Readings Acts 4: 8-12 Ps 118: 1, 8-9, 21-23, 26, 29 1 Jn 3: 1-2 Jn 10: 11-18
Suggested Emphasis
“I am the Good Shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me in the same way that the Father knows me and I know the Father.”
Salesian Perspective
I’m sure you have heard the expression “to know is to love.” When we’re talking in a general way, it is certainly true that we can hardly be expected to fall in love with something or someone we are totally unfamiliar with. But the statement “to know is to love” is not completely true when it is a question of human relationships. In these relationships, it is more accurate to say “to love is to know”, i.e., that once we have decided to love others, to commit ourselves to other people, we open ourselves to them and they in turn, reciprocate by committing and opening themselves to us. Jesus expresses this truth when he says: "Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him."(Jn. 14:21) Francis de Sales echoes this truth by telling us, "Knowledge of the good can give us the beginning of love but not its measure." (Treatise, Book 6, chap. 4)
In today’s gospel, Jesus makes a surprising and startlingly revelation about his relationship with us. “I am the Good Shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me in the same way that the Father knows me and I know the Father.” He is saying that he knows us as intimately and as personally as his heavenly Father knows him. And we in turn know him the way he knows the Father. The kind of knowledge that Christ our Good Shepherd has for each one of us is only acquired by a very close and intimate contact with us. It is a result of his love for us, of his willingness to commit himself totally and completely to us just as a shepherd totally and completely commits himself, his entire life to his sheep.
If we reflect on the relationship of a shepherd to his sheep, we see that his whole life is centered on the lives of his sheep. The shepherd is with them all day long, and many times throughout the night he watches over them. It’s no surprise then that he gets to know all of the peculiarities, all of the individual traits of each of his sheep and gives them each a name. To others his sheep may all look the same, but to their shepherd, each is different and distinct. So he has no trouble whatsoever picking his own out from among hundreds in the sheep pen.
The parable of the Good Shepherd is not so far removed from us as we might first be inclined to believe. It touches the very well-springs of our being - our need to be known and loved for who we are, no matter what. We might sometimes think, feel or act in ways that are as smelly and dirty as most sheep are; we might get into all kinds of trouble by straying from our shepherd, like the sheep who get caught in bramble bushes, fall into rocky crags or have a hundred and one missteps. Nevertheless, our Good Shepherd is there to bind up our wounds. He knows and loves us to the extent that he puts his life on the line for us.
Like the Good Shepherd, do we put ourselves on the line for one another?
Rev. Michael S. Murray, OSFS, is the Executive Director of the De Sales Spirituality Center.
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