John Chaper 10:11-16
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
We celebrate the feast of St Charles Borromeo today, a saint who understands our situation with Covid 19 only too well. When he was Bishop of Milan a plague spread like wildfire through Northern Italy killing thousands of people. He did his best to give care and compassion to the poor and the sick administering the sacraments wherever possible, when many others fled the city.
He was, as the Gospel tells us, a good shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep. We are all called to be good shepherds (or shepherdesses!)
In his new encyclical ‘Fratelli tutti’ Pope Francis speaks of the symptoms of an unhealthy society. A society that seeks prosperity but turns its back on suffering, “the sight of a person who is suffering disturbs us. It makes us uneasy since we have no time to waste on other people’s problems.”
The Gospel talks of the hired man or woman who does not know the sheep and at the first sight of trouble runs in the other direction. We are called as shepherds to proximity to the sheep who need our care, not just the sheep of this fold but the sheep beyond, that they may know the voice of kindness and compassion, that they will know the voice of The Shepherd Jesus Christ.
