I have mentioned before that one of my favourite words in the Latin tongue, and one of the loveliest, is ‘misericordia’. It is a composite word, from the two words ‘miser’, meaning pity, (as in ‘miserere’, or ‘have mercy’), and ‘cor’, meaning the heart, (as in ‘cordial’, meaning heartfelt). Together they mean ‘pity-ful (that is, merciful) heart’ It is the very first word of the introit of today’s Mass in Latin: ‘Misericordia Domini plena est terra’ which we sang in translation as ‘the merciful love of the Lord fills the earth.’ There can surely be no more fitting way of beginning Mass on this Sunday, which is popularly known as Good Shepherd Sunday on account of the Gospel always coming from St John’s 10th chapter where Jesus describes Himself as the Good Shepherd. But how does this quality of misericordia so specially fit the person of our Good Shepherd?
If you have ever visited the Roman catacombs and have seen some of the wonderful ancient wall paintings dating back over 1500 years, you may well remember that the oldest images, of which there are more than a hundred, are devoted to one particular portrayal of our Lord: as the Good Shepherd with His sheep clasped gently, yet firmly, over His shoulders. It is very striking that this image of the Saviour was by far the most common in the earliest centuries of the Church’s life in Rome. It was far more popular much earlier than any representation of the Crucifixion, which is certainly better represented in later art and so far more familiar to us today.
It is very significant that the ancient Roman Church recognised Christ in this image above all others. In the midst of times of persecution, poverty and contempt, it was the merciful, loving Lord who guided our Christian forebears through the vale of darkness and the shadow of death, of which we also hear in one of the most familiar and well-loved psalms, no. 22, which opens: ‘The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.’ It was the Good Shepherd who guarded His sheep from the wolves who wanted to attack and scatter the sheep. But of course, He did not do this by preventing violence being wrought on His own sheep. Those Christian artists who painted the Good Shepherd on the catacomb walls and ceilings knew only too well that many of those who lay buried down there in the darkness had been put to death for the faith, possibly savaged by wild beasts in the circus, or crucified and set alight as torches to illuminate imperial parties at night time. Had the Good Shepherd not then abandoned those sheep? They did not believe so. They lovingly and consistently portrayed Him standing firm and confident in the midst of his sheep, with one wrapped around his shoulders, firmly held in His protective grasp.
Of course, they must have had in mind the words of our Lord which we heard just now in the Gospel: ‘the good shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep.’ So they were acknowledging not only that this loving, merciful shepherd had shown His love for His sheep by laying down His life for them, but that there was more besides. What gave the persecuted Roman Christians confidence in the shepherd who had died, and was now pictured in the midst of the graves of those who had died for their faithfulness to Him? It was what our Lord went on to say that gave them such confidence in Him: ‘The Father loves me because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.’ The Good Shepherd surrendered to death not in order to be defeated by it, but to overcome it. ‘No one takes [life] from me’, He says, ‘I lay it down of my own free will, and as it is in my power to lay it down, so it is in my power to take it up again.’
Christ here claims something extraordinarily striking: not only was His death foreseen by Him, and willingly accepted by Him, but He freely chose to endure it entirely of His own accord. No one even had the power to take it off Him. Thus He told Pilate at His trial: ‘you would have no power over me if it had not been given you from above.’ Christ Himself, therefore, who came from above, had given Pilate this power, and Christ Himself had the power to return to life. In the resurrection, Christ our Lord is not simply passive; He does not lie dead in the tomb, utterly incapable of anything, but awaits the moment decreed by His Father, when He will freely rise from the dead; and in that moment, rising glorious and immortal, He will have overcome not only His own death, but the deaths of all those who follow Him faithfully. All those who have ever endured, or will ever in the future endure, a horrible death for the sake of their love of Christ, like the saints in the catacombs, or the martyrs of every age of history down to the present day and beyond, will receive back from Him on the last day a life greater than the one they have surrendered for love of Him. And then the truth of St John’s words in the second reading will become clear: ‘we are already the children of God, but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.’
This ‘seeing Him as He is’ can be characterised as the perfection of knowledge. We cannot know Him perfectly in this life because we cannot yet see Him face to face. St John foresees that one day we shall indeed see Him face to face, and in that mutual vision, - my seeing Him just as He sees me, - will be found my entire eternal happiness and joy. This does most certainly not mean that we will not see anybody else. The sight of God does not exclude the sight of everyone else; rather the sight of God will be the illumination that makes all things and all other saints in heaven clear and joyful. The nearest analogy in this life that I can think of is the way that the sun illuminates everything it sheds its light on, and makes us all joyful in all that it lights up for us. Being seen by Him, and seeing Him, will be like the brightest light by which we can see everyone and everything God has made, for us to love just as He loves them.
So when our Lord says that He ‘knows His own and His own know Him’, this is something that is already true, but will be even more wonderfully fulfilled for us in heaven. St John never wants us to think that here and now does not matter, does not count. As our Shepherd already knows us now, so we have the wonderful privilege of knowing Him now too, even if it is not yet quite as we shall one day know Him face to face in heaven. But we do know Him now in the Mass and in the Sacraments. Here that presence is veiled, as it is in the Blessed Sacrament under the mere appearances of bread and wine. But, under those veiled signs, that presence is truly Himself. In the Eucharist, in the celebration of Mass, and in receiving Him in Holy Communion, He does not give us a mere symbolic knowledge of Himself, but a real knowledge, a real mutual companionship. That knowledge and companionship can lead us through all darkness, all suffering, into light. He is the shepherd who leads us, and accompanies us, over and over again through the valley of the shadow of death.
St John Henry, Cardinal Newman said that to live under the same roof as the Blessed Sacrament was such a blessing as to annihilate all sorrows. When we begin to appreciate who it is that comes to us in every Mass, then we can truly understand what it means to have a shepherd who has freely endured every darkness, in order to overcome it and bring us through that shadow into light. But we have to trust Him in order to know Him. We have to let our Shepherd lead the way. That is exactly what a shepherd does in the Middle East; he does not follow his sheep but leads them. As our Good Shepherd, Christ has gone before us through the worst we can know, and He goes through it again with us each time, whether we know it or not. We can therefore confidently trust Him, and in trusting Him we shall indeed truly know Him and understand with gratitude that we are known, that is, loved with infinite loving-kindness, or misericordia, by Him.
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