Fr Anthony Keane OSB
IN TODAY’S GOSPEL, JESUS IS REVEALED AS OUR
GOOD AND TRUE SHEPHERD.
Some may draw back in alarm at the thought of WE LIKE
SHEEP, WE LIKE SHEEP HAVE ALL GONE ASTRAY,
EACH AND EVERYONE TO HIS OWN WAY, who with
sticks and shouts and dogs need to be chased and rounded up
and driven on to something close to the right path.
Our divine Lord, who, deep within our being, has implanted
his Law, is not like that. Indeed nor are the good shepherds
who deal with actual sheep in the Middle East or on the Aran
Islands and elsewhere: these do not drive their sheep. Rather
they knowingly lead them. Our Lord, the Good Shepherd,
calls his own sheep by name and leads them out
Our Lord and shepherd of our souls is no stranger; within our
very being we know his voice. He has other sheep too, not of
this flock. It is He who leads out the flocks of stars to graze
on the velvet black panoply of the Heavens, releasing the
Pleiades and showing the Bear and its cubs which way to
go,as Job would have it. Or Baruch: He sends the light and it
goes, He recalls it and trembling it obeys. The stars shine
joyfully at their posts; when He calls them they answer “Here
we are”; they shine to delight their creator.
May all of us know the thrill of the Lords playful wisdom
within us to our own delight as well as to that of of our
Creator.