The Good Shepherd
Last Tuesday was the anniversary of the death of Pope Francis and of course, less than three weeks later Robert Prevost became Pope Leo XIV. In his first blessing, Leo said:
“Peace be with you all! Dear brothers and sisters, these are the first words spoken by the risen Christ, the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for God’s flock. I would like this greeting of peace to resound in your hearts, in your families, among all people, wherever they may be, in every nation and throughout the world. Peace be with you!”
Since then, Leo has had to continually emphasise that message of peace. A fortnight ago many people throughout the world, including our parish, made a short vigil for peace. Leo had requested this vigil in the wake of the US/Israeli war on Iran and Lebanon, but as he constantly reminds us there are other wars to which the attention of the world goes up and down.
It is easy to frame recent speeches and homilies by Leo as a direct criticism of one particular head of state, but as the Pope has made clear that is not his intention. Certainly he has spoken plainly about threats made by one or another individual, but there is enough in what he says, as there is in the whole rich body of Catholic social teaching, for everyone to think about.
In his reflection for the peace vigil in Rome, Leo spoke not only of those who “drag the Holy Name of God into the discourses of death”; he also reminded us that we all need to leave behind whatever violence and division remain in our hearts. In our first reading today, Peter exhorts his listeners to ‘repent’ – that is, to change direction. As the words attributed to St Francis put it, to sow love instead of hatred and hope instead of despair.
Not long before he died, Pope Francis observed that from hospital, “war appears even more absurd”. He was writing to a newspaper editor, and so said that “words can connect or divide, serve the truth or use it for other ends. We must disarm words, to disarm minds and disarm the Earth”. This applies to all of us, and maybe as we hear again about the Good Shepherd we might remember that Christ asked us to follow his example.
Jim McAloon
