Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I recently saw an interview of a young couple in Rome who had a difficult pregnancy many years ago. The baby was conceived, and the pregnancy started well, but after a few months the skull had not formed correctly, and the doctor’s prognosis was not good. The couple had a great deal of peace throughout the nine months and even had a natural delivery of the baby who passed to the Father soon thereafter. What I found most striking in the interview was how the mother said after her daughter Maria was born, she had such a great joy and felt that her child was an enormous gift from God. She commented that if she had terminated the pregnancy there would have been no celebration, no joy, so sense of oneness with her daughter, who was now with God. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbHpCJ8AfUY
Cardinal Mindszenty from Poland was a great defender of the Church during communism, said: A mother does not need to claim that she has built Notre Dame Cathedral what she has done by being a mother is something much more magnificent than any cathedral. She has provided a dwelling place for an immortal soul. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature…because she creates with Him.
On this Good Shepherd Sunday, it is good for us to find consolation in our mothers and in the many things that our Good Shepherd has given us during our life. Our parents and family are fundamental in the history each one of us has and often we don’t appreciate it or think another history would have been better. Jesus Christ is the only Good Shepherd who leads us into joy and peace. There are other shepherds but only one is good. Are you following the good one or have you wandered off to follow the shepherd of health, or of vanity, or of money, or of your criteria? These other shepherds do not give life; they take it. When Christ is our true shepherd, we lack nothing, not peace, not joy, not money.
In other gospels used for this Sunday, it says that Jesus is the door or the gate. This image would have been very common to the people of his time. The sheepfold was an outside area, without a roof, with a rectangular shape, and in one wall there was a hole that the sheep used to enter and to leave. At night the shepherd placed himself across that door so that the wolf could not enter, and the sheep could not leave without the shepherd knowing. He literally put down his life for his sheep. If there was danger he would be the first to suffer from it.
In every Eucharist we can experience the mercy of God, and the help that he gives to each one of us. Even in the dark valleys of life, he brings us peace. In every Communion he says, I love you, I am enough for you. Allow the Lord to be your true pastor. Think sincerely: who is the guide, the pastor of your life? The one you think of all the time during the day, he is your shepherd. It might be your comfort, your worries, your money, your career, whatever. Be consoled by the fact that your true Shepherd carries the sick one, you and me, upon his shoulders, and brings us to everlasting peace.