I suspect that most of the people who have had the opportunity to see the film,   "The Passion of the Christ" must surely have a clearer perception about Jesus, one they had perhaps never thought about before simply by reading the life of Jesus in the gospels. Films have the capability of portraying life in its most graphic dimensions, (art imitates life or nature).  Mel Gibson, of course, seems to be a master at this craft and in this film you come away without any doubt that Jesus was a suffering servant, a man made to bear the worst sufferings any human being could possibly bear. So, I imagine that many people, whether Christian or not, probably will pray in a slightly different way now, realizing that the film comes pretty close to what actually happened to Jesus in real life.

All of our images of Jesus, of course, come from the scriptures and also, in part, from popular devotions that have developed over the years. I am sure that if you were to think back on your childhood experiences of Christ, the ones you saw in church in statues, stained glass windows, paintings, reproductions or mosaics would remain the most clear to you.

I remember, for instance, two such images in the church of my youth. The first was a symbol of a huge eye in the apse of the sanctuary. When I asked my mother what this meant she said, "That’s God looking at you, and you'd better behave yourself in church if you know what's good for you." Well, this obviously did not do much for my childhood image of a good and loving God.

But there was also a large stained glass window near the pew where our family always sat while in church. It was the image of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, dressed in a lovely long, white robe, holding a staff, with perhaps a half-dozen sheep gathered around him.  Obviously, I did not have as hard a time understanding that symbol because we had sheep on our farm that I was responsible for.

The point I am making here is that human symbols or metaphors mean a great deal to us if we are attempting to imagine Christ or, even better, when we are trying to pray.

The shepherd symbol is perhaps the one that reaches most of us because we all naturally depend on guidance and leadership, the image of someone who is seen as one personally caring about us'. Parents are shepherds, obviously, teachers are shepherds, pastors are shepherds, pastoral administrators are shepherds. We Catholics have traditionally used the word priest when we refer to our pastors. Protestants use the word pastor itself. I think it is a better title for the one who is responsible for the spiritual life of the people of a community.

That brings up the question, of course, reflecting on our Good Shepherd gospel today, who are the sheep? It may seem at first as a rather simple question but in today's church in the United States it is becoming more and more complicated.

When I was growing up in a German Catholic community there was some unanimity. We all spoke the same language and our pastor also spoke the same language. So, we had a sense that he was our guide. We were "on the same wave length" as it were.

Today it is a different matter in many churches. In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for instance, there will be 35 different languages spoken in their churches. Some church communities may have a pastor who speaks their language. In others they may have to struggle to understand the pastor as he gives his homily. Obviously, it is not as simple as it was during the great immigrations to America when people would bring their own pastor with them from whatever country they came. Today, given the shortage of priests, we often begin to wonder whether we will have a pastor at all of any language to lead us in worship.

Despite the decreasing number of priest/pastors, however, there is always one consolation: When Christians gather, with or without a pastor, Christ the Good Shepherd is present, not only in the word and Eucharist but in the assembly itself.  This was a point that the bishops of the Second Vatican Council made abundantly clear. Christ is always present when people gather to hear the gospel and receive Holy Communion. In most churches someone will be chosen or who will spontaneously rise to the occasion and take responsibility for leadership. In other words, the church will never be without pastoral leadership in some form or other ... that is, if we truly care about each others' spiritual life.

That brings us, finally, to a personal question about how we pray. Some of us, obviously, pray directly to God, but others find it more comfortable to pray to God through some image of Christ. Given the image of the Good Shepherd we have in the gospel today, that is always a good model to follow.

Our earliest Christian brothers and sisters had other, more abstract images that they were comfortable with, For them, Christ was "Living Water," "the Bread of Life,"  "The Word of Life," "the Stone which the builders rejected," "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world."

In our own day it would be safe to say that we pray better if we have more graphic images to call forth. Perhaps for some people even Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" helped them pray. Many of us also think of Jesus as our companion or partner, the One who walks with us in all our life's activities, who helps us carry our burdens, much as Simon the man from Cyrene helped Jesus carry his burden of the cross.

In any case, we cannot simply pray in a vacuum, we need images to fill our prayers, something to give flesh to the words we use.

I must say that one image that still works for me comes from a painting, an old, faded reproduction that hung in our bedroom at home when I was young. It was an image of a little boy and girl standing on the edge of a cliff, looking over the side. Behind them was the image of Jesus the Good Shepherd, just about to reach out and hang on to them in case they should fall! I have to admit that I have fallen a number of times in my life, but I have also had an abiding sense that Christ was still with me, giving me the courage to start over again. I've often wondered if my confidence in Christ continues to come from remembering that faded photo on the bedroom wall? I imagine that we all need some image, someone to steer us through life. Christ the Good Shepherd is ancient, but it still seems to work ... fortunately.

(Comments to Father Clementich at clem@alaska.net)

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