Pilgrims of Hope Series
“Good Shepherd Sunday” is the Fourth Sunday of Easter, and we are currently only entering into the Third. But perhaps this Sunday’s Gospel reading anticipates next week’s, for today the Risen Christ tells Peter to feed his sheep. And this, Augustine comments, “It is by loving the sheep that you show your love for the shepherd.”
And it’s Eastertide.
And it’s springtime.
And we’ve recently buried our own good shepherd, Pope Francis, into the Earth he so loved.
And we’re praying so hopefully for his yet-to-be-elected successor.
And really, we’re always praying for the Christ-seed to finally sprout, for His salvation to have its eternal Spring.
So, in the middle of this Jubilee Year of Hope, maybe now is just the moment to debut our own “pilgrim ponderings”!
Once each month, for the remainder of the Jubilee Year, we’ll post our sisters’ reflections on Hope. What is hope? For what are we hoping? What gives us hope? What does hope look like? Or sound like? Does hope even have a smell? (As Pope Francis famously suggested, maybe hope is the smell of a shepherd who smells like his sheep!)
We hope that our small sharings will express our solidarity – solidarity with Pope Francis who inspired us, with the Church he fed, with the sheep he sought, and with each other – on the way of, with, and to Christ.
Pilgrim Ponderings: May
In keeping with the Church’s nine days of mourning for Pope Francis, one of our sisters fashioned a loving memorial to him in our cloister, lighting a candle in the early darkness of every morning and faithfully freshening the flowers of each day. She whispered a song in the silence, Laudato si’ – Glory be!
Another sister finds hope in his own words:
“To live in hope requires knowing how to discern, everywhere, evidence of hope,
the breaking through of the possible into the impossible –
of grace where it would seem that sin has eroded all trust.”A third sister shares a quote from Pope Francis’ 2024 Christmas Eve Homily, which he delivered only a short while after he officially opened the Jubilee Year’s door:
“Christian hope is not a cinematic ‘happy ending’ which we passively await, but rather, a promise, the Lord’s promise,
to be welcomed here and now in our world of suffering and sighs.
It is a summons not to tarry, to be kept back by our old habits, or to wallow in mediocrity or laziness.
Hope calls us – as Saint Augustine would say – to be upset with things that are wrong and to find the courage to change them. Hope calls us to become pilgrims in search of truth, dreamers who never tire,
women and men open to being challenged by God’s dream,
which is of a new world where peace and justice reign.”May it be so! As we listen to the Gospel today, may we-smelly-sheep indeed heed Jesus’ gentle, firm voice:
“Follow me.”