Today is known as ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’ and is the annual day of prayer for vocations for the priesthood and religious life.  The ‘Good Shepherd’ discourse from St John’s Gospel is divided into three sections spread over the three years of the Cycle of Readings.  In the first part Jesus begins with a slightly different image.  Jesus first identifies himself, not as the Good Shepherd, but as the gate for the sheep. In the ancient walls of Jerusalem, there was a gate on the north of the city, by which animals were brought in from the surrounding areas for sacrifice. It was called the sheep gate. Once inside the city and within the temple courts, there was only one door where the sheep went in, and no lamb ever came back out after entering the temple precincts. They travelled in only one direction, and there they were sacrificed for the sins of human beings.  For that first audience who heard Jesus’ teaching about sheep, such knowledge added to the shock of his words: "I tell you the truth. I am the gate for the sheep. ... I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture" (John 10:7, 9). In the very temple area filled with sheep on their way to slaughter, Jesus declared there was a way out: "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the Good Shepherd" (John 10:11).