Dear Brothers and Sisters, good day!
The evangelist John, on this Fourth Sunday of Easter time, presents to us the image of Jesus the Good Shepherd. Contemplating this Gospel passage, we can understand the kind of relationship that Jesus had with his disciples: a relationship based on tenderness, love, mutual understanding, and the promise of an incomparable gift: “I came,” Jesus says, “so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (Jn 10:10). This relationship is the model both of relations between Christians and of human relations.
Many today, as in Jesus' time, are proposed as “shepherds” of our existence; but only the Risen Christ is the true Shepherd, who gives us life in abundance. I invite everyone to trust in the Lord to guide us. But He doesn’t just guide us, He accompanies us, He walks with us. Let us listen with open mind and heart to His Word, to feed our faith, to illuminate our conscience, and to follow the teachings of the Gospel.
This Sunday we pray for the Pastors of the Church, for all bishops, including the Bishop of Rome, and for all priests, for all; in particular we pray for the new priests of the Diocese of Rome, who I ordained a little while ago in St. Peter's Basilica. Greetings to these thirteen priests! May the Lord help us, us pastors, to be ever faithful to the Master and to be wise and enlightened guides of the people of God entrusted to us. And you, too, please, I ask you to help us. Help us to be good pastors. Once I read a beautiful thing about how the people of God help the Bishops and the priests to be good pastors. It is a writing of St Caesarius of Arles, a father of the first ages of the Church. And he explained how the people of God should help the pastor, and he gave this example: when the calf is hungry, it goes to the cow, to the mother, and takes the milk. But the cow does not give it right away: it seems that she keeps it for herself. And what does the calf do? It knocks with its nose against the cow’s udder, so that the milk comes. It’s a beautiful image! That, the saint says, is how you should be with the pastors: knocking always at their doors, at their hearts, so that they will give you the milk of doctrine, the milk of grace, the milk of guidance. And I ask you, please, bother [it: importunare = importune] the pastors, disturb the pastors, all of us pastors, so that we will give you the milk of grace, of doctrine, and of guidance. Bother us! Think of that beautiful image of the calf, how he bothers the mother so that she will give him to something to eat. In imitation of Jesus, every pastor “will sometimes go before his people, pointing the way and keeping their hope vibrant; the pastor should go ahead at times. At other times, he will simply be in their midst with his unassuming and merciful presence. At yet other times, he will have to walk after them, helping those who lag behind” (Apost. Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, 31). Would that all Pastors would be like that! But you, bother the pastors so that they will give us the guidance of doctrine and grace!
This Sunday marks World Day of Prayer for Vocations. In this year's message I stated that “every vocation… always requires an exodus from oneself in order to centre one’s life on Christ and on His Gospel” (n. 2). For this reason, the call to follow Jesus is both exciting and challenging. So one must realize it is always necessary to enter into a profound friendship with the Lord to be able live in Him and for Him.
We pray that in this time, so many young people might hear the voice of the Lord, which is always in danger of being suffocated by so many other voices. Let us pray for the young people – perhaps here in the Piazza there is someone who has heard this voice of the Lord that is calling him to the priesthood. Let us pray for him if he is here, and for all the young people that are like that.
Regina Caeli, Sunday, May 11