Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And can’t tell where to find them.
Leave them alone,
And they’ll come home,
Wagging their tails behind them.

I don’t think so! Little Bo Peep, wake up to reality! Those sheep of yours are ‘his-to-ry!’ You can kiss each and every one of them ‘good-bye!’ Obviously, Miss Bo Peep, you live in the world of Mother Goose, and not in the real one that the rest of us inhabit; because in the real world your poem would read as follows:

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
And can’t tell where to find them.
Leave them alone,
And THE WOLF WILL COME HOME,
WITH ALL OF YOUR SHEEP INSIDE HIM!!!

Sorry, Bo Peep, but it’s a fact: without a shepherd, sheep are helpless. They have no one to guide them; they have no one to protect them from the hungry wolves. And so--sooner or later--the wolves get a free meal!

This is why it’s not a coincidence that Jesus calls himself "the Good Shepherd" in Sacred Scripture: without him to guide us and protect us, we are easy prey for the spiritual wolves of this world: that includes the chief wolf, Satan, as well as his seven wolf friends: the pride wolf, the greed wolf, the envy wolf, the gluttony wolf, the anger wolf, the lust wolf, and the sloth wolf. It also includes the offspring of those seven wolves: confusion, despair, hatred, and the like. And it includes all those human beings who cooperate with Satan and do his work in the world.

Now that’s quite a formidable "wolf-pack" that we’re up against in this life! Which is why it’s essential that we stay close to the Good Shepherd and allow him to guide and form us. In today’s gospel text from John 10, Jesus says, "My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me." Our Lord was using an image there that the people of Palestine were very familiar with. Back then, a shepherd normally walked in front of his sheep as he led them from place to place; and he trained his flock to respond to his voice and his voice only. This is also true today in the Middle East. In his commentary on the Gospel of John, William Barclay writes this--concerning an event that someone observed not long ago at a cave in Bethlehem:

"Two shepherds had sheltered their flocks in [that same] cave during the night. How were the flocks to be sorted out? One of the shepherds [simply] stood some distance away and gave his peculiar call which only his own sheep knew, and soon his whole flock had run to him, because they knew his voice. They would have come for no one else, but they knew the call of their own shepherd."

I don’t think it’s any secret that we’re living in a world right now where the spiritual wolves are devouring many sheep—precisely because these sheep do not know how to recognize and obey the voice of the Good Shepherd! The newspapers record the sad statistics for us almost every day. Consider, for example, the rising tide of deadly violence among young children. This is a subject that was addressed a few days ago in Washington, D.C. by a congressional subcommittee. I happened to see some of the testimony Tuesday night on C-Span. One of the men who testified said something that I think went right to the heart of the issue: he said, "What’s very disturbing about these recent incidents of children killing other children is the fact that, in over 80% of the cases, the killers knew their victims! For the most part, these were not random acts of violence; the people involved were acquainted with one another; and, in some cases, they had once been close friends. What this means is that many of our children don’t know how to deal with their anger! They have a disagreement with a friend or an acquaintance, and their solution is to take a gun to school and shoot that person."

Recall what I said a few minutes ago: when we don’t have the Good Shepherd in our lives; when he is not leading us and guiding us and helping us to deal with our problems and emotions, then we are easy prey for the spiritual wolves--and one of those is the ANGER WOLF! The Good Shepherd tells us in his Word: "If you are angry, let it be without sin. The sun must NOT go down on your wrath. Do not give the devil a chance to work on you." Sheep who belong to the Good Shepherd know that command and they make every effort to obey it! Many of our young people today obviously don’t—with devastating consequences!

Sometimes people will say, "Jesus never speaks to me." That is NOT true! The Good Shepherd speaks to each and every one of us every single day of our lives! We just need to become aware of it, if we’re not already.

He speaks to us, for example, at every Mass we attend. The question is: do we hear his voice?

He speaks to us in the Bible: do we hear his voice? (And do we seek to hear his voice by picking up the Scriptures and reading them on a daily basis?)

He speaks to us through the Church—through the pope and the bishops speaking in union with him: do we hear the Good Shepherd’s voice there? (or do we ridicule it?)

He speaks to us through holy people—sometimes our parents, sometimes our children, sometimes our co-workers, sometimes people we don’t like: do we hear his voice?

And he speaks to us in many other ways. C.S. Lewis once said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, he speaks to us in our consciences, and he SHOUTS to us in our pain!" Yes, the Good Shepherd even talks to us (SOMETIMES VERY LOUDLY!) through our trials and sufferings: do we hear his voice?