Get your shepherd’s pie and your baaa-d jokes ready, it’s Good Shepherd Sunday!
The responsorial psalm most Sundays is picked to match the first reading, but this time the familiar Psalm 23 “The Lord is my shepherd” goes along with the theme of the day. For our second reading we are continuing in 1 Peter, but we happen to get this line: “you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” And in the Gospel, Jesus talks about the sheep, and the shepherd, and the gate of the sheepfold.
The last line of the Gospel is one of my favorites: “A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” Every time the devil tricks me into sinning, thinking it will make me happy and give me life, he destroys my life. He steals the original dignity and wholeness that God bestowed on me, when he created me in his own image and likeness. The serpent was envious of Adam and Eve. That is why he slithered over to them like a thief, and lured them into thieving a fruit which from the beginning was meant to be a gift. (Speaking of villains, have you heard of the villainous sheep? He had an evil plan to wool the world.)
Jesus comes, instead, to give us life in abundance, in fullness. He loves us, and calls each one of us by name. He loves us so much that he, the shepherd, lays down is life for us, the sheep. By the way, that reminds me of the words of a sheep’s favorite song: “What is love? Baby, don’t herd me.”
Yours in Christ,
Fr. John