My sheep hear my voice

TUESDAY 5 MAY (Jn 10,22-30)

The responsibility of the shepherds in the disaster of the people of God is denounced by Jeremiah with fiery words: “Listen to the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob! All you clans of the house of Israel, thus says the Lord: What fault did your fathers find in me that they withdrew from me, Went after empty idols, and became empty themselves? They did not ask, “Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, Who led us through the desert, through a land of wastes and gullies, Through a land of drought and darkness, through a land which no one crosses, where no man dwells?” When I brought you into the garden land to eat its goodly fruits, You entered and defiled my land, you made my heritage loathsome. The priests asked not, “Where is the Lord?” Those who dealt with the law knew me not: the shepherds rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal, and went after useless idols” (Jer 2,4-8). “How can you say, “We are wise, we have the law of the Lord”? Why, that has been changed into falsehood by the lying pen of the scribes! The wise are confounded, dismayed and ensnared; Since they have rejected the word of the Lord, of what avail is their wisdom? Therefore, I will give their wives to strangers, their fields to spoilers. Small and great alike, all are greedy for gain, prophet and priest, all practice fraud. They would repair, as though it were nought, the injury to the daughter of my people: “Peace, peace!” they say, though there is no peace. They are odious; they have done abominable things, yet they are not at all ashamed, they know not how to blush” (Jer 8,8-12). The voice of the prophets is unanimous in the denunciation.

But the Lord does not stop crying out the sin of his shepherds. He comes to give salvation solutions. Here is his promise: “I will appoint over you shepherds after my own heart, who will shepherd you wisely and prudently” (Jer 3,15). Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds. I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have driven them and bring them back to their meadow; there they shall increase and multiply. I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear and tremble; and none shall be missing, says the Lord” (Jer 23,1-4). Denouncing is useless. We must build, raise, renew, purify, modify and bring everything back to justice and truth. The promises of the Lord are creators of great hopes.

The feast of the Dedication was then taking place in Jerusalem. It was winter. And Jesus walked about in the temple area on the Portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

A Shepherd without sheep is a shepherd without his Shepherd. The Father, the divine and eternal Shepherd, always gives his sheep to Christ Jesus. The Father always keeps watch so that no one tears the sheep from his hand and not even from the hand of Christ Jesus. But the Shepherd of Christ is his Father. Christ too will watch out that no one tears the sheep from his hand and from the hand of his Pastors, but this happens if the Pastors do not tear themselves from the hand of their Shepherd. When a Shepherd separates himself from Christ, the sheep are separated from the Shepherd. The Pastor does not recognize the voice of Christ. The sheep do not recognize the Shepherd’s voice. If today in the Church the Pastors are without sheep, this is due to the choice of the Pastors to be without Christ, following each his own ways and pursuing his own paths. Shepherds without Christ, sheep without Shepherds.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints ensure that every Shepherd let himself be led by the Good Shepherd.