Good
Shepherd in catacomb of Priscilla, Rome.
(Second half of the 3rd century)
The
earliest Christian art is to be found in the Catacombs in Rome. One of the
images of Jesus that you find in the catacombs is that of the Good Shepherd.
Jesus is portrayed as a young beardless man with a sheep draped around his
shoulders. Clearly the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd that we find in
today’s gospel reading spoke to Christians from the earliest days of the church.
Perhaps one of the reasons why the image appealed to Christians from earliest
times is because it conveyed something of the personal nature of the
relationship between Jesus and his followers. The image from the Catacombs
communicates a sense of the close personal connection that the shepherd has
with his individual sheep. The shepherd had gone looking for the one sheep that
has wandered off and, having found it, he is taking the sheep on his shoulders
back to the flock. There is a personal bond between the shepherd and this one
sheep. That is what Jesus conveys in today’s gospel reading. He declares that
he knows his own and his own know him, just as the Father knows him and he
knows the Father. Jesus is saying that the relationship that he has with each
one of us is as intimate as the relationship that he has with his heavenly
Father. When it comes to the Lord, we are not just one of a crowd, lost in a
sea of faces. The Lord relates to us in a personal way and he invites us to
relate to him in a personal way. I am often struck by a line in Saint Paul’s
letter to the churches in Galatia, ‘I live by faith in the Son of God who loved
me and gave himself for me’. We can each make our own those words of Saint
Paul. When Jesus says in today’s gospel reading that, as the good shepherd, ‘I
lay down my life for my sheep’, he is saying that he lays down his life for
each one of us individually. We can all draw strength in these times from that
very personal relationship with the Lord he invites us to have with him • AE
...
Atardecer sobre la Alcazaba de La Alhambra, en Granada, al sur de España.
Hay palabras ¡qué duda cabe! que pueden
habitarse como se habita una ciudad ¡Ah, pero no las puede pronunciar
cualquiera! Dicha "Granada" por Federico García Lorca, es como sumergirse
en la ciudad. Del mismo modo acontece cuando habla Jesús. No puede pronunciar
una palabra sin revelar un mundo: el mundo de Dios. Un día se le ocurrió hablar
de sí mismo como de un Pastor, y quienes lo escucharon se abismaron en su alma. Comprendieron
que aquel Pastor no es como los demás, sino que conoce bien a sus
ovejas. Que es alguien que conoce a los hombres, que sabe de ellos en general y
en particular. Que cuando se dirige a alguien, sus palabras alcanzan la
intimidad y el corazón de la persona. Y que conoce bien pero no para humillar,
ni para condenar, sino para elevar, para recrear, para
salvar. Dio la vida por nosotros. Se insertó en las entrañas mismas
-miserables- de la existencia humana, excepto en el pecado, para hacerlas
estallar de gloria. Un ser que vive y que vive plenamente y abundantemente es
un ser a quien todos quisiéramos tener a nuestro lado, pues un ser así contagia
vida. Pues bien, el Señor glorioso no es solo un ser que está a nuestro lado,
sino que vive en nuestro interior. Esta mañana celebramos la Eucaristía; hoy podríamos
pedir(le) que nos hable al corazón y que nos deje sentir, así, sentir, que camina siempre a nuestro lado • AE
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