by Joan Mitchell, CSJ
John’s gospel makes an extended comparison between Jesus and shepherds who pasture, protect, and water their flocks and who at night sleep in the opening of the sheepfold and become its gate. In John 10, from which the Church reads this Sunday, Jesus is both the good shepherd and the gate to the sheepfold.
Few of us pasture sheep today. Some of us who have pets know the daily care our animal kin require.
If we think about who are good shepherds today, we may first think of crossing guards herding little kids across intersections. Or, we may think of social workers who help the homeless find shelter and permanent housing and help elderly people stay in their homes. Since this Sunday is Mother’s Day, we may remember the countless times our mothers gathered
us for meals, our regular family experience of belonging.
Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug enlarges our sense of who leads and shepherds in our world. He is the good scientist who feeds and protects people and calls us to use our gifts in care for one another.
Borlaug put his brains and energy to work so that millions on our planet home might eat. When he finished his doctorate, famine seemed inevitable in nations where population was outrunning food production, such as Mexico, India, Pakistan, and African countries.
Mexico and the Rockfeller Foundation hired the young scientist to improve wheat production. Stem rust had wiped out crops in Mexico three years in a row. Borlaug grew two crops of wheat a year, one in the highlands of the north and one in the south. In the north he created plants that resisted rust but grew too tall. He crossed the wheat with shorter wheat from Japan. In the south the wheat adapted to a different climate and developed the capacity to thrive and provide food anywhere.
Borlaug became known as the father of the green revolution, a farmer who saved millions from starvation. He may have saved more lives than anyone else is history. “Food is first,” he insisted. “Without food the world will have more chaos. Food is a moral right.”
- Who do you lead and care for like a shepherd?