Good Shepherd
One
The Sheep
No matter how much we pretend otherwise, we are all followers. We are all sheep. That isn’t a bad thing. It just means that we need to find the right leader. Some people like to think of themselves as non-followers. They think of themselves as rugged individualists who carve their own way in life. They chart their own course. They don’t take orders from anybody. But, actually, these people are the most deluded and the most subjected out of everyone.
They’re the ones who are totally governed by their passions, by vanity and appetite and lust and insecurity and anger. They’re driven by the stick of their desires. They’re led about by the ring in their nose, their own unexamined impulses, and precisely because they think they’re so independent, for that very reason, they are all the more completely enslaved to their unreflective, unsuspected masters.
Those of us who know that we’re sheep, who know we have to follow something, we’re the ones who actually have the possibility of some real freedom because we can be free to choose whom we follow. And in the Gospel of John, Chapter 10, Jesus tells us what options we have, whom we can choose to be led by.
Two
The Robbers and Thieves
Jesus says that those who do not come through the gate to the sheepfold, but who climb over the walls, these are robbers and thieves. What does that mean? What’s the sheepfold? What’s the gate? Who are the robbers and the thieves?
Well, the sheepfold is God’s family. It’s the chosen people, the Church. And the walls around it, and the gate into it, this is God’s revelation, given to His prophets, His apostles, and their successors, the Pope and the Bishops. And those who bypass this revelation, those who ignore the Scriptures, the teaching of the Church, they are climbing over the wall to steal souls from God’s community. They are the false messiahs who came before Jesus. They are the pagans, who tried to get the Israelites to worship the gods they themselves had invented. They are the Muslims and the Mormons, each of them claiming to have a new revelation.
The thieves and the robbers are anyone who makes their own way, who comes up with their own religious ideas, and tries to get people to follow them. But Jesus, like the prophets before and the Church afterwards, is the true Shepherd, and He teaches only what He has received from the Father. There will always be people coming up with new religions, inventing their own doctrines. There will always be Scientologists and Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists, and the fact that their ideas are practically brand-new proves that they have not preserved them from the time of the Lord.
And Jesus says that eventually the sheep will flee from them, for they realize that their voice is a strange voice, one they do not know. And these religions are fashionable for a time, and then they usually fade. Sometimes they increase again for a while, but most new paganisms and new variations on Christianity don’t last long. Because deep inside, the sheep know that the sheepfold is where they belong.
Three
The Hirelings
Jesus also talks about the hirelings, those who get money to watch the sheep. He says, “He who is a hireling and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep is not, he sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hireling and cares nothing for the sheep.”
So these are the people who lead the sheep, but not because they care for the sheep, but based on what they can get out of it. These hirelings may offer some service for the sheep, and they may even be benevolently disposed for the sheep, but they certainly aren’t going to sacrifice themselves for their sheep. Who are these?
These are, presumably, all those people who offer you happiness and healing, but won’t sacrifice anything for you personally. The ancient philosophers, for instance, gave a lot of good advice. But we don’t hear that they ever sacrificed themselves to help someone in need.
The world today is full of wellness experts. People who want to tell you how to live, how to be fit, how to be well-adjusted. And they may have some good insights. But they make a good living at it. And they certainly aren’t going to sacrifice themselves for you personally. Jordan Peterson isn’t going to lay down his life for you. Dr. Phil isn’t going to lay down his life for you. Your own personal therapist isn’t going to lay down his life for you. In fact, if they stop getting paid, then they stop giving you advice.
These aren’t necessarily bad people. But they are hirelings. They make their money by helping you with your issues, and at the end of the day, if things go terribly wrong for you, that isn’t ultimately their problem. It’s a contract-thing. It was always a contract-thing.
So don’t go all-in on somebody who’s not all-in for you. Feel free to benefit from whatever true insights they might have. But don’t give your life to someone who won’t give their life for you. And there’s only one person who has already proven that He will give His life for you.
Four
The Good Shepherd
Jesus says, “He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens; the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name… the sheep follow him, for they know his voice… I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I am the good shepherd; I know my own and they know me.”
Jesus, unlike all the gurus and all the pop-psychologists and all the other religious founders, knows you. Jesus cares about you. Jesus, unlike all the gurus and all the pop-psychologists and all the other religious founders, comes through the gate of God’s revelation. Jesus was predicted by the Scriptures. Jesus worked the public miracles that proved He was from God. Jesus promised He would rise again on the Third Day, and He did.
Jesus, unlike all the gurus and all the pop-psychologists and all the other religious founders, is completely invested in you. Jesus laid down His life for you. Jesus is the Good Shepherd.
Five
The Sheepfold of Christ
Jesus said his “sheep hear the voice of the shepherd, and he calls his own sheep by name…and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice…” Well, how do we learn to hear the voice of the shepherd so that we can follow him?
It can be so hard in prayer to discern the difference between our own voice in our head and the voice of the Good Shepherd. Let me suggest two ways to practice knowing the voice of the shepherd.
Every one of these rosary meditations is based on the Word of God from Scripture, Tradition, and the Magesterium, all of which make up the Word of God. When you’re reading it and when we’re praying, whatever catches your attention, there’s a reason it catches your attention because the Shepherd is speaking to you, so whatever stikes you, that’s what the Shepherd is trying to say to you, and you want to lock into that. Then, hold it. Reflect on it. Think about it. Apply it to your life, because that will become your resolution, the concrete thing that you put into action that day so that, once you’ve heard the voice of the Shepherd, you can start doing what He’s asked.
If you just practice each day during this rosary podcast to pay attention to that one thing that catches your attention, you’ll get better at hearing the voice of the Shepherd.