Acts 2:14, 36-41
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:20-25
John 10:1-10
The Divine Shepherdess
May is here, and in the Catholic tradition this
is a whole month dedicated to Mary, the Divine Mother, Queen of Heaven and
Earth. Perhaps in your family you have participated in special devotions to
Mary this month such as building a special altar for Mary and crowing her with
a wreath of flowers, or giving renewed energy to praying the rosary. Maybe you
didn’t even know that May was Mary’s month and now that you do you can create
new traditions or recover ancient ones.
The connections between the divine feminine and
May pre-date Christianity, with the Greeks having dedicated this time of year
to Artemis, the goddess of fecundity, and the Romans dedicating this time to
Flora, the goddess of blooms. Christianity picked up these ancient connections
between spring time and the divine feminine, and lifted up Mary as Queen of
May, in connection with the season of life and beauty.
This weekend, due to our lectionary readings, is
also known as Good Shepherd weekend. We heard these passages about the Lord as
shepherd, and Jesus as shepherd probably many times, and seen many statues,
paintings and artistic representations of this image of the Good Shepherd. But
since this is Mary’s month, I would like us to imagine and reflect today on the
image of Mary as Divine Shepherdess.
I did not invent this idea, the devotion to Mary
as Divine Shepherdess has been around since at least the 1700s as Divina
Pastora (or Divine Shepherdess in Spanish). This image of Mary as a shepherdess is credited to a vision
of a Spanish Capuchin friar named Fray Isidore who lived in Seville, Spain in
the early 1700s. He was devoted to Our Lady from early in his life and as a
religious brother built small shrines to Our Lady along the roadways and taught
the people how to sing the rosary while walking along the street. During one of
these street tours Christ’s words, ‘I am the Good Shepherd” flashed across the Fray
Isidore’s mind. That night he had a vision of the Blessed Virgin as a young
shepherdess with a crook in her hand and a large straw hat falling over her
shoulders. The next morning he hurried to an artist’s shop telling of his
vision and ordered a picture be painted of Our Lady as she had appeared to him.
“Our Lady,” he said, sat on a
rock under a tree. Her face radiated divine and tender love. Over a red tunic
she wore a jacket of white sheepskin such as shepherds wore; from her shoulders
hung a blue mantle. A large straw hat, held by a ribbon, dangled over her left
shoulder. Near her right hand was a shepherd’s crook, symbolic of the love and
care she gives her children. In her left hand she held a rose, while the right
hand rested on the head of a lamb, which had sought shelter in her lap. The
flock of sheep which surrounded her carried in their mouths – the Virgin’s
Flower.
The admiration of the Spanish
for Our Lady as a Divine Shepherdess quickly spread. Practically every church
had set aside a corner for the Divine Shepherdess. The Franciscans and Capuchin
friars spread the devotion of Divina Pastora along with their missionary
activities, as did other missionaries. Devotions to the Divine Shepherdess
today are present around the world most notably in the Philippines, Venezuela,
and France.
The same characteristics that
make a shepherd good as we heard in our Psalm and our Gospel reading today make
the shepherdess good. She is the one who truly knows her flock, and will do all
she can to ensure that they are safe, that they can rest, that they are well
fed, that they have abundance of life. This is in contrast to what we know of
those who are false shepherds, the thieves and robbers who only look out for
themselves and steal, destroy, and kill. You can probably think of examples of
these two different kinds of leaders or pastors right now, in your own life and
experience. Those who truly know, love, and care for the well-being of others,
and those who seek to gain and maintain their own power or privilege at the
expense of the flock.
One key characteristic of the
good shepherdess is that she knows her sheep by name and we know her voice and
follow that voice. As I contemplate the state of the world right now, all of
the suffering and division, and the ever growing climate crisis, I can’t help
but think we are where we are because we have forgotten the voice of the Divine
Shepherdess. And it's not surprising given all the other voices that we have
been inundated with since birth, voices that seek to foster ongoing division
and discord, doubt and fear, voices that feed us lies daily about who we are
and what we should do with our lives.
It has been and continues to
be an ongoing journey of personal healing and transformation for me to tune out
all those other voices and remember the voice of my Mother, the Divine
Feminine, the Good Shepherdess; to reconnect to her in my body and the
surrounding body of life. She has never left, I and we have just forgotten, and
now is the time for us to remember and return.
To return to the Mother is to return to the
earth, to know the presence and power of resurrection budding all around us in
the trees, flowers, greening of grass, and garden seedlings poking their head
above ground. To return to the divine shepherdess and trust in her care and guidance
is to know the peace and freedom of the sheep who wander the land, snack, take
a nap, bask in the sun, frolic and play, and take another nap, trusting that in
the words of Julian of Norwich, “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and
all manner of things shall be well.” Because to know her is to know her
constant presence, love, and protection, just like a good
shepherdess.
I believe she is calling to her sheep now,
inviting us to come back home through her, the very gate that incarnated the
Christ presence more fully into the world. To know and follow Christ is to know
and follow the mother that brought him into the world and taught him the ways
of the shepherd, taught him the ways of the earth and the path of love and
beauty.
This time of great challenge and change is also
filled with great opportunity to sit and listen, to sing and listen, to dance
and listen, to create and listen, to rest and listen. Listen for the voice of
the Divine Shepherdess calling you home to her heart. Take a minute now of
quiet, of breathing, of tuning into your heart, and listen. Who is the Divine
Shepherdess to you? What might her invitation be to you this month of May, this
month of Mary, this month of resurrection energy and new life? What questions
or petitions do you have for her?
[time of reflection and open response]
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