Shepherding Us to Faith, Hope, and Charity: Sunday Reflection

This morning’s Gospel reading is John 10:27–30:

Jesus said:

“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

 What a propitious Gospel reading we have today!

I started the Sunday reflections 11 years ago, almost exactly a year after the previous conclave that elected Pope Francis. Covering that in person from the Vatican at least partly inspired my decision to spend my weekends in contemplation of the Gospel and Mass readings from the Catholic lectionary. Being present at the selection of the next shepherd of Christ’s church on Earth brought me closer to my faith in subtle, and perhaps not so subtle ways. 

This week, even though I covered the conclave from Texas rather than Rome, I felt some of those same workings of the Holy Spirit. It also reminded me that people see conclave in other ways as well, not just as spiritual exercises and acts of faith, but also (understandably) as a political process, or perhaps more banal, as an organizational reshuffling. Those who are oriented toward viewing it through the latter prisms have had plenty of material in support of analysis based on those characteristics. Some of them are well worth reading, because the Catholic Church is a vast organization, and as is true of any human organization of significant size, politics plays a role … although organizational politics matter more than ideological politics in most organizations. 

Given the circumstances of the past week, this seems like a good opportunity to step a little outside the Sunday Reflection norm and view the conclave through its lessons in shepherds, trust, and the beauty of the faith. Today’s readings give us space to consider the election of Robert Cardinal Prevost to Pope Leo XIV not so much through a worldly prism, but through the scriptures, and give us a lesson of trust and hope.

The image of Christ the Good Shepherd goes back to the earliest days of the Church. Icons of the Good Shepherd have been found in the catacombs where Christians were allowed to be buried during the Roman Imperial era. Today’s Gospel reading has rung down through the ages as the enduring metaphor not just for Jesus Christ but also for His Church. 

However, Christ ascended into Heaven, while calling on His apostles to wait for the Holy Spirit to come to them to start the Great Commission — to “go and make disciples of all nations.” They went back to Jerusalem and immediately held what could be called the first conclave of sorts: they cast lots to replace Judas Iscariot and restore their number to 12. How did they do so? They conducted a retreat and prayerfully asked for the Lord’s guidance, even before the Pentecost and the arrival of the Paraclete (Acts 1:20-26). They put their trust in the Lord to guide them, with Peter leading the effort as the rock on which Jesus founded His Church. 

This came even before the Holy Spirit came physically upon them to grant them authority and power to proclaim the Gospel and begin the Great Commission. The eleven apostles chose Matthias as their 12th, raising him up to what we would now call the episcopate. This is the biblical model of a conclave: a retreat by the leadership of the church, prayers that ask for the Lord’s guidance, and utter trust in His promise that His Church cannot fail — even if its members do, occasionally or repeatedly. 

This reminds us that the Lord is always our true Shepherd. Conclaves are organized and centered on that truth. Despite some misapprehensions abounding in media, the point of the series of retreats before the Extra Omnes and closing of the door and the retreat that takes place in the Sistine Chapel is to discern where Christ wishes to lead His church in the next pontificate. That does not guarantee a perfect person as Pope; in fact, it’s impossible in this world to meet that standard. The cardinals — spiritual descendants of the original apostles — commune in the same way that the Eleven did to determine who would replace Judas as the twelfth apostle for the next phase of the Church. They rely on the Holy Spirit, and try to find the shepherd-regent who can best keep the flock together and to find all of the Lord’s lost lambs along the way. 

In that sense, rather than attempt to tell the Church what is needed in the next pontificate, we should perhaps follow the model of the conclave and discern what the Holy Spirit is telling us in this choice. Our responsorial psalm today comes from Psalm 100, with the response, We are His people, the sheep of his flock:

We are his people, the sheep of his flock
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands; serve the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful song.
Know that the LORD is God; he made us, his we are; his people, the flock he tends. 
The LORD is good: His kindness endures forever, and his faithfulness, to all generations.

Again, this seems like a providential choice for this week, one made over 40 years ago when creating the modern lectionary. (Protestant authorities were also consulted in its creation, according to David Philippart.) This clearly matches up with the Gospel reading, but again it matches so well with the process that unfolded this week and the natural unease and concern around it that it can be seen as a gift of the Holy Spirit as well. This reminds us again that all of us are the “sheep of His flock,” and that has implications for how we approach the anointing of Christ’s shepherds. We are called first to place our trust in the Holy Spirit, as He connects us each to the Trinitarian life and the Lord’s unending love and kindness for us. 

That does not mean we follow shepherds blindly, of course; the Gospels have a few words on false shepherds too. However, it does mean that when the entire church leadership (or at least its highest leadership) covenes in discernment and communion to receive the guidance of the Paraclete on leadership, we should respond in trust and gratitude for the grace we are given in its result. 

And what about Pope Leo XIV himself? Let’s step away from the scriptures in this one reflection and see what the man himself had to say, both immediately and in the exercise of his ministry for over four decades.

As Cardinal Prevost, Pope Leo XIV dedicated himself to the poor in Peru and to discernment about church leadership while in the Vatican — both excellent experiences for a pontiff.  The choice of Leo as his regnant name also sends a hopeful signal that the new Pope will focus on both the plight of workers and the defence of the nuclear-family model, while castigating exploitation and attacks on both from various economic and political movements. Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum in 1891 was a massively important encyclical that defended the dignity and necessity of intact families whose labor provided both benefit and dignity to their lives, in part by landing firmly on the side of private property and workers’ rights. Pope Leo XIV explicitly linked himself to Leo XIII and Rerum Novarum yesterday:

Pope Leo XIV explains his choice of name:

“… I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.… pic.twitter.com/bI4F1EBIS8

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) May 10, 2025

One can read Rerum Novarum for themselves at this link. Pope Leo XIII castigated greed, but also the envy and class warfare of the socialists, who were beginning to become a political force at that time. The encyclical offered a stirring defense of private property as a means to defend workers and their families. Paragraph 4 would turn out to be prophetic just a few decades later, as farmers and laborers would shortly discover in the Soviet Union, and later in “workers’ paradises” like China, Cuba, Cambodia, and other places:

4. To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.

If Rerum Novarum will guide Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate, that will be good news indeed. 

But again, let’s put those considerations aside for the moment and finish our reflection by returning to the spiritual journey of the past three weeks since Pope Francis’ passing. The problem we all have is one of perspective, of “see[ing] through a glass, darkly,” as Paul wrote to the Corinthians in his first letter. We only see the challenges behind us and those immediately at our face, not the long arc of salvation in its totality. The Lord sees it all, just as a good Shepherd will know the way home when the flock can only see the hill that blocks the view. The Holy Spirit has given us a shepherd-regent to live among us and guide us in the way of the Lord. Time will tell whether Pope Leo XIV executes this mission faithfully, but for now, we need to remain in prayer and keep faith in the Lord, who will shepherd us all home.

This is what the conclave calls us to rekindle: faith, hope, and charity, to our new shepherd-regent and to all of our brothers and sisters on the journey. We can do worse than to spend one weekend marveling at the beauty of this process and its result.  

Previous reflections on these readings:

“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature that looks at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.