This is the edited text of the homily given by Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP for the Mass of the fourth Sunday of Easter Year A for Consecrated Life at St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney 26 April 2026.
Sheep and goats. They were crucial for Ancient Near Eastern communities: the health of the flock determined the wealth, even survival, of the individual, tribe, nation. And so, to call God ‘the Shepherd of Israel’ was to say He cared deeply about our welfare. Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd, and many other biblical passages, celebrated God’s protection in an often-hostile world of ‘deserts’, ‘wolves’ and ‘thieves’. It also challenged political and religious leaders to imitate God in their ‘pastoral’ concern for their subjects, especially the weak: to be a shepherd-king or a shepherd-priest meant total dedication to the flock.
Which was all very well for ancient Jews and early Christians, but can limp as an analogy for modern discipleship. None of us would find it flattering to be compared to sheep and goats. Though our Australian economy, like ancient Israel’s, once “rode on the back of the sheep,” nowadays we only encounter sheep at the Royal Easter Show or as our Sunday roast! They are there to be fleeced or devoured. We think of them as unintelligent and expendable. If I said this congregation was ‘a bunch of sheep’ with ‘sheepish grins’, you wouldn’t be flattered!
Even the word ‘shepherd’ is alien to Australian farming and we certainly don’t expect our stockmen to know their sheep by name: when you’ve got thousands of them roaming on tens of thousands of hectares that’s impossible. So, what is our talk of sheep and shepherd supposed to conjure up for us?
In our Gospel today (Jn 10:1-10), Christ tells us what He means by such talk. He does not romanticise the shepherd’s calling. Some shepherds, He says, are false, self-serving, even harmful. A good shepherd is one who enters the fray ‘by the gate’ rather than breaking in; in other words, he is an appointed leader, not an interloper. He works ‘in the open’, in the light, rather than craftily, in the dark. He cares for his charges, rather than seizing what is not His. He defends them, if needs be even with His life. And the sheep recognise all this, that he knows and cares for them and their interests. He calls each by name, because to him they are not just numbers but known and loved individuals. He walks ahead so they might follow and keeps them safe, not scattered. So, to be shepherded by Christ is to be known, loved, and led, not abandoned, exploited or driven.
When Catholics think ‘shepherds’ and the ‘pastoral’ office, they think bishops and priests—those ordained to teach, sanctify and lead Christ’s flock. Fair enough. Yet there is a broader shepherding in which all the faithful share: every Christian teaches by their words and deeds, hopefully in service of the truth; every Christian sanctifies by offering prayers and sacrifices; every Christian leads and serves by acts of mercy towards others. While the clergy mostly minister within the Church (ad intra), to the lay faithful, the lay faithful must witness outside (ad extra), in the world. And consecrated religious live on the cusp between the two, often ministering in both places.
Consecrated religious built much of the religious and social infrastructure of this country. Many of us were blessed to have known and been influenced by them. I had a great aunt a Mercy Sister at the Mater and she was matriarch of our family. Four religious orders had a hand in forming me at school, several more at a tertiary level, and another formed me as a friar and priest. I am hugely grateful to them for their witness to faith and love. I count it a very great loss for the Australian Church that the number and impact of our religious have declined; we must never resign ourselves to this as inevitable. Their reduced footprint has cost our Church in holiness and evangelical creativity.
One of the proposals from the faithful of Sydney to be considered at our forthcoming Archdiocesan Synod is that we do more to introduce new religious communities and grow existing ones in our diocese over the coming years. I pray that that will be so.
Thirty years ago, this past month, Pope St John Paul II promulgated his great Apostolic Exhortation on the consecrated life, Vita Consecrata. The communion of the Church, he pointed out, is enriched by three ranks of the ordained, many religious charisms, and various states of life. To maintain that rich diversity, each must understand and be faithful to their particular vocation as well as those things common to us all.
Reflecting upon the complementarity of the priesthood and religious life, John Paul observed that the clergy are ordained to be images of the Incarnate Son, head and shepherd, guiding us in these now times; but that religious are professed to be images of the Eschatological Son, pointing us towards the not yet times. Theirs is “the goal towards which all things tend, the splendour before which every other light pales, the infinite beauty which alone can satisfy the human heart”.
From early in the history of the Church, monks and nuns have pursued a radical spiritual life, in imitation of Christ. Their spiritual combat by prayer, asceticism and living the beatitudes transfigures human life in expectation of the vision of God. They make visible the marvels wrought by God in frail humanity of those called.
The contemplative nun at prayer, the brother feeding the poor, the sister teaching in the classroom, the hermit practising his asceticisms, the religious priest at the altar – each, in their own way, offers a compelling image of the transfigured life. They shepherd others in the love of God less by argument or authority than by attraction. They show that God is real, that He is worth everything, that He satisfies the human heart as nothing else can. In recent times, Pope Leo XIV has echoed this conviction by highlighting the “often-hidden daily actions” of consecrated men and women that illuminate God’s great plan for peace and salvation.
For this is the heart of Easter: that the Good Shepherd, who laid down His life for us, is now the Glorious One who has taken that life up again; He walks ahead of us still, calling each of us by name. Whatever our vocation, may each of us listen for His voice amid the noise of our days; and may our religious, by the quiet radiance of their consecrated lives, help the whole Church to follow Him home.
