The most comforting of the Psalms begins “The Lord is my shepherd.” It ends with this line: “Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”
Goodness and mercy are present in the person of the Good Shepherd. Thus, they have to follow the lost sheep, because the shepherd is heading out after them, to look for them.
In the Gospel, on the other hand, the order of leading and following is reversed. Jesus says that his sheep know his voice, and so they follow him.
Now, a sheep doesn’t recognize the voice of the shepherd unless it already knows the shepherd. The difference, then, between being a lost sheep who is followed by the Shepherd and being a faithful sheep who follows the Shepherd is a matter of knowing the Shepherd.
To know a person is not like knowing the rules of the game. To know the rules is to know that this move is prohibited or that another move is the only one which can be made.
Knowing a person can’t be parsed as knowing that anything-at-all. It’s a matter of personal relationship. Personal relationship requires openness to love, with all its risks.
That openness is the reason why Jesus is not only the Good Shepherd, he is also the Gate into the fold, open to the sheep that are his own. To be a sheep that is Christ’s own, a person has to open to love of the Lord. He has to go within Jesus, through Jesus, who is the Gate and the Way, as well as being the leader along the way.
Here is the good news, then. Whether a person is faithful or astray, he will be surrounded by the love of the good Shepherd. St Patrick’s prayer says it well: Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ with me.
Art by Martin Erspamer, OSB
from Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical Year (A, B, and
C). This art may be reproduced only by parishes who purchase the
collection in book or CD-ROM form. For more information go http://www.ltp.org