“My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”
(John 10:27)
In 1987, I was in the 7th grade when St. John
Paul II came to Miami, and I was in the crowd when he celebrated his unfinished
Mass at Tamiami Park. He was so far away
from where I was, yet I could still hear his wonderful, saintly voice speaking
to us: the unmistakable voice of a shepherd.
In 2010, I was in St. Peter’s Square during the Sunday recitation of the
Angelus when a tiny white figure appeared at the window of the papal apartments
and you could hear the gentle, prayerful voice of Benedict XVI throughout the
square: the unmistakable voice of a shepherd.
Two summers ago, I was again in St. Peter’s Square during a Wednesday
audience and now you could hear the joyful, welcoming voice of Pope Francis:
again, the unmistakable voice of a shepherd.
In this case, it was the voice of the current Vicar of Christ, our
Universal Shepherd here on earth who reminded us this morning: “No one can be
said to be a follower of Jesus, if he is not ready to listen to his voice."
These three great shepherds remind us of Christ, the Good
Shepherd. We listen to them much the
same way the disciples listened to Jesus.
The voice of Jesus calls out to us this day to follow him. We hear him, but are we listening? The image of God as shepherd was not
something new that Jesus introduced. It
is was an image that was quite present throughout the Old Testament. God is our shepherd, and now Jesus, God with
us, is telling us he is the shepherd. Like every shepherd, his voice is distinct and
authoritative. When the sheep hear him,
they follow. But something more is
required of us: we must listen to what he has to tell us. We must single out the voice of Jesus from
all the voices of the world trying to drown him out and listen to him. Today he is quite simply telling us to follow
him. If we follow him, we will not
perish. As Pope Francis reminded us this
morning: “The image of the shepherd and the sheep shows the close relationship
that Jesus wants to establish with each of us. He is our guide, our teacher,
our friend, our model, but above all he is our Savior.” Which is why the image of the lamb rescued
over the shepherd’s shoulders is so fitting for this day. The Good Shepherd comes to our rescue even
when we have strayed from him and can no longer hear his voice. He comes to our rescue when we are most in
need to put us on his shoulders and take us to greener pastures. This image is what makes what Pope Francis
did yesterday so remarkable.
The Pope traveled to a Greek island where there are a great
concentration of refugees especially from war torn Syria. The Holy Father said that he encountered
great suffering. Now he met with 300
refugees one by one each telling him their story. The Pope heard a story from a Muslim father
with two children who recounted how terrorists kidnapped his wife because she
was a Christian, and then killed her when she refused to deny Christ. “She is a martyr,” the Pope declared this
morning. So one by one he listened to
these stories of suffering. In our case,
the shepherd also listens to his sheep, and in this particular case, even if
they are not necessarily of his fold.
Yet what the Holy Father did at the end of his brief trip is what spoke
volumes. Twelve Muslim refugees from Syria
boarded Shepherd One (the papal plane) and the Pope brought these refugees back
to the Vatican where they would be cared for.
The shepherd almost quite literally put the sheep on his shoulders and
led them to greener pastures.
This is the image of the Good Shepherd that we should take
with us this Sunday. On this World Day
of Prayer for Vocations, we pray that Christ send us shepherds after his own
heart as he promised in the gospels. We see
a wonderful example of a good shepherd in our Holy Father especially with his
actions in Greece with the refugees: a shepherd like Christ. Pray for vocations and pray for your
priests. I pray every day that I can be
a shepherd like Christ and like our most recent exceptional popes. May the words you hear me say be the words of
the Good Shepherd who today just simply calls us to follow him.
