The last words of today's gospel are such a consolation for us. Jesus, seeing the needs of the people, 'set himself to teach them at some length'. This is the true meaning of 'feeding the sheep' of the Church: their minds are fed on truth, and their hearts rise to love. True shepherds feed us with truth. Shepherds, formed after the heart of 'the Shepherd' know that teaching is not an encumbrance but a primordial duty of pastoral care. Weirdly, 'pastoral' care has come to mean saying almost anything but the truth. Of course, we don't want force feeding, but persuasive feeding!
Jesus' example arises here because, as the gospel tells us, 'he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd'. How could this be? The people had nothing but overlords in the Palestine of Jesus' day: political overlords in the Romans, supervisory overlords in the Jewish tetrarchs, pedagogical overlords in the Scribes and Rabbis, religious and hierarchical overlords in the Pharisees and the priestly cast. How on earth was it that the people were like sheep without a shepherd?
This absence of care among a hierarchy is a sign of a profound crisis of leadership, especially in the religious domain. What is shocking is that the Jewish religious authorities were nothing if not active and interventionist; there was little they did not pronounce on in the lives of the Jews. And yet, the people were still like sheep without a shepherd.
Yet this crisis is no mystery. True shepherds feed the people truth (as Jesus' example shows); the truth in charity of course, but the truth. It is as simple as that.
Let us pray for our shepherds, that they resolutely follow the example of Jesus.
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