Editorial
Jesus joins us on our journey, carrying us when needed, seeing our beauty
The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack. In green pastures he makes me lie down; to still waters he leads me; he restores my soul. He guides me along right paths for the sake of his name. (Psalm 23:1-3)
Last weekend, the universal Church celebrated Good Shepherd Sunday on April 21.
The beginning of King David’s 23rd psalm—cited above from the Bible on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website—is a familiar prayer many of us have heard from Scripture on our pilgrimage of faith.
This past weekend’s Gospel passage on the Fourth Sunday of Easter offered an example of how Jesus is the Good Shepherd and “lays down his life for his sheep,” which was repeated three times in the reading. (Jn 10:11, 15, 17) Its repetition is meant to remind us how important the Good Shepherd is on our journey, and how we must never forget Jesus is with us—every step we take—carrying us as needed, sacrificing his life for us—as he did on that Good Friday at Calvary—and giving us his Spirit through his resurrection.
As Pope Francis reminded us during the Regina Caeli prayer on April 21, being a shepherd, especially in Christ’s time, was not just a job, it was a way of life.
“It was not an occupation which took up a defined amount of time, but it meant sharing entire days, and even nights, with the sheep, living—I would say—in symbiosis with them. Indeed, Jesus explains that he is not a hired man who cares nothing for the sheep, but a man who knows them. He knows the sheep,” the pope said. “This is the way things are. He, the Lord, the shepherd of us all, calls us by our name and, when we are lost, he looks for us until he finds us.”
The tenth chapter of John’s Gospel also reminds us that God is taking his people back.
Like sheep, we get lost. It could even get dangerous when we wander from the path on which Christ is leading us. In those instances—and on other occasions where our moral compass is failing us—we’re in a need of a shepherd.
“This is what the Lord wants to tell us with the image of the Good Shepherd: not only that he is the guide, the head of the flock, but above all that he thinks about every one of us, and that he thinks of each of us as the love of his life,” Pope Francis said. “Consider this: for Christ, I am important, he thinks of me, I am irreplaceable, worth the infinite price of his life. And this is not just a way of speaking: He truly gave his life for me. He died and rose again for me. Why? Because he loves me, and he finds in me a beauty that I often do not see myself.”
The Holy Father also reminded his listeners that many people in today’s world get too caught up thinking about goals they should achieve and worrying about their successes “in the eyes of the world, on the judgment of others” rather than keeping Christ at their center.
“Today Jesus tells us that we are always infinitely worthy in his eyes. So, in order to find ourselves, the first thing to do is to place ourselves in his presence, allowing ourselves to be welcomed and lifted up by the loving arms of our Good Shepherd,” he noted.
Good Shepherd Sunday offers us a necessary reminder that we are never alone. And with that reality comes an opportunity each day, as Pope Francis said, “… to find the time for a moment of prayer, of adoration, of praise, to be in the presence of Christ …”
“Brother, sister, the Good Shepherd tells us that if you do this, you will rediscover the secret of life: you will remember that he gave his life for you, for me, for all of us. And that for him, we are all important, each and every one of us.”
—Mike Krokos