During a mass dedicated to the victims of the repression of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, the Nicaraguan priest Marcos Somarriba He condemned “mercenaries and hirelings” who pose as “good shepherds” but who, in reality, “cut up their sheep for money and power.”
The Gospel this Sunday, April 21, “presents Jesus as a good shepherd, who has come so that everyone may have life in abundance.” «The shepherd gives his life for the sheep and he also has the power to recover them. “The shepherd wants his sheep to have life and nowhere in the heart of God does there exist or is there the intention that life is worthless, on the contrary he wants us to have it in abundance,” stated the parish priest.
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The priest indicated that, at that time, the pastor “was the image of a leader.” «Jesus says that many presented themselves as shepherds, but were in reality thieves and robbers. Today the same thing happens. There are people who present themselves as leaders, but instead of serving, they seek their own interests at any cost. Some of them even have an intelligent way of speaking and manage to deceive people with their cunning. “They get members for their puddle which will not be a guaranteed guarantee for anyone,” he denounced.
Somarriba pointed out that one way to identify a “false shepherd who does not own his flock” is because when “he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep, flees and the wolf preys on them and scatters them because he does not care about them at all.” the sheep. Instead, Jesus says: ‘I am the good shepherd, I know my sheep and mine know me’, there is a reciprocal and not unilateral relationship, not dictatorial, where there is communication and dialogue that build the discourse of the Good Shepherd.
«No one is thinking of Jesus as an authoritarian shepherd, dedicated to monitoring and controlling his followers, but as a good shepherd who looks after his sheep and takes care of them, while the mercenaries care little or nothing if the sheep feed or not,” said the religious.
Jesus the good shepherd
The priest affirmed that a “good shepherd never abandons his sheep, he does not forget them, he lives attentively to them, he is always attentive to the weakest, the sickest, the losses, those attacked by wolves disguised as sheep.” “Jesus is always attentive to the sheep separated from the flock.”
Likewise, Somarriba reiterated that “Jesus is deeply concerned about all the sheep of his flock who are persecuted and all those who have been deprived of their lives for not being sheep who blindly obey the evils of the mercenaries of their people. “Jesus is concerned about sheep being harassed and sheep being killed in cold blood by beasts that devour them.”
«The pastors or leaders hungry for power and money are those who live with the thirst for innocent blood. They are leaders who are useless and who abandon the flock, they do not care about the sheep. What matters to them is maintaining their position at any price, since they have never worked and have never sweated a drop of sweat to earn their daily bread honestly. », denounced the priest.
As in biblical times, the Nicaraguan parish priest warned that there are still “people who present themselves as pastors, self-proclaimed leaders and perched at the tip of tricks, traps and violence in positions, from where they impose themselves and decide who lives or who dies, from where they decide who and what type of sheep should be theirs and how to behave under the deranged doctrine that does not respect the life or rights of the innocent.
The priest considered that the followers of mercenary shepherds “are sheep who follow anyone without thinking and without a sense of direction, who allow themselves to be manipulated to stalk, harass, disperse and murder innocent sheep.”
«The mercenaries that we see mounted on the chairs or thrones, taken away through tricks, traps and lies, have thrown overboard every spiritual trait in them and have thrown out of their lives all sense of humanity, leaving aside the values moral and emotional for economic, social and political advantages,” he stated.
Somarriba added that in the time of Jesus “it was normal to use the image of the shepherd to indicate the function of who governed and who led the people. The prophets criticized the kings because they were shepherds who did not take care of their flock and did not lead it to pasture, but instead suffered hunger and thirst for justice.
Jesus will look for all the sheep
Likewise, the priest indicated that “in Jesus the prophecy of Zechariah is fulfilled, which says that the Good Shepherd will be persecuted by bad shepherds, angry at his denunciation. They continue to persecute the Church, they will continue to persecute it and the flock will be dispersed, they will be killed and expelled, just as so many bishops and priests have been banished from the flock.
However, Father Somarriba reaffirmed to the “wounded and lost sheep” that Jesus “will go in search of them.” “He is not afraid of mountains or going through ravines until he reaches the lost sheep and although he finds it in a pitiful state, he does not get angry, but full of compassion, he takes it on his shoulders and, out of his own fatigue, heals the tired sheep with right,” he said.
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«Today, on this beautiful day, I am the good shepherd. I search for the lost sheep, I recover the lost one, and I heal the wounded and sick. I have seen the flock of men overwhelmed by illness. I have seen my lambs descend to the place of demons. I have seen my flock torn apart by wolves. “I have seen my people riddled and murdered, sheep and young people with futures cut off,” said the priest, transmitting the message of Jesus to those present.
At the end of the homily, Somarriba and the rest of the parishioners offered a prayer to Jesus, to let him know that since “six years ago there have been more of your sheep dismembered. Lord, free us from the mercenaries and hirelings who exist and dismember our people. Amen”.
