Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
One of the most common professions in the ancient world was that of being a shepherd.
Shepherding goes back to the very beginning of human existence.
The first shepherd mentioned in scripture was actually Abel, the second son of Adam and Eve.
Genesis 4:2 tells us Abel was a keeper of the sheep.
A shepherd lived pretty much like a nomad, like someone without a fixed home.
He had very few possessions.
The description of a young shepherd, David, in the book of Kings, when he went out to fight Goliath, is a description of someone whose possessions consisted of little more than a staff, a shepherd's bag, and a sling with which to fight.
The Song of Songs 1:8 tells us that the shepherd lived in a tent, not in a home, which fits in well with his nomadic existence.
The most prized and most important of all the shepherd's possessions was his sheep.
In the Old Testament, the description of the shepherd was of someone who was a caretaker, someone who was self-sacrificing, truly dedicated to the well-being of the sheep, bringing them back to the fold when they strayed, defending them from vicious animals who wanted to eat and devour them, leading them to places where they could eat and drink in peace.
In fact, if you ever look up the word shepherd in Hebrew, you'll notice that it's not classified as a noun, actually.
It's classified as a verb, *ra'ah* [rā‘â].
It means to pasture, to tend, to graze.
So the shepherd's a person of action who cares for, protects, and guides the helpless beasts entrusted to his care.
Leaders and the kings of Israel in the Old Testament were actually referred to as shepherds as well.
In 2 Samuel 5:2, we hear Israelites say to David, they say, the Lord said to you, it is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over Israel.
A few hundred years later, we hear our Lord speak to the prophet Jeremiah saying, woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, Jeremiah 23:1.
And then he says, I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, nor be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord, Jeremiah 23:4.
So here we'll just put in a little parentheses, there are many realities in life which are reflections of truths that we find in scripture that reflect the nature and the character of God.
We think, for example, of the sun, which gives light so we can see everything around us, yet we can't stare directly at the sun, or we'll become blind.
The sun is kind of somewhat like God in that sense, a symbol of him, who we can't see, but who gives light and grace to see and understand the world around us, and heavenly realities too.
Or we can think of the moon, which reflects the light of the sun, allows us to see during the night.
The moon is like Our Lady, who reflects the light of Christ, just like the light of the sun is reflected in the moon, and allows us to see in spiritual and cultural darkness.
Our Lady is a big help in that.
Or we think of the family, father, mother, child, which is a dim reflection of the Trinity, which says love unites a man and a woman together, and they form another person through their union.
So too love unites Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is considered the offspring of the love of the Father and the Son, an eternal offspring, not a temporal one.
So three persons, one God, and a family, you have at least three persons, right?
The couple's able to have a child, but it's just one family.
The analogies, of course, aren't perfect, but they are real, they do exist, they do give us some insight into the realities of heaven, just like the analogy of the shepherd.
So in describing himself, our Lord loves to actually use that metaphor, that analogy of the shepherd.
In various instances in the Old Testament, he calls himself a shepherd.
Most famously, Psalm 23, which we heard in today's responsorial psalm, the Lord is my shepherd.
There's nothing I shall want.
The reality of God as a shepherd is far removed from the Enlightenment idea of God.
Deism or those who had a deistic understanding of God, they saw God as just a simple watchmaker who creates the heavens and the earth, sets them in motion, then leaves, goes off, does his own thing.
He leaves the scene of history, essentially letting the rules and the laws of nature govern everything.
It's kind of an incomplete and a pretty hollow or pretty shallow view of God, which the deists embrace.
God's not a simple watchmaker or an absent father, no, he is like a shepherd.
He's present and very involved in the life of his sheep.
In order for the relationship between sheep and shepherd to work out, there needs to be two things.
First of all, the shepherd has to be trustworthy, has to be a person of integrity, and really looking out for the best interests of the sheep.
In God's case, he's completely trustworthy.
