Good Shepherd Sunday 2007

“Follow me, and I will make you Fishers of Men.”

By Fr. Anthony Denton, Director of Vocations, Archdiocese of Melbourne.

The Vocation to the Service of the Church as Communion
Every year on Good Shepherd Sunday the Church considers especially the vocations of Priesthood and Religious Life. This year in his message for the 44th World Day of Prayer for Vocations Pope Benedict XVI invites us to reflect on the vocation to the service of the Church as communion.

The Pope writes: “Thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit, all the members of the Church form “one body and one spirit” in Christ. This people, organically structured under the guidance of its Pastors, lives the mystery of communion with God and with the brethren, especially when it gathers for the Eucharist.”  The Pope shows how communion – oneness with God and neighbour – serves to build up the Church. The more the Church grows closer to the God of love the more the heart of the believer is compelled to respond in generous self-giving. When we are attentive to this notion of communion vocations are more likely to flourish. “Whoever lives in an ecclesial community that is harmonious, co-responsible and conscientious certainly learns more easily to discern the call of the Lord.”

Gospel of Vocation
Pope John Paul II described the account of the call of the disciples Andrew and Peter in John’s Gospel as the “Gospel of Vocation”.  In Matthew’s Gospel a similar scene is described: “As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately, they left their nets and followed him. (Matt 4: 18-19)

The Gospel of vocation is the good news – the life-giving news – that every baptised person is indeed called personally by God to a mission in life. Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman captured the essence of this mission in a well-known reflection:

“God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission - I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it - if I do but keep his Commandments.”

Baptism and Mission
This mission belongs to all the faithful in virtue of their incorporation into the Body of Christ, the Church at Baptism. The Catechism explains it thus: “Reborn as Sons of God, [the baptised] must profess before men the faith they have received from God through the Church and participate in the apostolic and missionary activity of the People of God.”  In this way there is no Christian that does not have a specific vocation to holiness and a mission to spread the Gospel. All Christians, as disciples of the Master, have a responsibility to live out their baptismal promises, renewed every Easter, in faithfulness and sincerity. This includes a participation in the pastoral work for vocations to the priesthood. Pope Benedict wrote recently in this regard: “The pastoral care for vocations needs to involve the entire Christian community in every area of its life.”

Vocation to a State in Life
In addition to this general vocation, which stems from baptism, Christians also have a vocation to a state in life. Marriage, Religious Life (as a priest, sister or brother) or Diocesan Priesthood are the three vocations to a state in life that the Church recognises. It is the purpose of this vocation to provide the means to living out the universal call to holiness of all the faithful.  While each of these vocations is valid and necessary the Church has always described the vocation to priesthood as a higher calling. This does not mean that priests are better than anyone else nor that the priesthood is necessarily a more difficult path to follow. It refers to the fact that the priesthood is a supernatural vocation; God is the initiator of the call. The authentic calling from above to the Priesthood must be marked by a profound desire to imitate the sacrificial love of God which leads Jesus to Calvary.

The Gospel of vocations also provides the paradigm of the priestly vocation, whereby a man seeks Christ, finds him and stays with him. As the Church prays for vocations we trust that young men supported by their families and ecclesial communities will meet Jesus in the Holy Eucharist and, in the words of Pope Benedict, “Let themselves be conquered by his gaze and his voice, and accept his pressing invitation to Follow Him that He will make them fishers of men!”