Fourth Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)

Jesus says: I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. In your twenties, the gate image is exactly right. You are standing at doors all the time - career doors, relationship doors, vocational doors. The question is which doors lead to pasture and which lead to the thief who comes to steal and slaughter and destroy. Jesus says there is one gate that leads to the saved life, and he is it. Not a philosophy. Not a system. A person. You enter through him - through his teaching, his sacraments, his community - and on the other side of the gate is pasture.

Today is the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, and the Good Shepherd Sunday is traditionally the day the Church prays for priests, deacons, and religious. If you are in your twenties and the shepherd's voice has been nudging you toward a vocation you have not yet acknowledged - the priesthood, religious life, the diaconate, marriage as a vocation rather than a cultural expectation - today is the day to name it. The shepherd calls his own sheep by name. He may be calling yours.

Peter says: the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off. In your twenties, you are one of those far off who has been called. The distance between you and the shepherd is not a disqualification. It is the space across which the voice carries. He is calling from the pasture. You are hearing from where you are. The gate is open.

On this World Day of Prayer for Vocations, name what the shepherd has been saying to you about the direction of your life. Not what the culture says. Not what the anxiety says. What the shepherd says. If you cannot hear it, the ear needs training: five minutes of silence, asking one question: Lord, what are you calling me to? Then listen.

Lord, you are the gate and I am standing at a lot of doors. Help me hear your voice among all the others. On this day of prayer for vocations, I ask the question: what are you calling me to? I listen. I follow the voice I recognize. Make yours the loudest. Alleluia. Amen.