Dear Sisters, dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, today, the fourth Sunday of Eastertide, is known as Good Shepherd Sunday because the Gospel is taken from the tenth chapter of St John, in which our Lord describes Himself as the ‘Good Shepherd’, as we heard in the Gospel acclamation. Today’s Gospel reading is from the final part of the chapter, ending with the important words: ‘I and the Father are one.’ It is God who is the Good Shepherd, not only because Jesus is God, but because the Father, too, is to His chosen people as a shepherd is to His flock. Throughout the Old Testament God either calls Himself the shepherd of Israel, or is addressed as such by His people, as in the Responsorial psalm today, ‘He made us, we belong to Him, we are His people, the sheep of His flock’ (ps 99) and of course, one of the most famous of all the psalms begins with the words ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ (ps 22)
But in the New Testament it is Jesus who also calls Himself our shepherd, as He does in the Gospel today. In this passage we have just heard He proclaims with great love and confidence that ‘my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.’ The shepherd is there to protect and guard the sheep entrusted to his care, and in the case of our Lord, the sheep are not only entrusted to Him as though He were a hired man, but rather they are entrusted to Him as to one who will guard them with His own life.
In the second reading from the Apocalypse, we heard St John describe the vision he saw of heaven peopled by a great multitude taken not just from the chosen people of the Old Covenant, the Jews, but ‘from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages’. This is the vision John has of the Church brought to perfection in heaven. And what are they doing there? They are ‘standing before the throne [of God] and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.’ These are the ones who ‘serve God day and night in His Temple; and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence’. He who sits on the throne is God the Father and He is the guardian or shepherd of those whom He protects in heaven. But there is another shepherd too, for St John goes on to say that ‘the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’ God on His throne, and the Lamb ‘in the midst of the throne’ are One. For the Lamb is God just as the Father is God. They are One and the same God, whilst being different persons.
The Father as shepherd is greater than His flock, which is what one would expect, because usually a shepherd is a man, and a flock is comprised of sheep, so that the one who guards and those who are guarded are of different natures. That is how it was clearly in the Old Testament, where God is the shepherd and the flock comprises humans. But in the New Testament there is a big and important change: the shepherd is now a Lamb. He is of the same nature as those whom He guards and protects. It is Jesus, the Lamb of God, who guides His flock to living springs of water. The shepherd’s task is both to protect and to nourish. Jesus does both. He protects us from our foes, and he nourishes us with green pastures and living water. As a lamb, Jesus is of the same nature as the sheep of His flock. And why is He known as the ‘Lamb of God’? It is because He gives up His life in order to save our lives. In the Old Testament, lambs were sacrificed to God in order to bring about God’s protection for His people. Now in the New Testament, Jesus is the Lamb who is sacrificed for us, whose blood was shed for us, and in whose blood our robes are made white, that is, cleansed from all impurities and sinfulness.
Now the Lamb has died for His sheep to take away their sins, and has risen again to give them new life. He still guards and shepherds His flock, just as he did in His days on the earth. Yet now He does so through intermediaries. He chooses other shepherds to do a shepherd’s task of guarding and feeding His flock. These are the pastors of the Church, for the word ‘pastor’ is the Latin word for ‘shepherd’. They are the ones our Lord chooses and appoints to look after the flock.
Last Sunday in the Gospel we heard our Lord address Simon Peter by the Lake of Tiberias when Jesus appeared to seven of the Apostles after the resurrection. Remember how it was that Jesus asked Simon Peter three times, ‘Simon, do you love me?’ and three times Simon Peter replied, ‘yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ And to each of those three replies our Lord then gave Peter a solemn command: ‘Feed my lambs’, ‘tend my sheep’, ‘feed my sheep’. In other words, our Lord was emphasising to Peter that he was to be a shepherd to His own flock.
Now in the last few days in Rome, there has been elected a new successor to Peter, a new inheritor of Peter’s role as chief Pastor, that is, chief shepherd of Christ’s flock. But this new successor of Peter is not Himself the Lamb, of course. Only Christ is the true Lamb who takes away our sins. Yet Christ has given us a new shepherd to be His Vicar, which means ‘one who takes His place’, and he has chosen for himself the name ‘Lion’, for that is what ‘Leo’ means. He needs to be a firm and strong shepherd of Christ’s flock in the coming times. We must therefore pray for Him, as Christ prayed for Simon Peter, that his faith may not fail and that he may fulfil his new role of ‘confirming’, that is strengthening, his brethren, his fellow pastors and shepherds, the bishops of the Church who are the successors of all the Apostles. They were strengthened and united in their witness by Peter. We must pray that all the bishops of the Catholic Church may be strengthened and united in their witness to Christ and the Catholic faith by the Lion who now leads them. God bless and protect Pope Leo so that he may bless and protect God’s holy Church. Amen.
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