Good Shepherd Sunday

 

The Fourth Sunday of Easter marks the 60th Anniversary of the World Day of Prayer for Vocations instituted by Pope Paul VI in 1964. Parishes are especially encouraged to include prayers for an increase in vocations to the priesthood and religious life in the general intercessions on that day and the homily may focus on vocations.

Pope Francis in his message for the 2023 World Day of Prayer for Vocations says, “This year I would ask you, in your reflection and prayer, to take as your guide the theme “Vocation: Grace and Mission”. This Day is a precious opportunity for recalling with wonder that the Lord’s call is grace, complete gift, and at the same time a commitment to bring the Gospel to others. We are called to a faith that bears witness, one that closely connects the life of grace, as experienced in the sacraments and ecclesial communion, to our apostolate in the world. Led by the Spirit, Christians are challenged to respond to existential peripheries and human dramas, ever conscious that the mission is God’s work; it is not carried out by us alone, but always in ecclesial communion, together with our brothers and sisters, and under the guidance of the Church’s pastors. For this has always been God’s dream: that we should live with him in a communion of love.

Dear brothers and sisters, vocation is a gift and a task, a source of new life and true joy. May the initiatives of prayer and of activity associated with this Day strengthen an awareness of vocation within our families, our parish communities, our communities of consecrated life, and our ecclesial associations and movements. The Spirit of the risen Lord dispels our apathy and grants us the gifts of sympathy and empathy. In this way, he enables us to live each day born anew as children of the God who is love (cf. 1 Jn 4:16) and in turn to offer that love to others. To bring life everywhere, especially in places of exclusion and exploitation, poverty, and death, in order to enlarge the spaces of love, so that God may reign ever more fully in this world.”

On this Good Shepherd Sunday may we always be grateful for those who have shepherded us throughout our lives.  May we always be willing to shepherd others.