THE SHEPHERD

He seeks our true good
and knows how to give us the necessary nourishment at every hour.

Charles de Foucauld

The son of Lucas Granach the Elder (1472-1553), Lucas Granach the Younger (1515-1586) inherits, with his father’s rich workshop, his elegant pictorial style together with a renewed reinterpretation of the late Gothic. Christ the Good Shepherd appears at once Franciscan, for his simplicity, and extraordinarily human and intense. The sheep placed on the shoulders does not only reflect his loving care but above all the communion of life, well expressed in the verb “to know” used by Jesus: “My sheep hear my voice and I know them” (Jn 10:27). Ginôskô connotes knowledge through the experience of communion and intimacy. Jesus knows his disciples with the same intimacy with which he knows the Father (cf. Jn 10:14); he is in communion with his sheep as he is in communion with the Father: “I and the Father are one (Ego et Pater unum sumus).” (Jn 10:30). What did Jesus mean with these words? He affirmed, without mincing words, an unheard-of and scandalous monotheism. We must know that the Unum (One) in the Jewish tradition, and not only, is the absolute God, the Super-essence, the Unpronounceable. In Hebrew the One is called Echad (cf. Dt 6:4). Echad certainly means One but also Unique, Alone, Identical, Incomparable. Jesus affirms that this Unum is made up of an ego et Pater; ego et Pater that form the sumus. But how is it possible that in the Unum there is the sumus? Yet Jesus speaks of the sumus making us understand that in God there is no monotheistic absolutism or the solitude of divinity. In the Unum there is duality (Father-Son), reciprocity, relationship. An interesting aspect: Jesus speaks of the Unum in the sumus in the discourse of the good shepherd (cf. John 10). And not by chance. Being a shepherd means exercising a precise function, that of leading, accompanying, supporting and defending the flocks (the brothers). But who is it that exercises this function? The identity of the shepherd is that of the Logos. We must never forget that for the Fourth Gospel Jesus is the Logos, the Word of God. John will say that Jesus is the true light, the water that quenches thirst… that is, he will use many images to talk about Jesus, but behind these images there is always implicit the Logos. Logos, as a Greek term, derives from the verb legein, which means “to gather”. Jesus is the Logos that gathers (the function of the shepherd) and brings everyone into the Unum, into communion with the Father (the purpose of pastoral action). Jesus therefore opens his intimacy of life to his fellow men. In this he manifests himself as a good shepherd, indeed, according to the term kalos, a «just», «suitable» shepherd. Jesus is in fact the only shepherd suitable to lead to the Father. And he leads us, as Granach reminds us with his painting, on his shoulders, gently, like a true and precious treasure.

Commentary by b. Sandro Carotta, osb
Abbazia di Praglia (Italy)

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves,
Prinknash Abbey