CATHOLIC FAITHLINK: “Christ the Good Shepherd” – Saint Gregory the Great/VaticanVa
“I am the Good Shepherd. I know My own – by which I mean, I love them – and My own know Me. In plain words: those who love Me are willing to follow me, for anyone who does not love the Truth has not yet come to know it. * * * … by the Love with which He dies for His sheep He shows how greatly He Loves His Father. Again He says: My sheep hear My Voice, and I know them; they follow Me, and I give them Eternal Life. … If anyone enters the sheepfold through Me he shall be saved …. He will enter into a life of Faith; from Faith he will go out to vision, from belief to contemplation, and will graze in the good pastures of Everlasting Life. So our Lord’s sheep will finally reach, their grazing ground where all who follow Him in simplicity of heart will feed on the Green Pastures of Eternity. These pastures are the Spiritual Joys of Heaven. There the elect look upon the face of God with unclouded vision and feast at the banquet of life for ever more. Beloved brothers, let us set out for these pastures …. From a homily on the Gospels by Saint Gregory the Great, Pope (Hom. 14. 3-6: PL 76, 1129- 1130)”
