The Shepherd’s Alleluia

Kathlyn Mulcahy, OP

The sheep listen to the Shepherd’s voice who calls the sheep by name and leads them out [of the sheep pen].    John10:1-10

My image of the Good Shepherd as a man carrying a helpless sheep on his shoulders was unconscious and mostly unchallenged until I lived in a rural Andean village.  Then I learned that the shepherd is often a woman or even a child.  The voices of these shepherds taught me to listen and recognize the Shepherd’s voice in unexpected places.

I must confess that I would still sometimes rather let myself off the hook by identifying with the sheep riding securely on the Good Shepherd’s shoulders than actually follow the Shepherd.  The call to follow the Shepherd invites me to become a shepherd—even when that means standing out in a storm (of racial profiling and systemic injustice to my brothers and sisters), walking through the muck (of shepherding legislation for sensible gun control or environmental measures), and shouldering the burdens of those who are most vulnerable.

The Shepherd’s call is an Alleluia song of LOVE for all people and for all creation, and in it I recognize the call to love in the same all-inclusive and unconditional way, wherever such love leads me.