Fourth Sunday of Easter – Cycle B
Reflecting on John 10: 11-18
This world is lousy with bad shepherds. I’m thinking especially of those people who make their fortunes herding desperate people onto overloaded boats, and locking hundreds of them in steerage, knowing they will drown when the leaky ship capsizes. I’m thinking of “coyotes” who take a year’s pay to load people up in vans, and then leave them, with no water or food, in the desert to die.
Those are the bad shepherds. But the world is also bursting with great shepherds. I’m thinking of those who work to get Congress to pay more attention to poverty at home and abroad. Visit them at www.results.org.
I’m thinking of Harvard grad siblings Riley and Nick Carney, who began their life’s work breaking the chain of illiteracy by helping to build three schools in Africa, and organizing groups who donated more than 25,000 books to American inner-city schools, before either of them reached the age of twenty-one.
The good shepherds at www.againstmalaria.com buy anti-malarial bed nets for needy families. The website at GlobalGiving lets you browse, and contribute to, life-saving projects being done around the world. And at www.one.org you can join petitions backing evidence-based spending on global health.
The list goes on. I know you can add your own good works to it. I don’t know one single person who isn’t making sacrifices in order to help lighten the load of someone else. So, on this Good Shepherd Sunday, resolve to maintain your energies for good, and take courage against the terrors of this world. For behold, we have a Good Shepherd who has overcome the world.
In what good works do you find energy and strength?