I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD
On the television all those invited to
participate in the various programmes are
presented as doing good: from those giving sex-adapting pills to
children, and recommending assisted-dying for the sick or elderly; to those
asserting that responsible parents should not be allowed to chastise their
children physically at all … no harassed
mother allowed to slap her disobedient children, for that causes endless mental
health problems (!) for children later on.
‘Good’ committee members wanting
and empowered to reward the ‘good
behaviour’ of prisoners under strict supervision by a reduction of their prison
sentence have, and do still, show their ‘goodness by occasionally allowing even
vicious criminals to be let loose on the general public with the result that hundreds and possibly
thousands of people (mainly women?) have already been murdered or seriously
harmed when such apparently ‘good behaviour’ gives way to new temptation,
desire, or fear. And, the ‘goodness’ of
such generous committees is not to be questioned.
Our modern Western or
Western-influenced society has reneged on religion, especially the Christian
religion which originally gave a rock-foundation for believing society.
Official modern society no longer believes in Jesus because it thinks it
has no need of Him: it does not want what Jesus seems (to them) to offer
– obedience now and heaven much later on --
but it most certainly does want what modern society seems to offer:
pleasures-a-plenty here and now, do whatever you want so long as it doesn’t harm
other people, lots of technological possibilities
for both good and evil, and certainly lots of excitement and sex. Moreover, addicts of whatever kind tend to be thought of, exclusively, as ‘sick’ people, thus supporting the demise
of human will-power, human ability to avoid, even to reject the solicitations
of sin. And all that is seen as forms of
modern ‘goodness’.
Jesus, however, said of Himself, and
still says in and through His Church: ‘I am the good shepherd’; while the world
nowadays says on the other hand, ‘we are doing good for everybody; a good,
everybody appreciates, here and now’.
Who are you to believe, O serious
thinker? What is your faith – and your experience – O
People of God:
JESUS IS THE GOOD SHEPHERD!
It behoves us, however, as Christian
believers. to try to understand as clearly as we can something of what Jesus
meant by the word, ‘good’.
Jesus was sent by His Father -- and
by His own filial desire -- to become
the Saviour of human-kind; that is, the Saviour of humanity bound by chains of
sin and death. That is what Jesus’ words
‘good shepherd’ involve: His freeing humankind from those chains which
rob them of God’s original blessing of life and love as the crown of His creation
and as His own true, adopted children. And
that Jesus did because He, as perfect God and perfect man, could love His
Father – adequately -- as God, thus returning His Father’s original-and-still-enduring love
of men; and, as Man -- by His obedience through suffering-and-death -- make up
for humans’ disobedience: disrespect for the majesty of God and disregard for
the beauty of their own being -- a divinely endowed creation -- by the destructive-and-disruptive,
wilful disobedience of sin, emanating from Satan’s own hatred of both
God and man.
Jesus, the good shepherd was also characterised
by His compassion, e.g. on the Five Thousand he fed after they
had totally forgotten themselves listening to Jesus speaking to them about the
Kingdom of God. That compassion of Jesus
also ‘pushed’ Him to revive the widow of Nain’s only son … possibly thinking
about His own mother who would lose Him soon.
He also was moved with compassion to heal the man lying for 38 years waiting
at the Pool of Siloam for a chance to be the first to enter the ‘moved’ healing
waters.
His ’goodness’ also ‘pushed’ Jesus
again to love and admire the widow
who, out of her poverty, put all that she had to live on into the Temple
treasury for love of God. Notice there, dear People of God, that
Jesus’ goodness as shepherd of His people was ordained above all to enabling,
helping, leading this widow, and His
people, to love His Father, their God … and such heavenly love of God was not to
be poisoned by sugar-coated human sympathy unable to appreciate the wondrous beauty
of the widow’s gift … not of two small coins, but of total disregard of self
before the beauty of God; a gift given
out of total love for God… not ‘excogitated’ by her own mind. but, as it
were, wrung out of her whole being, by spontaneous and compelling, divinely-gifted,
love.
One of Mother Church’s short prayers,
is that we might worship God by imitating His goodness; but in our modern world, ‘goodness’
is ‘done’ not out of a desire to imitate our heavenly Father, but out of a proud
and worldly desire to show our own, human goodness.
Dear People of God, for us Catholics and Christians, ‘goodness’ is an expression of, fruit of, godliness, not of sentimentality. God’s commands are not impossible for He ‘knows us and knows of what we are made. But He also knows the beauty of the salvation Jesus has won for us, and the power of the Holy Spirit bestowed on us to lead and guide us to that ultimate fulfilment. You who are faithful disciples of Jesus know the goodness of God from your own life’s experience … these my words are nothing more than a reminder or gentle spur for your greater love of Him Who is our All.
