In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Saturday 4 February 2023

Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Word for today
The Gospel of Mark 6:30-34

Without a shepherd

A flock of sheep without a Shepherd can be recognized by the following:
- the sheep are milked and shorn by predaceous, powerful thieves who are completely disinterested in the sheep themselves and are only interested in exploiting them to the utmost;
- the sheep stray, live separated from one another and constantly in conflict. They have no one who keeps them together, they gather in groups depending on what's in style, an ideology, political parties, flags, social classes. Thus divided, they are perfectly manageable and controllable;
-  the sheep are not free because once they have lost the security of the Shepherd's loving care they have paradoxically lost their freedom.  Without the Shepherd's loving protection all choices are made in a dangerous context, to oppose, out of fear, to flee, to react, to compete, to fulfill others' expectations, or hidden prejudices.
Without the Shepherd's loving care the flock loses the reassuring perception of God's presence and produces totally blind mental processes that do not recognize Satan as one of reality's  stable coefficients, and, as a result, it loses compassion and love for itself.