“ Good Shepherd Sunday ”

2000

Cloyne Diocesan Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Knock.

HOMILY.

“ I am the Good Shepherd; I know my own and my own know me” ( Jn. 10: 14).

This Sunday, my dear fellow-pilgrims, the Fourth after Easter, is given the name “ Good Shepherd Sunday” because of the text of the Gospel just proclaimed. It is the text where it is recounted that Jesus gives himself the title of the “Good Shepherd”. This was a title which the original listeners to the voice of Jesus would quite easily have understood. Hearing it today in the context of our modern Ireland may seem strange to the ears of some. To others it may seem too rural but to those who have some understanding of Scripture it makes good sense.

On a recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land from the Diocese of Cloyne our guide, a Palestinian Christian, Fammi by name, recounted for us a true story as we were travelling by coach from Jerusalem to Jericho. We were passing by many of the tents of the Bedouin Tribe, those who shepherd the sheep in that part of the world. They live constantly with their flock and they get to know them very well. They are not the ‘hired man’ which Jesus talks about. They are ‘the good shepherd’ who know their own. The story goes: one of these Bedouin shepherds rose one morning and as usual checked on his flock to make sure none of them strayed during the night. He found that five of them were missing and so he left the rest of the flock at the tent – and they knew to stay there – and went in search of the missing sheep. He climbed on high rocks and hills calling with the shepherd’s voice, a voice well known to his sheep. Each shepherd had his own special call. But call as did none of his missing sheep heard him. He then suspected that the reason they did not respond to his call was, not only because they did not hear his call but probably because they were not free to hear him. He then remembered that, in a village nearby, there was a market day and many sheep would be sold that day. It could happen that a false shepherd had come to his flock during the night and taken away, by force, five of his sheep. So he hurried over to the village and there he saw numerous sheep being presented for sale. They all were with their respective shepherds. So our friend, the good shepherd, stood up on a height and called out with his familiar call to his sheep and, lo and behold, his five sheep came running to him while the false shepherd fled. “ I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me”(Jn.10:14). This actually happened two years ago.

Two months ago another genuine shepherd travelled throughout the Holy Land and those who heard his voice recognised the truth he was witnessing to because he proclaimed the message of the “Good Shepherd”. That was Pope John Paul II.

There are those who call and there are those who hear. Those who call in the name of the ‘Good Shepherd’ must speak with an authentic voice. They must not be shackled in any way; they must not be conditioned by social or political niceties; they must speak with courage and conviction , in total freedom and transparency. Only then will their voice be recognised, only then will their message ring true. Fear of speaking the truth , lest one might be labelled as being conservative or liberal or of being totally at variance with current thought and modern trends, is the greatest of all shackles. It denies one the freedom of being an authentic witness to the Truth . The “Good Shepherd” is prepared to lay down his life. “ No one takes it from me;” He says, “ I lay it down of my own free will, and as it is in my power to lay it down, so it is in my power to take it up again”(Jn. 10:18). Those who are commissioned to speak in the name of Truth must be prepared to take risks for Truth. Only then will they and the message they proclaim be not only heard but also listened to.

Those who hear must, in their turn, be free to listen. If they are shackled by conditions of life, by social or political ideologies, by a lifestyle which is contrary to the Truth of the Gospel, they will find it very difficult to hear the authentic voice of the “ Good Shepherd”, that “Good Shepherd” who is prepared to lay down his life so that they may be nourished by the Truth.