Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), July 19, 2015 – Jer 23, 1-6; Eph 2, 13-18; Mk 6, 30-34
He is our peace (Eph 2, 16)
Jesus embodies the divine compassion that reconciles people. He expects those he has reconciled to reflect his compassion.
God has seen enough. He will make the leaders answer for their wickedness. He promises to remedy the situation.
The promise is fulfilled in the person of Jesus. He is the good shepherd par excellence. He has come to serve and give his life as a ransom for all.
Hence, the shepherds after Jesus’ heart are not tyrants. Their greatness lies in serving with absolute disinterestedness. They get to be first because they are the slaves of all.
A fundamental trait of true shepherds is their compassion that is based on Jesus. Though divine, he humbles himself and come in human likeness. Made like us and tested exactly like us in all things, yet without sin, he becomes our high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses
So then, those who shepherd with Jesus know how to put themselves in the sheep’s situation. They have personal contact with the people and thus acquire the capacity to put names and faces on those making up the anonymous and ignored crowd. They realize that the lack of physical encounter “can lead to a numbing of conscience and to tendentious analyses which neglect parts of reality” (LS 49) as well as to generalizations like: “The poor are lazy”; “The homeless are drunken people”; “Welfare recipients have it easy.”
Shepherds appointed by Jesus take pity on those who are near and those who are far off. They imitate the Teacher who provides quiet and rest to those who surround him, his exhausted apostles. He also has compassion on those who are still waiting for him, the many coming from all the towns who are like sheep without a shepherd.
Pastoral compassion is affective and effective. Christian leaders do not only love humanity but also actual people. They are not among those who love ecstatically, but in in an abstract way, rapt in wonderful spiritual sentiments and in sublime heavenly conversations. Abstract love that dispenses with the effort of the arms and the sweat of the brow, this love gets unmasked when those claiming to love are suddenly nowhere to be found and are lacking in courage now that they are being asked to instruct the poor, for example, or to go look for the lost sheep (FR XI:40).
And if our love does not surpass abstract love, we will have difficulty discerning the body of Christ. Our participation in the Eucharist will be suspect, if we show little readiness to leave it to attend to God in the person of the poor. If we do not love those whom we see, how can we love God whom we do not see?
Lord, make us witnesses of your compassion.
Ross Reyes Dizon
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