He's the perfect person to fill the shoes of any shepherd.
The other thing that's needed is a spirit of trust and docility on the part of the sheep too.
If the sheep don't listen to him or don't trust the shepherd, what are they going to do?
Run off and do their own thing.
The shepherd wants us to go straight, okay, we'll go left.
The shepherd says, stop here, nibble on the grass, no, I think I'm just going to go exploring instead.
What happens when the sheep begin to behave in this way?
Well, they find themselves in a mess.
The shepherd sometimes has to go and risk his own life to rescue his thick-headed and thick-hearted sheep.
Of course, that's all of salvation history in a nutshell, basically, right?
The prophet Isaiah says, all we like sheep have gone astray.
We have all turned to our own way and the Lord has laid upon him, upon Jesus, the iniquity of us all, Isaiah 53:6.
In the New Testament, even Jesus calls himself a shepherd too.
He says in John 10:14-15, I am the good shepherd.
I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep.
In order to glorify his Father and to save us from the mess that we've gotten ourselves into, Jesus became one of us.
He became man.
He, as Pope Francis would say, got himself dirty and put on the odor of the sheep.
The letter to the Hebrews chapter 10 says, consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you prepared for me.
See God, I have come to do your will, Hebrews 10:5-7.
Sometimes when we've got a job to do, maybe like painting a fence, we just do it mechanically, not really wanting to do it or just doing it without putting much attention or care into the work.
Someone else may come along and paint that same fence with a lot of attention and care, really putting themselves into the work, doing it with a passion because they enjoy the painting or because they're doing it for someone that they love.
Our Lord puts a lot of passion into being a shepherd.
He puts his whole heart and soul into his work.
He loves his work because he loves his sheep.
Jesus not only performs the actions of the good shepherd, providing for the spiritual and material needs of his sheep, feeding them with his words of life, healing them of their sins, but he also has the heart of a true shepherd too.
Not just the actions, but the heart.
The last line of today's gospel, taken from St. Mark, is when he says, when he, Jesus, disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them.
For they were like sheep without a shepherd.
And he began to teach them many things, Mark 6:34.
Jesus had just taken the apostles away from the crowd so that they could have some time to themselves.
But upon seeing the people gathered at the place where they had just docked their boat, he couldn't help but be moved with mercy and compassion for them.
A true shepherd works for the love of the sheep, not simply because he's paid or because he's forced to take care of them.
A true shepherd even goes so far as to live his life and lay down his life for the sheep, which is what Jesus did.
All that being said, what can we learn from today's liturgy?
First of all, we need to ask the Lord for the spirit of humility and docility, which should characterize those who follow Christ.
Humility and docility not only regarding the teachings of the Church, all of them, not just the ones you like, and the shepherds of the Church, the pope, the bishops, the priests, but also regards to the inspirations and the voice of the Holy Spirit, which speaks to us during the day and during our lifetime too.
The Lord actually does speak to us many times during the day, but often we're just too caught up in things or too caught up in ourselves to hear him.
So let's ask for that grace to have that humility and docility to be able to follow and hear the Lord's voice.
Secondly, let's ask our Lord to help us to see and understand that Jesus truly is trustworthy and that we can really entrust ourselves to him.
Because if we have problems trusting God, the problem's not on God's end, it's on ours in some form or fashion.
We need to ask Our
 Lady to help us understand maybe why we don't trust God as we ought to if we struggle with that, and ask her for the grace to correct any faulty thinking or any faulty behavior which is impeding us from truly living in the freedom and the peace of the children of God.
When we learn to deny ourselves, when we learn to take up our cross every day and follow the shepherd, we will find a peace which the world cannot give and cannot have, and we'll be sure to be heading towards the heavenly pasture of paradise where we will one day reign alongside the lamb, i.e., the shepherd.
He's both lamb and shepherd, the one who was slain for our sins.
Let's ask Our Lady for the grace to be able to reach that land one day.
Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.