Today’s reading for today’s responsorial psalm at Mass is the following:
R. (see 10d) The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,
proclaim it on distant isles, and say:
He who scattered Israel, now gathers them together,
he guards them as a shepherd his flock.
R. The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
The LORD shall ransom Jacob,
he shall redeem him from the hand of his conqueror.
Shouting, they shall mount the heights of Zion,
they shall come streaming to the LORD’s blessings.
R. The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
Then the virgins shall make merry and dance,
and young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into joy.
I will console and gladden them after their sorrows.
R. The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
Meanwhile, CCC 115 & 116 say,
115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.
116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal.” [St. Thomas Aquinas, *STh
I, 1, 10, ad I.]
The problem is that, literally, the above text is not true, as evinced by the martyrdom of Christians in Africa and the Middle East (and possibly others elsewhere, e.g. the Sikhs in the USA). Literally, this text appears either to be false or else no longer applicable to our lives today: A shepherd guarding his flock means one who stops lions etc. from hurting and killing the sheep.
Of course, the immediate reaction upon reading the text is to point to the moral and anagogical senses (cf. CCC 117): The anagogical sense is most obvious, “The Lord guards us from spiritual temptation, and from sin, so demons don’t lead us astray, so Satan doesn’t devour us as he seeks the ruin of souls.” The moral sense is likewise clear, “Because the Lord is guarding us, we should feel a certain inner peace, happiness, security, and should not be threatened by the insults of others. It’s in God’s hands, so don’t worry.”
Again, though, the problem is that “All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal”, as the Catechism quotes St. Thomas Aquinas, and it is not fitting that these other interpretations be based on a meaning that is literally false.
It seems to me the resolution must be in the following: The text is from Jeremiah, and applied literally to the Israelites at that period in time (c. 598 BC). While the Lord no longer guards us from our enemies (in part because of our wickedness as a nation), the other senses of this passage still apply. That the leaders of the Catholic Church in the USA chose to lift the passage out of its proper context by using it in a self-contained responsorial psalm – suggesting that the Lord guards us personally, now, like a shepherd guards his flock – is regrettable, but of no opposition to the faith.
However, the problem with this explanation is that it may not have been a true statement even in Jeremiah’s time; cf. the NAB’s introduction: “Jeremiah counseled Zedekiah in the face of bitter opposition” – but perhaps this ‘bitter opposition’ was simply a matter of enslavement (what we might call a “harsh shepherd”): Perhaps Nebuchadnezzar was protecting them from foreign enemies (since they were contributing to his empire, and hence an economical asset). So perhaps it was true literally at the time, and Jeremiah was saying that the Lord wanted them to be patient and bear their adversity for a while.
What do you think?