If you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a word behind you: "This is the way, walk in it. "1 One of the greatest graces that the Lord can give us in this life is to have a clear path that leads us to Him and to have a person who can help us to get out of our detours and errors and to return to the good path.
In many moments of its history, the people of God found itself without direction and without a path, in the greatest bewilderment and despondency, for lack of true guides. This is how the Lord finds his people: like sheep without a shepherd, as the Gospel of today's Mass tells us. When he saw the people, he had compassion for them, because they were exhausted and abandoned, "like sheep without a shepherd". Their guides had behaved more like wolves than true shepherds of the flock.
In the long wait of the Old Testament, the Prophets announced, centuries in advance, the coming of the Good Shepherd, the Messiah, who would guide and lovingly care for his flock. He would be a unique shepherd , who would seek out the lost sheep and the strayed, bind up the wounded and heal the sick. With Him, the sheep would be safe and, in His name, there would be other good shepherds with the task of caring for them and guiding them: I will give them shepherds who will truly feed them, and they shall fear no more, neither be troubled nor distressed.
I am the good shepherd, says Jesus. He came into the world to gather the flock of God: You were wandering, St. Peter tells us, like sheep going astray, but now you have become the shepherd and guardian of your souls; the Good Shepherd comes to gather his flock from its wandering9, to guide it, to defend it, to feed it, to judge it, to lead it at last to the final pastures, beside the waters of life.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd announced by the Prophets. In him all the prophecies are fulfilled to the letter. He knows and calls each of the sheep by name. Jesus knows us personally, calls us, seeks us out, heals us! We do not feel lost in the midst of an immense and nameless humanity. We are unique for him. We can say with all accuracy: He loved me and gave himself for me. He distinguishes my voice among many others. No Christian has the right to say that he is alone. Jesus Christ is with him, and if he has strayed into the ways of evil, the Good Shepherd has already gone out to look for him. Only the ill-will of the sheep can defeat the shepherd's vigilance; the unwillingness to return to the sheepfold. Only that.
Hablar con Dios