4th Sunday of Easter Year A: Good Shepherd Sunday
If only I could hear that voice that calls to me. Loves longs to be heard and responded to. Love longs for tangible encounter. It is a call to be what I created for - to love and be loved. Jesus’ call of love beckons me to my vocation. At the centre of the Christian life is knowing the person of Jesus Christ. His voice is part of who I am, the beating heart of my life. And when I hear it, it is so familiar to me that I have to follow it. Jesus goes ahead to where I want to go. To live one’s vocation is to respond to love by living it to the full.
I take on the qualities of Christ the good shepherd not through my own merit, but by following his voice. I imitate the shepherd in my vocation. I imitate his real, true love. Think of the image of the shepherd. The shepherd loves his flock all the way, even to the bitter end. He literally lays down his life for his sheep. He is willing to suffer and risk it all out of love for those who are in his care. He chooses the life of the sheep over his own life. So fundamental is this sacrificial love that it purifies and orders all other desires and intentions. The Lord leads us on the meaningful purpose-driven path to green pasture.
If you feel the call to a vocation, be open to the love of the Good Shepherd. Respond in love to his call, recognising within you that Jesus is leading you somewhere. Find in that vocation the way in which you are called to imitate the love of the Good Shepherd, the love which gathers others to God. Follow the path of sacrificial love by which you are willing to lay down your life so that you may have life and have it to the full.
Fr William Loh, O.P. Chaplain for Monash University.
