We Are The Sheep Of His Pasture
Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, and our minds go floating off to a serene and bucolic image of fuzzy lambs grazing in a lush pasture, as their ever humble and vigilant shepherd watches over them, smiling indulgently at his little flock. It’s an idyllic picture to be sure and sometimes I find myself wondering if life might be better if we actually were sheep. We could wander around munching peacefully with no worries about death and disease, no financial problems, no trying to figure out where the next meal is coming from, and certainly no thoughts about being turned into lamb chops next Easter. We might brush off these thoughts as being mere fantasies, but in a sense we can go through life as a little lamb. When we get right down to it, we’re actually not too far from the truth. After all, Holy Scripture contains many analogies in which we are compared to sheep, while Christ takes the role of shepherd. Psalm 22, for example, tell us that “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” In Psalm 94, we’re told that “We are his (God’s) people, and the sheep of his pasture.” And today, of course, Christ himself tell us that he is the Good Shepherd.
Analogies are never perfect. Somewhere along the line they fail in their comparison. For though we may be like sheep, tended by Christ the Good Shepherd, there’s a difference between actual sheep who can see the face of their shepherd and hear his voice, and ourselves who, as we remember from last week’s Gospel, must have faith in our Good Shepherd, despite not being able to see or hear him with our eyes and ears. St. Thomas the Apostle was reminded that blessed are they who do not see or hear, and yet believe. And we pray for God to help our faith to be as unwavering and confident as the trust those simple lambs have as they happily follow their shepherd whithersoever he goeth.
Our blessed Lord was quite aware of our difficulties in keeping the faith and he made preparations before he departed this earth to strengthen us in our belief. He gave us a visible shepherd of souls, the leader of the Apostles, St. Peter, upon whom, he said, he would build his Church. This Simon Peter would be our visible shepherd, our Pastor, which is the Latin word for shepherd, and we sheep, just like our woolly friends, would be able to follow him without question, trusting his leadership implicitly, ever sure of his dedication to our welfare. He would feed us with the true doctrine, he would protect us from the ravening wolves and demons who seek the ruin of our souls, he would guide us and make sure we did not wander from the fold, caring for our every spiritual need. While our physical needs might still distract us from time to time, we could at least rest at ease spiritually, knowing that our Good Shepherd in Rome was there to look after our souls.
For these many centuries of care we must be thankful to those holy popes, and above all to the Divine Providence who sent them. Today, we find ourselves in more turbulent times, but it is not the Good Shepherd who has failed us. If God’s plan for his sheep turns out be abandonment and betrayal, we may be assured it is not our Good Shepherd in heaven who has betrayed and abandoned us, but rather the weak, imperfect and perhaps evil men who are his Vicars. His Church is built upon our fellow human beings, men who have faults and imperfections like us, to be sure, and some of whom do not even know or love or serve God at all. If God has permitted these shepherds to abandon their flock to the marauding wolves, we must never forget that the Good Shepherd in heaven still knows his sheep, and we his sheep still know and follow him.
It is appropriate that during this week following Good Shepherd Sunday the red-robed clergy of Rome will meet in secret conclave to elect what is supposed to be the successor of Peter, the Vicar of Christ and our Shepherd on earth. On the natural level we expect no great miraculous restoration of the Church to result from this election. Perhaps we have become cynical, not surprising when so many developments in the Church have caused us to lose our faith in men. I say our faith in men, and perhaps that is a good thing, as it reminds us that it is only in God that we should place our complete trust. That invisible Good Shepherd abides with us, ever comforting and protecting each of our souls, and we remain forever the sheep of his pasture. Whatever his plan for mankind, the Good Shepherd will surely smile upon those little lambs who follow him with complete trust. You see, it’s not a fantasy to aspire to being sheep. We just have to recognize what aspect of sheephood we need to adopt—complete and blind obedience and trust in Christ our Good Shepherd—and once we do that in all humility, we’ll see our fantasies come true, and that it really is a good thing to be a sheep after all.