2024-04-20 21:44:12
Know the sheep, give your life for them. Two actions that this Sunday’s evangelical text points out as distinctive of the one who can be called the Good Shepherd. It is a true calling and it is a lifelong mission. Today, when we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday, a global day of prayers for priestly and religious vocations, it takes on greater force.
All people need guides and companions on the path of life. Guides who show us the path along which we must walk, guides who show us what goal we must achieve, guides who serve as an example for us on that journey and who serve as encouragement on each one’s path. At the same time, we need companions, people who walk alongside us to be our support, who encourage us when we feel that our strength is failing us, who, knowing each of their sheep, can pronounce the appropriate word, make the appropriate gesture, according to the circumstances of each one’s life.
That is what identifies the Good Shepherd, the one that the gospel describes to us when it tells us regarding “the good shepherd gives his life for his sheep; he knows his sheep.” Giving one’s life in the sense of the gospel is caring, loving, serving, seeking everything possible so that the sheep remain united, are healthy, and follow the good shepherd. To know the sheep is to reach the heart of each one, recognize their strengths and weaknesses, their triumphs and failures and find a way to advise and guide them to achieve the best in each one. It’s a whole life program.
For all of the above you need to have a vocation, to feel called, you cannot “be a salaried employee, who is neither a shepherd nor the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, abandons the sheep and flees; and the wolf wreaks havoc and scatters them.” Fortunately, it is not common to find these types of employees. We find, on the contrary, those priests who are true shepherds, who spend their lives in service to the community, who share with the sheep entrusted to them their joys and hopes, their joys and sorrows. Those shepherds are those who know their sheep and give their lives for them. For them we are called to raise our prayer.
At the same time, we pray for those young people who may feel the call to be pastors, whether in priestly life or religious life, that they respond generously to that call, that they discover that it is a possible life option, that they recognize the value of spending your life in service and dedication to others. That this is part of the meaning of life, that it is something for which it is worth risking everything for everything. We have examples throughout history, in which we are shown where a life lived in the light of following Jesus can reach, having as a path and model that Good Shepherd who was Jesus himself. We might cite many names of that type of pastors; However, we leave it to the analysis of the people who read this column: what does it mean to be a good pastor?
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