Today’s responsorial, Psalm 23, is the single most
famous Psalm. Even people completely inconversant in
Sacred Scripture know the line “The Lord is my
Shepherd.” Psalm 23 should be read in relation to Psalm
22. The twenty-second Psalm expresses a sense of
God-forsakenness; abandonment by the Most High and is
in many ways a prediction of the crucifixion, so much so
that our Lord speaks the opening words of Psalm 22 from
the Cross.
The twenty-third Psalm, by contrast, expresses the
comforting nearness of God and is often identified with
the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd.
The image of the Lord progresses in the Psalm from one
of protective Shepherd to that of generous Host. At the
start of the Psalm the Lord is Shepherd, leading the
psalmist to green pastures and still waters, and into
righteousness “for His Name’s sake.” This is done not for
any merit of our own. The Lord protects us, even in the
“Shadow of the valley of death.” At this point He is still
our Shepherd, but then He prepares for the psalmist a
table and anoints him with oil. The Lord is now a Host
and a generous one at that. There is also, by implication,
a progression on the part of the psalmist, (and for
ourselves) from sheep to honoured guest. Thus, we see
that in Christ Jesus our relationship with God changes
from sheep to honoured guest. As our Lord Himself put
it: “For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to
serve, to give His life as a ransom of many”, (Matt 20: 18
and Mark 10: 44): and “No longer do I call you servants
for the servant does not know what the master is about,
but I have called you friends”…. (John 15: 15).