As a teenager at school, I remember a class ending one day. In the general hubbub as we gathered our papers and books, one of my brasher friends asked the teacher: “Have you ever thought of becoming a priest, sir?” “Yes, I have,” he replied. “What, sir? You, sir?” came the incredulous response. And he was told: “Every intelligent person asks himself that question.” That remark was not the start of my own path to priesthood, but its wisdom has stayed with me.

Vocations nowadays are in short supply in Western society, and not only in the Church. There is a need as well for more doctors and nurses, more teachers, more policemen and policewomen. The list could be extended. But the need in the Church is acute. There are constant stories of fewer priests and of parishes being closed or clustered.

As Rector of the Beda College in Rome, which prepares older men from the English-speaking world for priestly ordination, I have had to get to know something of the countries where our students will work. One man, Amet Kual, from Sudan, has been ordained to work in Tripoli. When I first met his bishop, the Right Rev Giovanni Martinelli, I asked him: “And how many priests are there in your diocese?” “There are no priests in my diocese,” the bishop replied. “Just me and half a dozen religious who help me.” No British diocese is dealing with circumstances quite as extreme as that. Later I was able to attend Amet’s ordination. I was more moved by it than I had been by my own. He was the first man to be ordained directly for Tripoli in centuries. And I thought of the visitors from Libya who were in Jerusalem at Pentecost when the Church was born.

On another occasion I was speaking to the Right Rev Philip Naameh, a bishop from Damongo, one of the largest dioceses in Ghana with many tribes and many languages. He told me that sometimes when a priest moves parish, he has to learn a new language. “Is it like an Italian having to learn Spanish?” I asked. “Sometimes,” he replied, “but sometimes it is like an Italian having to learn German.”

Damongo, too, is a place that I have been able to visit. For all the demands, it was wonderful to see the life of faith there.

It is, of course, the Easter faith, faith in Jesus who was crucified and then raised. The entire Easter season is a time for deepening that faith. The Sundays in particular have a pattern to them. On Easter Day itself, the women who have visited the tomb bring back the news that it is empty and that Jesus is risen. It is not so much a day when the risen Christ appears, but one when His rising is proclaimed and believed. Then the appearances themselves are contemplated on the following Sundays, His appearance to those in the upper room and notably to Thomas, who had doubted, to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and by the lakeside in Galilee.

The later Sundays bring Jesus before us in images as the way, the truth and the life, as the true vine whose followers are the branches that must bear fruit.

This Sunday is called Good Shepherd Sunday because in the Gospel we hear Jesus’s declaration: “I am the Good Shepherd [who] lays down his life for his sheep.” (John x, 11). It is a day associated with vocation. It is the hub around which the rest of the season revolves. Those who follow the path marked by the Good Shepherd take what has been proclaimed and seek to make it come alive as truth and fruit and the grace of the Spirit in the lives of those they try to serve.

Who is being called to give such service? Is it you? It is a question every intelligent person asks.

Monsignor Roderick Strange is the Rector of the Pontifical Beda College, Rome