We hear in today’s Good News that God cares for us with a love deeper and even more tender than that of a mother for her child. He is particularly close to those who need him most: the weak, the afflicted, and the abandoned. That is the love he showed us in Jesus; that is the love he invites us to have for each other: deep, tender, and lasting.
We think of prophets as people who are a bit radical. We imagine their word to be always hard, leading us to extreme and painful decisions. But this is not so. The disciples were sent by Jesus to preach a prophetic message — that all men and women are called to be part of the family of God; that we are all already sons and daughters of God, that we are all objects of God’s merciful and compassionate love, beyond borders, cultures, languages, and even religions.
This is the great prophetic message of Jesus. That is what we, the disciples of Jesus in the 21st century, must preach. We are prophets at the service of reconciliation and union within the family of God. We are not prophets of misfortune or division, but encounter and brotherhood.
In the first reading, God addresses himself to the leaders of the people who have not cared for the flock. They have divided and scattered the sheep. Therefore, God announces that he is going to gather the scattered sheep and assign them shepherds who will take care of the flock, who will keep them together. The reading ends with the announcement of the arrival of a shepherd king who will do justice to the flock.
And the second reading of the letter to the Ephesians speaks of Christ as the pivot around which the two peoples who were separated are reconciled: the Jewish world and the pagan world. It was the great division that was lived in the time of Jesus. On the one hand, those who felt they owned the promises of God, on the other those who were excluded. St. Paul also affirms that Jesus brought the two peoples together by his sacrifice, he broke down the wall that was made of hate, that separated them. He made peace between the two and created a new people.
It is Christ who reconciles peoples. He cares for everyone with compassion because he sees us, in the words of today’s Gospel, as “sheep without a shepherd”. It is up to us to continue his mission and to be prophets in the service of reconciliation in the world and our neighbourhood and our own families. Every time we succeed in reconciling with someone, we are being creators of forgiveness, of brotherhood, of reconciliation.
For your reflection
Is there any aspect of your life that needs reconciliation and forgiveness? Put a name and a face to the one with whom you think you should be reconciled: husband or wife, son or daughter, father or mother. And now think of something concrete you can do to reconcile.
Father Fernando Torres CMF
www.ciudadredonda.org
Translated by Father Alberto Rossa CMF
