Just like our Gospel yesterday, our
Gospel today talks about Jesus as the Good Shepherd. It is juxtaposed to the message we
hear in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, which addresses the
issue of the Gentiles being excluded from God’s plan of salvation. This was a big issue facing the
Early Church, one that perhaps we don’t quite understand today. It is easy to make judgments against
certain groups of people, isn’t it. We sometimes think that the group we
are in is blessed or chosen by the Lord in a special way. We can view God’s mercy in a similar
way, in wanting the rules enforced when they applied to other people and other
situations, but wanting mercy when the rules are applied to us and to our
situations. The psalmist says: “Athirst is my
soul for the living God.” Can that apply to everyone, or just
a select group of people? Pope Francis, in his Apostolic
Exhortation The Joy of the Gospel, stated: “The Eucharist, although it is the
fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful
medicine and nourishment for the weak.” May we open our hearts to God – to his
presence in our lives and to his love and mercy – both for us and for others.
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