All through salvation history we hear of the dynamic of God first reaching out and then humanity’s response. We hear that dynamic in play when we consider the scripture of today’s Mass.
In the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2: 14, 36-41) we hear Peter addressing an assembly of Jews with the bold proclamation of the risen Christ and God’s offer of salvation. And Peter indicates what our response is to God’s gracious outreach – to embrace the salvation that God offers in Christ by turning our lives back to God and allowing God’s Spirit to fill us.
In his letter to the gentile community (1 Peter 2:20-25), Peter speaks of the suffering and crucified Christ. And once again Peter indicates what our response is to Jesus’s selfless sacrifice and his outreach to us from the cross – we are called to imitate Jesus and to bear our own suffering and all of life’s contradictions patiently with trust in God’s love for us and hope in God’s promise.
And in today’s Gospel (John 10:1-10) we hear Jesus using the metaphor of shepherd and sheepfold to indicate the relationship that God has with each one of us individually and with his church as a whole. Jesus tells us that he is our Good Shepherd who guides us with care and concern, a shepherd who offers us sanctuary and protection, a shepherd who lays his life down in order to save us. And once again our response to this loving outreach is simply put by Jesus – we are to listen for his voice, to follow him, to imitate his way, to trust in his love.
And so we go forward with great faith in our Good Shepherd. We take a moment each and every day to acknowledge our utter need for, and dependence on, our Good Shepherd. And each and every day we take a moment to reflect on how blessed we are to have Jesus as our Shepherd, and how fortunate we are to have been invited into His sheepfold. And each and every day we ask God to help us to more and more recognize our Shepherd’s voice, and to discern His loving plan for our lives. We ask God to help us more and more respond to our Good Shepherd’s loving outreach by trustingly abandoning ourselves to Him and humbly placing our lives in His hands.