One Flock
As the Twelve return from their first missionary journey in today’s Gospel, our readings continue to reflect on the authority and mission of the Church.
Jeremiah says in the First Reading that Israel’s leaders, through godlessness and fanciful teachings, had mislead and scattered God’s people. He promises God will send a shepherd, a king and son of David, to gather the lost sheep and appoint for them new shepherds (see Ezekiel 34:23).
The crowd gathering on the green grass (see Mark 6:39) in today’s Gospel is the start of the remnant that Jeremiah promised would be brought back to the meadow of Israel. The people seem to sense that Jesus is the Lord, the good shepherd (see John 10:11), the king they’ve been waiting for (see Hosea 3:1-5).
Jesus is moved to pity, seeing them as sheep without a shepherd. This phrase was used by Moses to describe Israel’s need for a shepherd to succeed him (see Numbers 27:17). And as Moses appointed Joshua, Jesus appointed the Twelve to continue shepherding His people on earth.
Jesus had said there were other sheep who did not belong to Israel’s fold, but would hear His voice and be joined to the one flock of the one shepherd (see John 10:16). In God’s plan, the Church is to seek out first the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and then to bring all nations into the fold (see Acts 13:36; Romans 1:16).
Paul, too, in today’s Epistle, sees the Church as a new creation, in which those nations who were once far off from God are joined as “one new person” with the children of Israel.
As we sing in today’s Psalm, through the Church, the Lord, our good shepherd, still leads people to the verdant pastures of the kingdom, to the restful waters of baptism; He still anoints with the oil of confirmation, and spreads the Eucharistic table before all people, filling their cups to overflowing.
Origen
Commentary on the Song of Songs, II, 4, 17f.
“Tell me, O you whom my soul has loved, where you feed and where you have your couch?’ I think that in Psalm 23[22] the prophet likewise is speaking of this place, concerning which the Bride desires of the Bridegroom to learn, set as he is under the same Shepherd. He says: “The Lord is my shepherd and I shall want nothing» (v.1). And because he knew that other shepherds, through sloth or inexperience, assemble their flocks in the drier places, he says about the Lord, this best of shepherds: “In a green place, there he has set me; he has brought me up to the water of refreshment”(v.2), thus making it clear that this Shepherd provides His sheep with water that is not only plentiful but also wholesome and pure and utterly refreshing …
That first life, the pastoral, was a preparatory one, in order that, being set in a green place, he might be brought up to the water of refreshment. But the things that follow have to do with progress and perfection. And, since we have brought up the subject of pastures and of greenness, it seems fitting to support what we say out of the Gospels also. There, too, I have encountered this Good Shepherd talking about the pastures of the sheep; there is a passage where He styles Himself the Shepherd, and even calls Himself the Door, saying: I am the Door. By me, if anyone enters, he shall be saved; and he shall go in and go out, and shall find pastures”(Jn 10,9).
Him, therefore, the Bride now plies with questions… And what she calls ‘midday’ denotes those secret places of the heart in which the soul pursues the clearer light of knowledge from the Word of God; for midday is the time when the sun is at the zenith of its course. So when Christ, the Sun of Justice (Mal 3,20), shows to his Church the high and lofty secrets of his power, then he will be teaching her where lie His pleasant pastures and his places of repose at noon.
For when she has only begun to learn these things and is receiving from Him the rudiments, so to speak, of knowledge, then the prophet says: “And God will help her in the morning early”(Ps 46[45],6). At this time, however, because she is now seeking things that are more perfect, and desiring higher things, she asks for the noonday light of knowledge.
St. Clement of Alexandria
Paedagogus, I, 9 (SC 70)
To save is an act of kindness. “The Lord’s mercy reaches all flesh, reproving, admonishing, teaching, as a shepherd guides his flock; merciful to those who accept his guidance,” who hasten to bind themselves to him (Sir 18,11-13)…
Those in good health have no need of a physician so long as they are well; the sick, on the other hand, turn to his art. Similarly, in this life we are sick by means of our unacceptable desires, our intemperance… and other passions. We need a Savior… We who are sick have need of a Savior; straying, we need someone to guide us; blind, of someone who will give us light; thirsty, of the spring of living water where “whoever drinks will never thirst again” (Jn 4,4). Dead, we are in need of life; a flock, of a shepherd; children, of a teacher: indeed, everyone is in need of Jesus…
“The injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal; the strayed I will bring back and cause them to pasture on my holy mountain” (cf. Ez 34,11-16). This is what the good shepherd promises. Pasture us like a flock, young as we are; O Lord, give us plentifully of your pasture, which is righteousness! Shepherd us right up to your holy mountain, your Church that rises up on high above the clouds, touching the heavens. “And I shall be their shepherd and stay at their side” (cf. Ez 34), he says… “I have not come to be served but to serve,” he says. That is why the Gospel shows him to us tired out, he who wore himself out for our sakes and who promises “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Jn 4,6; Mt 20,28).
Pope Benedict XVI
Angelus Address, July 22, 2012
The Word of God this Sunday presents us once again with a fundamental, ever fascinating theme of the Bible; it reminds us that God is the Shepherd of humanity.
This means that God wants life for us, he wants to guide us to good pastures where we can be nourished and rest. He does not want us to be lost and to perish, but to reach the destination of our journey which is the fullness of life itself. This is what every father and mother desires for their children: their good, their happiness and their fulfilment.
In today’s Gospel Jesus presents himself as the Shepherd of the lost sheep of the House of Israel. He beholds the people, so to speak, with a “pastoral” gaze. For example, this Sunday’s Gospel says: As he disembarked, “he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things” (Mk 6:34). Jesus embodies God the Shepherd with his manner of preaching and his works, caring for the sick and sinners, for those who are “lost” (cf. Lk 19:10), in order to bring them back to safety through the Father’s mercy.
Among the “lost sheep” that Jesus rescued there was also a woman called Mary, a native of the village of Magdala on the Sea of Galilee, who for this reason was known as “Magdalene”. It is her liturgical Memorial in the Church Calendar of today. Luke the Evangelist says that Jesus cast out seven demons from her (cf. Lk 8:2), that is, he saved her from total enslavement to the Evil One.
In what does this profound healing which God works through Jesus consist? It consists in true, complete peace, brought about by the inner reconciliation of the person, as well as in every other relationship: with God, with other people and with the world.
Indeed, the Evil One always seeks to spoil God’s work, sowing division in the human heart, between body and soul, between the individual and God, in interpersonal, social and international relations, as well as between human beings and creation. The Evil One sows discord; God creates peace. Indeed, as St Paul says, Christ is our peace, he who made us both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh (cf. Eph 2:14).
In order to carry out this work of radical reconciliation Jesus the Good Shepherd had to become a Lamb, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29). Only in this way could he keep the marvellous promise of the Psalm: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me / all the days of my life; / and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord / for ever” (Ps 23[22]:6).
Dear friends, these words make our heart beat fast for they express our deepest desire, they say what we are made for: life, eternal life! These are the words of those who, like Mary Magdalene, have experienced God in their life and know his peace. They are words truer than ever on the lips of the Virgin Mary, who already lives for eternity in the pastures of Heaven where the Shepherd-Lamb led her. Mary, Mother of Christ our peace, pray for us!
