The Patient Good Shepherd
Entering Quarr along our main driveway you may have recently noticed the field on your left filled with all white ewes and around them jet-black lambs. Our farmer explained that the lambs are by a spotted black and white ram. The shepherd – in this case an 11-year-old shepherdess – is planning on a small flock of Dutch spotted sheep, but it takes about 4 crosses to get them right. Our farmer says that patience is the first requirement for a shepherd! Dutch spotted sheep are a relatively new breed in the UK. Their good temperament and ease of management makes them a good choice.
Patience, as St Thomas explains, like all the virtues, is ordered to the Good. It has a root meaning which implies an undergoing of suffering. It is also connected to the notion of holding back or staying behind. Today, on Good Shepherd Sunday, we can reflect a little on this virtue of patience. When Our Lord calls Himself the Good Shepherd, he does not mean a type of easy-going kindly person. He possesses much more a deliberate brilliance, reflecting the Good which is connected to the Beautiful. His patience is nothing weak. He is not like the hireling who thinks only of his own well-being and is ready to run off in the face of any danger. The synoptic Gospels say that Jesus gave His life as a ransom for us. But St John portrays it stronger than this: He lays down His Life for the sheep. He has Divine Power to do this, to lay down His Life and to take it up again. No one takes His Life from Him. He undergoes His patient suffering, death on the cross, out of love for and fulfilment of the Will of His Father. Jesus is equal to the Father in His Divine Power and could have unleashed the full extent of His Justice in bringing the world to repentance. But His greatest attribute is His Divine Mercy, which flows forth from His open wounds on the Cross. Mercy, Goodness, Patience, Beauty shine forth in a deliberate brilliance from the Cross.
What is the meaning of all this? God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. Those who believe in Him, know Him: ‘I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me, and I know the Father.’ The Good Shepherd wants to draw us into a relationship with Him, into a unity mirroring the unity of the Holy Trinity. Thus, our lives should reflect the brilliance of this unity. We receive the Mercy of God’s Goodness by opening our hearts to His Mercy and by being merciful, in patience, with others. Furthermore, we must not think of the sheep as being in an enclosure, like a farm or an exclusive club. ‘I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice.’ He says, ‘I have’, not ‘I will have’. The prolepsis here tells what will happen in the future but is already enacted – the other sheep already belong to Him. Who are they? Anyone who hears His voice in the depths of their souls:
God’s Grace shimmering the soul,
Sustaining, maintaining, forming,
Drawing, unifying, proclaiming,
One Whole.
Like the sunlight on a bright sunny day over the rippling waves of the ocean God’s Grace shimmers through souls drawing into one whole. God’s Mercy is open to everyone. No one is excluded. The Merciful Love of the Lord fills the earth, as we sang in our Introit. We can block out the Light, but it is still there. It is everywhere. If you don’t see it, perhaps you are just the other side of the curtain! Allowing God’s Grace to reflect from our souls, in mercy, goodness, patience, tenderness, effects the attractiveness of the Beautiful One.
This is how souls come to know the Good Shepherd. We can easily get bogged down with a scientific kind of knowing, which also has its place and its beauty. Scientific knowing is also God’s gift to us too. Reason serves Faith. One of the great proponents of this idea was St Anselm whose feast it is today. His very simple demonstration of the existence of God runs as follows: ‘God is that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be -thought. If He does not exist then something greater can be thought, namely the thought that He exists. Therefore, He must exist.’ Just about every philosopher of religion since his time in the late 11th century to the present day has written a commentary on this argument, whether in agreement with it or not. This is reason in the service of Faith. The danger is that reason apart from Faith may lead one along the path of pride. Instead, allow this knowing to lead us to a Higher Knowing, because, although distinct, they are not separate. They meet when we draw back the curtains, blocking us from the sun and open our eyes to the Divine Light, and let our ears hear with attentive ears the Divine Voice crying daily to us: Today if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts’. Today!
What was Mary doing when she patiently pondered these things, these mysteries, in her heart? Did she have a complete understanding? No. She too is fully human, and her earthly life was one of spiritual growth, like everyone else. She heard the Infinite Divine Voice dwindled to infancy, lying in a manger – to borrow an inspiration from Gerard Manley Hopkins – the Infinite God lying vulnerable in a manger before her. But she heard this Voice more deeply in the depths of her Immaculate soul. Because she heard this Voice profoundly, she is like the moon reflecting the light of the sun which shimmers over the ocean of souls drawing us all in. To where? Our patient Mother shepherdess leads us into the unity of the ever-expanding flock of the Good Shepherd. Drawing souls to this Good Shepherd is our vocation too. Be merciful as our Heavenly Father is merciful.