HW: Who will the shepherds of tomorrow?

A reflection for Good Shepherd Sunday, based on John 10:1-10, written and spoken by Kieran J. O'Mahony OSA. 

Gentle piano music to close the meditation

Transcript

John’s Lane
D08 F8NW
26 April 2026
Good Shepherd Sunday
John 10:1-10

Welcome
Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. As you know, parishes around the country are being gathered into larger, co-ordinated units. The immediate cause is the shortage of people coming forward for ministry. However, such re-organissation is not at all new across the wider Catholic world. Already in France and Germany, Nigeria and Brazil, the United States and Canada, parishes are looking at new ways of working together. Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, a good day to reflect on the future of the faith community in any one place.

Topic
What is at stake here?

Steps
The easy temptation is to simplify the project and turn it into a merely managerial problem: how will Mass is made available, let us imagine, across a number of communities of a particular parish partnership or “family”. But, in my opinion, it would be a mistake to let the Mass schedule or the number of priests in full-time work determine how we see the future and what steps to take.

A bigger vision is called for. The temptation is always there to go into management crisis or survival mode. But something bigger is at stake, which can be summed up in one word “evangelisation”, the handing on of a living faith, alive in the community of believers. The crisis could become a great opportunity to re-set the whole faith project. As we struggle to imagine our future and struggle with painful adjustments, it might help to ask three basic questions;

What do we believe?
What are the greatest needs in this area?
How can those needs be met?

Instead of fighting our own corner — how much of what is good in each place can we hold on to — we need to work towards a shared assessment and shared vision. This means have the courage to lift our sights beyond my parish, my needs, my own routines and begin to imagine something larger, something more visionary.

We do not lack for vision. If the Gospel proclamation about God in Jesus, his teaching and his death and resurrection, is true, then this must be at the heart of all we do. This Good News is incredibly rich: values, ethics, a vision of society, care for creation, deepest meaning, leading to (some of the time at least) exuberant celebration. Like the disciples in the Acts, we will continue to tell the story. In fact, we tell two stories: the story of Jesus in all its richness and the story of each one of us, as we look for direction and meaning, love and joy. It is our conviction that the thread of each of our lies is part of the greater tapestry of the Gospel.

As we lift our sights and engage with the Gospel project, we need to ask practical and pastoral questions:

Who will lead the community?
Who will teach and preach the faith?
Who will celebrate for us each Sunday?
Who will guide us in prayer and spirituality?
Who will be there for us at the birth of our children?
Who will accompany us at times of transition and tragedy?

We are not at all alone in this. Not only are other parts of the church facing exactly the same problems but we also have at the universal level the Synodal Pathway — a mostly realistic assessment of where we find ourselves and what our hopes are.

The hope is that after many centuries of excluding the gifts of the whole membership, now is the time for people to come forward and offer their gifts and energy for the well-being and flourishing of the whole community. This both old and new: a vision of a servant church, going back to the example of Jesus himself. It is new once more in our time: we are (re)discovering the Gospel of service, at this critical juncture in our world and in our church. In a word: we cannot hope to build the future by micro-waving the past. The challenge will be to stay in communion, keep alive our tradition of faith and reason and not to let any kind of Catholic fundamentalism take over.

My own sincere hope is that we change the whole way we function as a church, including who may be admitted to ordained ministry and under what conditions. My own hopes are pinned on the Synodal Pathway, even though the church does move excruciatingly slowly. Pope Leo has yet to show his hand but at the very beginning of his ministry, he signalled support for the Synodal Pathway. 

Conclusion
Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. In the tradition, it is the day of prayer for vocations to priesthood and religious life. Today, we know that very, very few are heeding that particular call, even though it can lead to great personal happiness. Instead, we have to think more widely of the community as a whole and the vocations of all the members. After the long season of the clerical church since the time of Cardinal Cullen, we are now moving towards a more participative model, and while this evolution may be triggered by a crisis, it is also a moment of grace. Let us embrace it!