Good Shepherd Sunday

We are living in a time of liminal space. Richard Rohr defines liminal space as “being betwixt and between, having left one room or stage of life but not yet entered the next.” This can be triggered by a death or loss, a sickness, moving through stages of life (ie.- childhood to adolescence, adolescence to adulthood) or having your whole world interrupted by a pandemic. All our systems are on hold and, when they come back online, they surely will be different from what they were before.

During these weeks and months, we have come to realize that the “old normal” that we depended on is gone. We do not have as much control as we thought we did. The silences and lack of distractions bring us to places within ourselves that we have not visited for a long time – or have never visited at all. We are plunged into a place of disquiet, but also a place of grace. We do not grow or move unless our “go-to” comforts and ways of coping no longer work (disquiet) but we are invited to move on to something new and life-giving (grace).

In today’s Gospel, I am struck by the image of the shepherd who calls to his sheep. The sheep recognize his voice and follow because they recognize the shepherd’s voice. They will not follow the voice of a stranger. As a Catholic, I am finding a great void in the way I am used to hearing the shepherd’s voice. No longer can I experience the fellowship of Mass and reception of the Eucharist. The weekly shot of holiness and encouragement from a good homily is missing. I imagine it is the same for all people of faith – the loss of being together in churches, temples or mosques; the communal expressions of faith and support that get us through the week.

But maybe what is happening during this time of solitude, this time of taking down and reconfiguring the pieces of our lives in silence and contemplation, is a new birth of faith. Maybe it’s God telling us that it’s time to move the Church out of the buildings and carry it within ourselves to others. Cardinal Bergoglio, on the day before his election as Pope Francis, quoted a passage from the Book of Revelation in which Jesus stands before the door and knocks. He added: “Today Christ is knocking from inside the church and wants to get out.”

The voice of the shepherd is calling to us, in all our Religious Traditions, to transform our social distancing – which is a physical presence, into a connection between our God and our sisters and brothers. We are being called to follow and to act, to be the presence of our God to others in whatever way possible, be it phone, emails or yelling out our windows.

God has given us this liminal space, this slowed down time of re-create and renew. Let us use it to listen to the shepherd’s voice.

Bro. Damian Novello, OSF