Monday, April 22 : Saint Thomas Aquinas

He says, I am the good shepherd. That Christ is a shepherd is clear enough, for as a flock is led and fed by the shepherd, so the faithful are nourished by Christ with spiritual food, and even with his own body and blood: “For you were straying like sheep, but now have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls” (1 Pet 2:25); “He will feed his flock like a shepherd” (Is 40:11). To distinguish himself from an evil shepherd and thief, he adds, good. Good, I say, because he fulfills the office of a shepherd, just as a soldier is called good who fulfills the office of a soldier. But since Christ had said above that the shepherd enters by the door, and here he says that he is the shepherd, and before he said he was the door (Jn 10: 9), then he must enter through himself. And he does enter through himself, because he manifests himself and through himself knows the Father. We, however, enter through him, because it is by him that we are led to happiness. Note that only he is the door, because no one else is the true light, but only shares in the light: “He,” John the Baptizer, “was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light” (John 1:8). But we read of Christ that “He was the true light, which enlightens every man” [1:9]. Therefore, no one else refers to himself as a door; Christ reserved this for himself. Now, although the Church’s rulers, who are her children, are all shepherds, as Augustine says, yet he expressly says, I am the good shepherd, in order to emphasize the virtue of charity. For no one is a good shepherd unless he has become one with Christ by love, and has become a member of the true shepherd.

Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team