11TH MAY 2025

Dear Parishioners

I hope you have had a lovely week and I ask you to pray in a special way for our 1^st Holy communion and confirmation young people as they make their final preparations to receive their sacraments.

Today, Good Shephard Sunday is also the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. The church invites us to pray for vocations on this Sunday pairing these two themes inviting us to reflect on Jesus’ idea of the call to serve using the image of the Good Shephard.

In Israel at the time of Jesus there were two types of Shephard. The hired hand was just a worker, merely performing a function. In any real danger he would run to save his own life. He did not know the sheep because they were not his. Then there was the Shephard who was owner of the flock. The sheep belonged to him, he knew his sheep, he was devoted to them, when faced with danger he would fight, even risking his life to save his sheep.

Jesus invites us in all our vocations, where we are called to serve, whether in our family, our church, our work or in the community, to model ourselves on Him the Good Shephard. To care for others with the heart and care and compassion of Jesus, the Good Shephard. We can do this by belonging to Him, by knowing Him, by developing our relationship with the Shephard and learning to recognise His voice. I invite you take some time this week to spend with Jesus our Good Shephard and learning to listen to Him.

On this Good Shephard Sunday, as we pray in a special way for the call to serve of our new Pope, we pray for a Shephard of the church with the heart of Jesus and perhaps this poem/prayer by the poet Malcolm Guite ‘I am the Good Shepherd’ can guide us:

When so much shepherding has gone so wrong, So many pastors hopelessly astray, The weak so often preyed on by the strong, So many bruised and broken on the way, The very name of shepherd seems besmeared, The fold and flock themselves are torn in half, The lambs we left to face all we have feared
Are caught between the wasters and the wolf. Good Shepherd now your flock has need of you, One finds the fold and ninety-nine are lost. Out in the darkness and the icy dew, And no one knows how long this night will last.
Restore us; call us back to you by name, And by your life laid down, redeem our shame. Have a Blessed week

Ann Marie, FMVD