Easter 4 marks the midpoint of Eastertide, and the focus of our readings now shifts from Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances to what it means to live a life shaped by faith-based purpose. Today we begin the theme of vocation with the readings of Good Shepherd Sunday. Traditionally, ordinations were held on this day as a reminder that priests’ work is meant to imitate that of Jesus, who called himself a shepherd; accordingly, another name for this day is Vocations Sunday. The biblical image of shepherding can feel foreign or outdated to us, but when Scripture speaks of God and human rulers as shepherds, it simply draws on the most immediate and concrete experience available to people in the ancient Middle East, where many patriarchs, judges, and kings tended sheep. 

And so today, we still call church ministers pastors—not because lay people are “sheep” in an unflattering sense, but because this form of leadership is meant to be grounded in the qualities that make a shepherd “good”: attentiveness, relational care, and self-giving. My own ordinations to the diaconate and priesthood both took place on this Sunday (on different calendar dates, due to the variable timing of Easter), and so each year this double liturgical anniversary reminds me of my vocation and the pastoral qualities I continue to cultivate in order to serve well.

This year, however, the ordination of deacons, including that of Jonathan, will take place next week. Instead, on Good Shepherd Sunday afternoon, our Diocese has chosen to hold its confirmation service, where two children from our parish will be confirmed. That is because both ordination and confirmation fit naturally within the theme of Good Shepherd Sunday. There are clear parallels between these rites, as both are sometimes misunderstood as a “graduation,” but in reality, both mark a beginning—a movement from being carried by the community to participating in its life intentionally. To me, both sacraments resemble discovering a treasure that has always been present in our hearts. They mark a willingness to listen: to one’s life, to one’s community, and to the movements of God within both, though neither provides instant clarity or certainty, or even a clearly defined ontological change.

This inner treasure quest, coupled with the posture of attentiveness, is, to me, what shepherding, ordination, and confirmation all have in common. Both are strikingly illustrated in Santiago, the protagonist of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Santiago is a young Andalusian shepherd who dreams of a treasure supposedly hidden near the Egyptian pyramids. Encouraged by a mysterious figure, Melchizedek, he sells his flock and sets out. Along the way, he is delayed, misled, inspired, and ultimately guided by a character known as the Alchemist. And when he finally reaches the pyramids, he realizes that a treasure chest had been buried all along near the place where he began.

We, too, tend to imagine that meaning, fulfillment, or transformation lies in a different stage of life or a different version of ourselves. Yet often it becomes clear that the treasure is already here with us: in relationships, in worship, in care, and in the ordinary lives of families and communities. As an interesting coincidence, just as I was reflecting on The Alchemist earlier this week, my husband told me a real-life story he had just learned. In 2010, an art dealer named Forrest Fenn hid a chest of gold and gems worth over one million dollars in the Yosemite area and published a poem with clues to its location. Thousands set out to find it, and several died in the attempt, for which he has been criticized. Yet many later spoke about how the search itself became the true treasure: time spent in nature, relationships strengthened—including children with disabilities and dogs trained to sniff out bronze!—skills learned, and a renewed attentiveness to life. Just as Santiago did find a chest of gold, but discovered that his deeper treasure lay in the intentionality and confidence gained in pursuing his dream, and in the relationships he formed along the way, so too in this real-life story, the chest was found by one person, while the transformation was experienced by many.

It is rare to find this kind of treasure alone. Parents, teachers, mentors, friends, role models, and spiritual guides all help us recognize it. In The Alchemist, Melchizedek is a symbolic figure drawn from Genesis. There, he appears as a priestly king to greet Abraham—a nomadic shepherd, leader, and warrior—with bread, wine, and blessing in what we now recognize as a proto-Eucharistic scene. Likewise, Santiago names his dream and takes the first step toward it with Melchizedek’s help. Another small but telling parallel is that he asks Santiago for a tenth of his sheep, echoing Genesis, where Abraham offers him a tithe. This may seem transactional, but it reflects that responding to a calling involves a concrete act of commitment. In the Church, we still speak of tithing, even if not in exact measure, as a way of expressing the willingness to offer something of value as a sign that we are taking the journey seriously.

Santiago could not set out without the blessing of Melchizedek, and he would not come home without the guidance of the Alchemist. Alchemy, in its historical sense, is the attempt to transform ordinary matter into gold. The Alchemist guides Santiago so that his life experiences—loss, work, love, fear, courage—are transformed into the “gold” of wisdom, intentionality, and connection. Paulo Coelho’s own life has followed a winding path: from a Jesuit schoolboy to a law-school dropout, from a hippie to a self-identifying Catholic, albeit often criticized for relativism and pantheism. But it was his pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago that transformed his faith and writing. Perhaps Coelho named his shepherd protagonist after the patron saint of pilgrims—Santiago is the Spanish form of St James —but still, he titled the novel after the Alchemist, the guide. Some of us may even hold an image of God as a guide; one who reveals, accompanies, and points the way, yet entrusts the work of transformation to each of us, pilgrims walking the path.

The archetypal theme of a treasure quest is easy to interpret and apply to our lives and faith. But the fact that Santiago begins as a shepherd also matters. Shepherding trains a particular way of being in the world. It requires noticing changes in weather and in the behaviour of the flock, living with uncertainty and responding as needed. A shepherd guides, but also learns from what s/he tends. As the novel puts it, Santiago “had learned that sheep could teach him,” and “he had always believed that sheep were able to understand what he said.” Over time, this becomes the ability to listen not only to the world around him, but to his own heart. Santiago does not stop being a shepherd; rather, he transitions from tending animals to recognizing the internal movements of his own life and, eventually, as the novel suggests, to understanding “the language of the universe.”

Likewise, a priest is not simply someone who performs sacred tasks or manages the practical life of a parish. Beneath those visible responsibilities lies a discipline of attention: noticing one’s own thoughts and insights, discerning where life is present or struggling in others, and watching where it is beginning to grow within a community. We do not create that life. We learn to recognize it, protect it, and guide it toward what will sustain it. We seek to help people remain attentive to hope and dreams, persevere when life becomes difficult, and recognize and celebrate what is emerging in their lives. As Santiago says, “I may not be as strong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.” I, too, have learned a few tricks over the past decade or so, but I have come to see that beyond personal resilience, skill, and accumulated experience, the strength of this vocation is found most fully in the life of the community itself.

To summarize, the Good Shepherd is not a distant ideal, but a way of being for all of us: attentive, responsive, and committed to the care of others. Whether in confirmation, in ordained ministry, or in the responsibilities of everyday life, the call is the same. We are invited to learn how to listen, to care for the fellow pilgrims on our path, and to recognize the treasure that has been entrusted to us and is already present just where we are.

P.S.

This week, I came across a poem new to me: “For the Shepherd Who Is Also the Path the Sun Makes in Daytime” by Komal Mathew.

It portrays a “good shepherd” as an artistic, providential, and protective figure—a creator—that acts as a guide navigating the wild, turning predators into prey, and setting a table of choices.

This Creator-Shepherd understands the lion, the cheetah, and the gazelle, recognizes danger without becoming it, and makes careful choices about what to nurture and what to let go—someone who lives honestly within the wildness of the world rather than denying it. Care, in this sense, is not sentimental or authoritarian, but is shaped in real conditions—risk, ambiguity, and choice.

The Creator also allows people to make their own choices, and in that sense, the line about “the altar of choices” suggests that discernment itself is sacred work. What is offered there may even be one’s own certainty or “good advice,” set aside so that others can engage in their own discernment.