Category: Year A

Sheep and shepherds feature as a strong metaphor in our Readings for this Sunday.

I recall a time when I was studying in the US and was present at a Sunday Mass in the Diocese of Trenton, NJ.

As luck would have it, the Gospel of the day was the gospel we proclaim today (John 10: 1 – 10).

The homilist was a Scripture scholar from the diocesan seminary. It is a homily I have never forgotten. He began his homily with these words:

“There’s was a practice among shepherds in Israel that existed at the time of Jesus and is still in use, in parts today, that needs to be understood in order to appreciate what Jesus says about himself as the Good Shepherd.

“Sometimes very early on in the life of a lamb, if a shepherd sensed that this particular lamb is going to be a congenital stray and forever be drifting away from the flock, he deliberately breaks its leg so that he, the shepherd has to carry the lamb until its leg is healed.

“By that time, the lamb becomes so attached to the shepherd that it never strays again!”

I have no means of verifying the validity of the shepherd’s practice, however it got me reflecting; maybe there is a deliberately “broken bit” in me that is my conduit into a relationship/attachment with Jesus.

When I reflect on the Gospel stories, I notice the broken people come to Jesus ‘in their brokenness’, and leave healed.

I, through my silly theology, have desperately tried to hide away this “broken bit” to present an acceptable and pleasing face to Jesus.

Will I let Jesus carry me until I am healed?

Today is the World Day of Prayer for Vocations.

For many, this day of prayer encourages prayer for more people to enter religious life and/or priesthood.

“If we pray more and with greater earnestness more will ‘enter’”.

Vocations has never been a numbers game, rather it is a question of attentive listening.

One of the facts that people seem to dismiss from the equation is quite simply, “There are fewer persons to hear the call!”

The average number of people per New Zealand household is 2.7 people, which has remained unchanged since 2006.

I invite you to enlarge the possibility of those for whom we pray.

Let us pray for a listening ear and a generous heart for women and men throughout our world, attentive to the vocational call of the Good Shepherd – a call to the single life, to a life lived in the commitment of married love, to a life lived through the vocation of religious life, to a life lived through the vocation of the ministerial priesthood.

Each of these vocations is of equal value.

One is not more efficacious than the other.

Let each of us hear again the foundational call of Christian women and men through the baptismal grace that names us daughters and sons of God.

Also, have you seen a shepherd work a flock without dogs? Dogs are pretty much essential to a shepherd’s work. It might be advantageous this Vocations Week to pray for sheepdogs as earnestly as we pray for shepherds.

Is it by chance that we celebrate the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ on the Sunday immediately following the feast of the Trinity? Or maybe there is something more to it?

There is a famous icon written by the Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev. It is known as the icon of the Trinity. The icon’s original title was, and in fact still is, known as “The Hospitality of Abraham” and was written in 1411. The story of Abraham and Sarah’s generous hospitality to three visitors who came to them by the oaks of Mamre is told in Genesis 18.

An examination of this icon suggests (to me at least) that there is an intimate relationship between the Trinity and Eucharist. As the icon is written the three persons are seated around a table in an attitude of harmony and peace; the very lines of the icon create a circle within which the unity of the persons, the manner of their presence to one another, is visible. At the focal point of the icon there is a cup between them on the table. It is a wonderful use of symbol and suggestion. The Trinity hints at the Eucharist. It is as if the divine persons were saying: be one with one another as we are one. (See John 17:21) To make the invitation even clearer, there is an empty place at the table.

We are being invited and drawn into the inner life of the Trinity, to sit at that empty place at God’s table. Jesus is the way; the Spirit is the inner urge to move that way. “No one can come to the Father unless the Father draw them” (Jn 6:44). Commenting on this in the fifth century, St Augustine wrote: “He did not say lead, but draw. This ‘violence’ is done to the heart, not to the body…. Believe and you come; love and you are drawn”.

Have you ever gone for a walk early in the morning and noticed the leaves and flowers with a gentle covering of moisture on them? I am sure it didn’t rain during the night!

Or, you have been for a walk along the beach on an early summer morning and paused to sit awhile and need to wipe a gentle layer of dampness off the seat?

In the forest of early morning, there is the sound of a persistent drip!

It is called dewfall.

Each evening, the earth cools, and the moisture in the atmosphere transforms into condensation, forming the dew that will cover the ground,

The dew manages to reach each and every blade of grass, piece of clover, twig, sleeping caterpillar, car, and item left out on the clothesline, dead leaf, bottle cap, pebble and furled up fern that happens to be outdoors — every single one, for miles and miles.  All those tiny drops!  If it’s there, the dew is going to cover it.

In lands prone to aridity, the morning dew is a vital gift for the agricultural cycle, especially in the hot summer months. For them, it stood for cleansing, renewal and regeneration.

In our Scriptures, “like the dewfall” is a powerful image. We find it in psalms and prophecies and prayers of blessing.

In the prophet Hosea, we read, “God spoke through Hosea: “I will heal their defection, I will love them freely; for my wrath is turned away from them. I will be like the dew for Israel: He shall blossom like the lily” (Hos. 14:5-6).

In Eucharistic Prayer II, at the moment known as “The Epiclesis”, the presider prayers:

“Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall.”

Traditionally we have strong, powerful images for the Holy Spirit and for Pentecost, eg wind and tongues of fire.

This Pentecost, I invite into an alternate image of the Holy Spirit – dewfall.

The Spirit, as the dewfall, arrives in a very quiet, unseen, mysterious unobtrusive, indiscriminate, and gentle way, Like the natural dew, the Spirit reaches everywhere, everything, and everyone.

Tonight, as the earth cools and the moisture in the atmosphere transforms into condensation, forming the dew that will cover the ground, let us pray that God’s Spirit rest on us as gentle dewfall.

Have you ever walked early in the morning and noticed the leaves and flowers with gentle moisture covering them?

I am sure it didn’t rain during the night!

Or, you have been for a walk along the beach on an early summer morning and paused to sit awhile and need to wipe a gentle layer of dampness off the seat?

In the early morning forest, there is the sound of a persistent drip!

It is called dewfall.

Each evening, the earth cools, and the moisture in the atmosphere transforms into condensation, forming the dew that will cover the ground,

The dew manages to reach each and every blade of grass, piece of clover, twig, sleeping caterpillar, car, item left out on the clothesline, dead leaf, bottle cap, pebble and furled-up fern that happens to be outdoors — every single one, for miles and miles.

All those tiny drops!

If it’s there, the dew is going to cover it.

In lands prone to aridity, the morning dew is a vital gift for the agricultural cycle, especially in the hot summer months. For them, it stood for cleansing, renewal and regeneration.

In our Scriptures, “like the dewfall” is a powerful image. We find it in psalms and prophecies and prayers of blessing.

In the prophet Hosea we read, “God spoke through Hosea: “I will heal their defection, I will love them freely; for my wrath is turned away from them. I will be like the dew for Israel: He shall blossom like the lily” (Hos. 14:5-6).

In Eucharistic Prayer II, at the moment known as “The Epiclesis”, the presider prayers:

“Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall.”

Traditionally we have strong, powerful images for the Holy Spirit and for Pentecost, eg wind and tongues of fire.

We are invited into an alternate image of the Holy Spirit – dewfall.

The Spirit, as the dewfall, arrives in a very quiet, unseen, mysterious unobtrusive, indiscriminate, and gentle way,

Tonight, as the earth cools and the moisture in the atmosphere transforms into condensation, forming the dew that will cover the ground, let us pray that God’s Spirit rest on us as gentle dewfall.