GOSPEL
Mark 6:30-34
Translated
from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio
Don
Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading . . .
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Gospel Reflection)
The
apostles rejoined Jesus and told him all they had done and taught.
Then he said to them, ‘You must come away to some lonely place all
by yourselves and rest for a while’; for there were so many coming
and going that the apostles had no time even to eat. So they went off
in a boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. But
people saw them going, and many could guess where; and from every
town they all hurried to the place on foot and reached it before
them. So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity
on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set
himself to teach them at some length.
The
Gospel of the Lord: Praise
to you Lord
Jesus Christ
Kieran’s
summary . . .
The
delusion of our century is the belief that we can be completely free
and autonomous. The truth, however, is that we are creatures who need
to be guided by the Lord into life. Without the Lord, our supposed
freedom is really a slavery to our own egos. All of us need the Lord
to shepherd us into the paths of life. By ourselves. we follow
disorder paths that lead nowhere. Each of us needs to be shepherded
by the Lord, but each of us is also called to be shepherds for
others. There is no-one, not even a person who is sick in bed, that
is not called to live for others. By uniting our sufferings or
illness with the Lord, who
is the
source of life and mercy, we can bring life to others. How
mediocre and ugly life is when it is lived for myself, following my
own disordered impulses, but how beautiful it is when it is lived in
obedience to the promptings of the Good Shepherd, who calls us to
live lives of reciprocal mercy.
God,
in the person of Jesus, comes among us to be our shepherd
On
this sixteenth Sunday of ordinary time, we are presented with the
very important scriptural image of the relationship between the flock
and the shepherd. In the first reading
we hear the condemnation of the Lord towards those so-called
“shepherds”
who disperse their flocks. The Lord condemns these shepherds and
proclaims that he himself will one day gather his people to himself.
The Lord himself, concretely in the person of Jesus, will take direct
care of his flock. In the Gospel we see how Christ, when
he comes,
looks with compassion on these crowds who have no other
point
of reference.
We
delude ourselves into thinking that we can set the direction of our
lives, but we do not have life within us. We need the Lord to lead us
to authentic life
It
is a curious and interesting fact that sheep need a shepherd to take
care of them. They require someone to take them out to pasture and to
lead them to water. They are meek animals and the shepherd has to use
a series of sounds and whistles to guide them to where they need to
go. We too are sheep who are in need of a shepherd. It is not true
that we are totally autonomous. Autonomy is a good and beautiful
thing, but only when it is in the context of a proper relationship of
communion with
the Lord. We
are called to allow ourselves to be guided by him. The
anthropological delusion of the past century has been the
self-referential notion of the autonomous self. Freedom
is understood in an absolutist and indefinable way. It is simply not
true that we can live without limits. We have a fundamental need to
be guided by a shepherd. We sometimes think that we are exercising
complete liberty, but in reality we are always under the guidance of
someone or something. The liberty we imagine ourselves to have is
really a slavery to our own egos, to an emptiness that becomes a
disordered impulse to do things that have no direction.
We
are creatures and do not have life within ourselves. We need the Lord
to shepherd us into life
I
do not have an in-built sense of direction for my life. I cannot
deduce or invent of my own initiative the path I should take in life.
My task, instead is to receive the indications for the direction of
my existence. I must allow myself to be shepherded; I must learn how
to obey the Lord and obey reality. If I allow myself to be led by the
Lord, then how beautiful life becomes! Consider the contrast between
this attitude and the approach of someone who tries to impose his own
ideological expectations on life; who seeks to coerce life along the
path that he considers desirable. Life for this person becomes a
torture because it never obeys his expectations. All of us are
creatures. We do not have life in and of ourselves. And for this
reason all of us need to be shepherded by the Lord. He must show us
the paths that lead to life.
The
Lord is the source of mercy and he calls us to be shepherds of this
mercy for others
This
leads to another discourse. All of us are called, according to the
graces that the Lord gives us, to be shepherds in our turn. The
first murderer of history, Cain, when he was asked where Abel was,
responds, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” This is
how those
who neglect the lives of others
always speak. The word “keeper” in Hebrew also means “shepherd”.
Am I the shepherd of my brother? Yes, I certainly am! All of us have
a responsibility for each other’s lives. If a friend is behaving in
a way that damages him, and I do not speak to him, then what kind of
friend am I? There
is always someone whose life I must help to take care of. Even a
person who is himself ill in his sickbed is nevertheless a shepherd
because he can offer his suffering for another person. By living his
sickness in communion with the Lord he can become a fount of life for
others. So each one of us is a shepherd, and, at the same time, each
one of us has need to be led by others. How can we live if we do not
take care of each other? The fount of this attitude can be found in
Sunday’s Gospel. “So
as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them
because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” God’s nature is
mercy. He is rich in mercy. If our lives are rooted on and informed
by this mercy, then how good it will be to be with others! However,
if our lives depend only on ourselves and our own interests, then how
ugly and mediocre they will be. But how beautiful it is to live in
reciprocal mercy!
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