The most important job of a shepherd is to keep his sheep together.
Out in the middle of a field, every shepherd boy has to keep his sheep from wandering away during the night, so he rolls rocks and logs to form an enclosure. But then what does he do about a gate to this sheep pen? He lays down across the opening, his head on one rock and his feet on the other. That way, if a sheep tries to escape, he would have to walk over the shepherd boy and wake him up. And if a wolf tries to get in, it is over the body of the shepherd.
That’s what Jesus means when he says that he is the Sheep Gate. He is the way into the sheepfold and he is the gate which keeps the thief and the robber away; and of anyone who would aspire to be a shepherd in the model of Christ the Good Shepherd, the same must be said. Our most important job is to keep the sheep together. One in belief, one in prayer and one in charity.
Like the shepherd boy in the middle of the field, we use whatever we can find to keep the sheep together and protect them from wandering off where the wolves will get them. And so we build a sheepfold out of our example, the Tradition as expressed in the Magesterium and the Catechism, our preaching at Sunday Mass, and the Code of Canon Law.
Right out there in the middle of the field, we use every resource at out disposal to keep the flock together, including laying down our own lives, as Christ the true sheep gate laid down his, for the sake of the unity of the flock. Our willingness to speak the truth in season and out. Our willingness to let go of our own brilliant ideas and preach only Christ, and him crucified. Our willingness to die to ourselves and seek only the unity of the Church in her Risen Lord and Savior.
For the one true Sheep gate, the only guarantor of the Church’s unity is Christ, and we act in imitation of him, laying down their lives that all might be one in him.
