Solemnity of Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
I was thinking the other day that recently my life has not been as contemplative as I would like. I've been going through the motions of prayer, but what was once a routine of morning, evening and night prayer has now become a hurried few words at the beginning and end of each day. I could come up with excuses - being the full-time working mother of a toddler certainly has its challenges - but those excuses usually fall flat when I look around at many of you, who have lives at least as busy as mine and still you manage more of a spiritual life.
Today's scriptures made me think about these questions in a new way because they invite us to reflect personally on what it means to be one of the sheep mentioned in the scriptures. Ah, I thought - I have been oblivious like the lost sheep of the gospel (Luke 15:3-7), grazing and grazing, stepping bit by bit away from the others till it finds itself miles from the rest of the flock. And so, today's scriptures provide very personal words of hope, I think, for any who, like me, find themselves being an oblivious sheep sometimes, not seeing where God the shepherd is, or even where they themselves are going! Today's first lesson (Ezekiel 34:11-16) was written when the Jews were in forced exile in the Babylonian Empire. They thought God had left them, cast them off. But Ezekiel comes to them proclaiming that God is a shepherd and will lead his sheep; Ezekiel's words are meant to be hopeful words to a people in crisis, and they are meant to be intensely personal words. "You people who feel that God has left you behind, God is coming and will comfort you." Then there is the gospel passage which tells the story of how a good shepherd will leave the ninety-nine sheep, who are safe, and go off in search of the one who is lost. This, too, is intensely personal. We are invited to see ourselves as the lost sheep that Jesus tenderly seeks. Does the sheep in this story know it is lost? Perhaps, perhaps not -- either way, Jesus is coming to be its personal shepherd. Today's psalm (from the famous Psalm 23) only heightens the sense of personal relationship with the shepherd since it is written in first person, from the perspective of the sheep. These passages are most appropriate for today, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for there too, Jesus' message to us via Saint Margaret Mary, is that he cares for each person personally and is looking for us love, and more importantly, to let him love others through us. This kind of love means giving up our own wills and seeking God alone. Today, let us allow ourselves to be shepherded and cared for - let us not be oblivious sheep - precisely so that Jesus' love can shine through us more and more. - Jana M. Bennett