

This Sunday we call ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’ and for good reason, but it is also sometimes reduced to a plea for clerical vocations, which debases the readings we hear and leads us on to the dangerous clericalism that equates clergy with shepherds and everyone else as sheep. It is not to be so with us! The early church used the Good Shepherd, rather than the Cross, as its symbol and it is certainly the best known image in the New Testament with roots deep in salvation history: David, the boy shepherd, was chosen to be king of Israel; he was the anointed leader of the people of God, to guide and lead them towards God and his kingdom.

The same early Church in its ministry of living the Good News of the Kingdom of God had perhaps encountered difficulties - what is true and what is false teaching. Great concern for the people of God is expressed; if the people are misled, if they are persuaded by a false voice, they could be prevented from attaining the Kingdom of God – in other words, how do we know, in the midst of the confusion of this world and its many competing voices even in the wider church, if it is the voice of Christ we hear most clearly?

This concern was expressed also in last Sunday’s Gospel, when Our Lord appeared again to the Twelve after his rising again from the dead. The answer we were given is love. If you love me, you will feed my sheep, and the answer is so critical that Peter is made to give it three times, the third of which contains his confession of faith ‘you know everything’ – ergo, you are God. Last Sunday’s Gospel was also about the large catch of fish and about eating; Jesus prepared fish and bread and invited them to eat, this reminds us that the shepherd leads his flock to where they can eat, grow and develop, not to infantilise or spoon feed them.

The Apostles would also remember the last time they were with Jesus before his death, when they were with him on Holy Thursday, in the upper room for the last supper and the first Eucharist; he fed them, they were in communion with him, united. They would also, however, remember their subsequent behaviour, because Judas betrayed him, Peter denied him, and the apostles abandoned him. When Peter was asked three times if he loved him, he would have remembered that he denied him three times. There were problems in the early church as there are problems now, and they revolve around shepherds who are wolves, priests and bishops who had accepted the call to be shepherds and betrayed the trust placed in them. This great scandal reminds us of the universal call to share in the shepherding, the guiding of the Church, and that we are called to lead and serve at the same time, to be involved in the world as it is and to point it to how it could be, but to do so authentically, not as an elite semi removed from it. Smell of the sheep, as Pope Francis often said, be together, be one.

When Pope Saint Gregory the Great was elected Bishop of Rome, he shrank from what he called ‘this intolerable burden’. But he did accept and became a great pastor. We now know that some who undertook the great responsibility of pastoral care were quite unworthy, that they betrayed the command given to Peter and the apostles to guide, lead, teach and cherish and led into darkness. Do not let this happen to you, question your shepherds and make sure you share that burden with them, you are not only sheep, but you are also shepherds, we are all partly sheep because we follow Christ, who gave us all a charge to love each other. I was so happy to hear Pope Leo XIV on Thursday night, when he said, ‘To all of you, brothers and sisters of the whole world, we want to be a synodal Church, a Church that walks, a Church that always seeks peace, always seeks charity, always strives to be close especially to those who suffer’. Well, may God bless him and keep him.

And as for wolves and predators, well, Jesus did warn his disciples that he was sending them out as sheep in the midst of wolves. And we have always suffered from a double danger, liable to attacks from the outside from wolves and robbers and from false shepherds or leaders within, who have agendas that are theirs and not Gods. You see, the Bible doesn’t say that bad things won’t happen to Christians. It’s not ‘if I walk through the darkest valley” but “Even though I walk I through the darkest valley” which seems to suggest that it is more of an occupational hazard than a rare occurrence.

Don’t treat the Good Shepherd as one of the Emergency Services coming to our aid when we’re in a bad place. Our Good Shepherd is with us as we wander through the green pasture as well, and life is so much more blessed when it’s lived in the knowledge that God’s presence is with us always and when we love each other.

‘And surely I am with you always,’ says Jesus in Matthew 28. ‘..to the very end of the age.’ And as Pope Leo said, ‘This is the peace of the Risen Christ: a disarming peace, humble and persevering, it comes from God, God who loves us all unconditionally. God loves us, God loves you all, and evil shall not prevail. We are all in God’s hands. Yes, we are all in the hands of the Good Shepherd and we are all called to share in that work.