....For Justice...take a minute to meditate today! THURSDAY I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Creator knows me and I know the Creator; and I will lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. - John 10:11,14--17 People need a “good shepherd” who knows how to understand and reach the heart. Just like Jesus. And it’s him that we have to follow closely, without being influenced by those who “speak about abstractions or moral casuistry,” from the many who “faithlessly negotiate everything with the politically and economically powerful,” from the revolutionaries who seek to start “so-called wars of liberation” based on politics or on a thinking far removed from the people. Jesus drew close to the people; Jesus healed the heart of the people; Jesus understood the problems of the people; Jesus wasn’t ashamed to talk to the sinners, he went to visit them; Jesus felt joy, he was pleased to go and be with his people. This is precisely why the people followed Jesus: because he was the good shepherd. He wasn’t a casuistic and moralistic Pharisee, nor a Sadducee who made political deals with the powerful; nor a guerilla who sought the political freedom of his people, nor a contemplative from a monastery. He was a shepherd. He spoke in the language of his people, he made himself understood, he spoke the truth, the matters of God: he never negotiated the matters of God. But he spoke of them in such a way that the people loved the matters of God. This is why they followed him. Contemplating Jesus the Good Shepherd is precisely the time to examine the conscience: Who am I pleased to follow? Those who speak to me about abstractions and moral casuistry? Those who call themselves people of God, but have no faith and who negotiate everything with the politically and economically powerful? Those who always want to do strange things, destructive things, so-called wars of liberation, but who in the end aren’t on the path of the Lord? Here then is the key question to ask ourselves: Who am I pleased to follow? Who influences me? a question which must push us to ask God the Father, that he may allow us to be close to Jesus, to follow Jesus, to be astonished by what Jesus tells us. - Pope Francis
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 13:13:18 +0000
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