Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality (CACS)'s Podcast
The Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality (CACS) is a centre for research and formation that promotes spiritual formation and renewal, drawing on the rich resources of the venerable Carmelite tradition.
It is an apostolate of the Anglo-Irish Province of the Discalced Carmelites, based at the Carmelite Priory at Boars Hill, Oxford, England.
OUR MISSION
CACS strives to achieve its mission through structured study and formation programmes in spirituality from the Carmelite perspective, especially Prayer and Spiritual Direction. At the Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality, you are welcome to enter into the silence where God’s voice is heard in prayer, word and sacrament, inviting you to journey ever more deeply into a place of growth and wholeness. Our goal is to bring people to experience a life-transforming friendship with God through a lived experience of Carmelite spirituality that is authentic to its biblical roots.
Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality (CACS)'s Podcast
Good Shepherd Sunday
GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY
Word & Wisdom is a weekly reflection on the Sunday’s scriptures and the wisdom of the Carmelite tradition. It promises to offer you real spiritual food to sustain you on the journey.
This Word and Wisdom Podcast is brought to you by the Centre for Applied Carmelite Spirituality, Oxford (carmelite.uk.net).
To receive audio and written copies, subscribe by emailing podcasts@cacs.org.uk
To connect with our Living Prayer Podcast on Youtube, kindly click: https://www.youtube.com/@CACSOxford
Today we celebrate the Good Shepherd Sunday. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who never leaves his flock untended. The readings of today make this practical and visible.
The psalm tells us that we are his people, the sheep of his flock. Truly God has called all of us into his sheepfold. We are members of his flock.
Everyone is included and no one is excluded except anyone who chooses to exclude oneself. The first reading shows us the universality of this call and invitation. Paul in his speech accuses the Jews of rejecting the message of salvation.
Already it was in the original plan of God to incorporate all nations, race, tongue. However their rejection of the gospel facilitated and quickened the mission to the world by the apostles. God chose the people of Israel as his firstborn so that through them other nations may come to know and worship God.
Saint Paul quotes Isaiah 49.6 to remind them of their initial call and vocation which they have rejected. I have made you a light for the nations so that my salvation may reach the ends of the earth. This universal call of God is apt in our second reading.
John sees a multitude impossible to count from every nation, race, tribe and language. It is no longer the Jewish people that felt they had the privileged position of being the only chosen people of God. By accepting Jesus, by receiving baptism we become children of God.
Those whom he has redeemed with the precious blood of his son. However belonging to this flock could bring about persecutions. We could be buffeted from every side by those opposed to this mission of Christ.
John tells us that the multitudes are the people who have been through the great persecution and have washed their robes white in the blood of the lamb. It is ironical and paradoxical to wash oneself clean in blood. It means they have been purified and chastised through participating in the sufferings of Jesus Christ.
In all this the Good Shepherd always tends to them and brings them comfort. The Gospel passage brings vividly the role of the members of the flock. The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice.
I know them and they follow me. And the reward of being faithful to the Shepherd is eternal life. Dear friends, the question we need to ask ourselves is whose voice do we listen to? Who do I follow? There are many voices today calling on us and instructing us to follow them.
Many of these voices certainly lead us astray and away from God. Which do we incline to? To really listen to the voice of the Shepherd we need to attune our ears to him and get accustomed to him. Other voices may be louder and deafening but the voice of the Good Shepherd is always persistent, consistent and penetrating.
It is heard in silence. This listening however is paramount to following him. It is not enough to listen but it must be followed by a conscious effort to follow his lead.
The good news is that we are rest assured of the security he offers when we follow him. Safe in this knowledge that they cannot be taken from the hand of the Shepherd, those who hear his voice follow as faithful believers willing to go where God leads and sends them. When the clamour of false and seductive voices threatens they remain faithful and resolute because they know the voice of the Shepherd to whom they listen very carefully.
Let us then strive to listen carefully to this voice of the Shepherd calling us and sending us to become a light to others so that his salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. Let us not shy away or reject his call. If we have not heard his call or his voice then it is because we have not listened to him or we are still distracted by the noise around us.
Let us pray therefore for the grace of listening and following the Shepherd that the eternal life promised may come.