4th Sunday of Easter

 My thought for today, regarding what is know often as Good Shepherd Sunday, is why do the sheep need a shepherd? To understand this, from a New Zealand perspective, what is life like for wild sheep in this country? These sheep live in mountainous and difficult places. If they are not shorn of their wool they grow huge and unwieldy  fleeces. Even if they are not threatened by wolves they must face multiple threats and live in uncomfortable situations. By contrast, the sheep that have a shepherd are drenched for diseases and parasites. They are kept secure by fences and have, for most of the time, fresh and green pasture to feed on. They are shorn of their wool in the right season so they do not become overburdened by their fleece. It is a given that sheep are killed for their meat but it is also the case that the farmer wants the best for the sheep and is alert to their needs. When we use this as a metaphor of faith it is clear to us that people can "survive" without faith. Nevertheless, wandering on the mountains of doubt and atheism, unbelievers are prone to anxiety, despair and fear. The hopelessness of lives devoid of ultimate meaning opens up individuals to drug abuse, retail therapy and other forms of addiction to keep the boredom and hopelessness of atheism at bay. We see that existentialist atheists like Camus and Sartre wrote of the need to face the absurdity of life with dignity or Nietzsche who believed we need to create our own morality after the "death of God." The sort of "dignity" and "superman morality" that these philosophers suggested appears to be in short supply. When we consider our own position as Catholics we are no better intrinsically in terms of our human ability to resist evil or cope with addictions. However, we do have the voice of the shepherd: "Jesus said: 'My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.' " (Jn 10: 27) This voice is heard in the Scriptures, the Tradition and the Papal Magisterium. If we listen to that voice we will know security and joy because the shepherd loves us: "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand." (Jn 10: 28-29)  Our Lord also gives us gives us shepherds in the form of the Pope and the bishops. Let us pray for them that they will lead us faithfully according to the mind of the Good Shepherd and that we will have sufficient priests to feed us with the Holy Eucharist.