It's hard, being a shepherd

Shepherds, the Lord says this: Trouble for the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Shepherds ought to feed their flock, yet you have fed on milk, you have dressed yourselves in wool, you have sacrificed the fattest sheep, but failed to feed the flock. You have failed to make weak sheep strong, or to care for the sick ones, or bandage the wounded ones. You have failed to bring back strays or look for the lost. On the contrary, you have ruled them cruelly and violently. For lack of a shepherd they have scattered, to become the prey of any wild animal; they have scattered far. Well then, shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. As I live, I swear it – it is the Lord who speaks – Since my flock has been looted and for lack of a shepherd is now the prey of any wild animal, since my shepherds have stopped bothering about my flock, since my shepherds feed themselves rather than my flock, in view of all this, shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. The Lord says this: I am going to call the shepherds to account. I am going to take my flock back from them and I shall not allow them to feed my flock. In this way the shepherds will stop feeding themselves. I shall rescue my sheep from their mouths; they will not prey on them any more. For the Lord says this: “I am going to look after my flock myself and keep all of it in view."

- Ezekiel Ch 24.

The Lord is coruscating in his contempt for shepherds who do not care for their flock...  His flock... as they are charged to do.

My first reaction is to think immediately of negligent clergy who ensure that they themselves live high on the hog but hold the flock in less than the love with which God loves them, for notice has surely been served upon them. But wait - what about me? Am I also a shepherd, even a part-time one? Am I asked to care for God's people? 

Yes. When I pray the I confess, I ask my brothers and sisters... the other members of the Church... to pray for me to the Lord our God, because I am a sinner, and I undertake also to pray for them, because they need my prayers just as I need theirs. We are shepherds of each other. This is what members of the Church are to each other, and must also be to His other sheep, those not of this fold.

We are not always able physically to come to the material aid of the Lord's sheep, spread all over the world and mostly unknown to us personally, but just as at Mass I ask for their prayers in my need, I am duty bound to pray to the Lord for them, in their need. Pray constantly.

But how can I see the Lord's lambs wounded, scattered, His baptised members lost, wandering, cast out to be the prey of any wild animal, and do nothing? How can I see His other sheep, not of this fold but whom He also loves, unshepherded, frightened, unfed and with no fold that is safe, in which they might find rest?

St Teresa of Avila writes:

Christ has no body now on earth but yours; 

no hands but yours; no feet but yours. 

Yours are the eyes through which 

Christ must look out on the world with compassion.

Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good. 

Yours are the hands with which He is to bless people now.

So, on hearing the Lord say, “I am going to look after my flock myself and keep all of it in view," we recognise His mandate to us, to us who are His eyes, His feet, His hands, now, to be shepherds. 

'Love one another, as I have loved you.'

I begin by praying for those sheep who are of this fold but have been lost by inadequate shepherds whose hearts have grown cold and hard, or who lack mercy, or are blind, and pray to be allowed to help bring them home. I try to do nothing to alienate them from the loving Good Shepherd by my own lack of faith and fidelity to Him.

I look next for those not of this fold and try, by living as faithfully and closely as I can to the Lord, to give them some sense that the love of the Good Shepherd is caring for them even now.

I pray that I may be made merciful, as the Father is merciful, and that I may love both sheep and shepherds who have gone astray and cannot find their way home, but especially the shepherds who need rescuing. God love them. God help them. 

I bless those many good shepherds who, at the sacrifice of their private lives and loves and so much more, care as tenderly for His sheep as He would... because He asks it of them, because He has no hands on earth now but theirs.