How does Holy Scripture speak of the duty of pastors toward their spiritual flock?
“Feed the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight not by constraint but willingly, according to God; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not as domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock” (1Pe 5:2–3; see Q562). The Apostle’s charge contains the whole pastoral rule in three antitheses. The flock is God’s, not the shepherd’s, “the Church of God, which he purchased with his own blood” (Act 20:28; see Q256, Q259), so that the pastor tends what he does not own, and answers to the Owner: “and when the Chief Shepherd is manifested, you will obtain the unfading crown of glory” (1Pe 5:4; see Q259, Q306). His service must be willing, not extracted; disinterested, not mercenary, for the hireling “flees because he is a hireling and cares nothing for the sheep” (Joh 10:12–13), and woe to the shepherds who “feed themselves” and not the flock, clothing themselves with the wool while the sheep scatter (Ezk 34:2–6); and exemplary, not domineering, ruling by the pattern of a life, “in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1Ti 4:12; Tit 2:7), after the Master who said, “the kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them… but not so with you; rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves” (Luk 22:25–27), and who girded himself with a towel (Joh 13:14–15).
The duties of feeding are then spelled out through the Scriptures. The pastor teaches: he must “hold firm to the sure word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to confute those who contradict it” (Tit 1:9), preaching “in season and out of season” (2Ti 4:2) and, like the Apostle, withholding nothing profitable, “declaring the whole counsel of God” (Act 20:20, 27). He sanctifies, as a steward of the Mysteries of God (1Co 4:1; see Q562, Q607), nourishing the flock with the Bread of Life and washing it in the laver of the word. He guards: “keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers… for fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock” (Act 20:28–29), the watchman who fails to blow the trumpet answers for the blood of the fallen (Ezk 3:17–18; 33:6; see Q562). He seeks the strays and binds the wounded, after the portrait God draws of himself against the false shepherds: “I myself will search for my sheep… I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the crippled, and I will strengthen the weak” (Ezk 34:11–16; Luk 15:4–7), carrying the weak with gentleness, “as a nurse taking care of her children” (1Th 2:7–8), sharing not the Gospel only but his own self. He prays and gives account: sleepless over souls “as men who must give account” (Heb 13:17; see Q252, Q357), ready, if it comes to it, for the last measure of the office: “the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (Joh 10:11).
The tradition received this charge with trembling. St Gregory the Theologian, who fled his own ordination, called the pastoral office “the art of arts and the science of sciences, the guiding of man, the most variable and manifold of creatures” (St Gregory the Theologian, Oration 2, 16; see Q094, Q095); St John Chrysostom built his six books On the Priesthood around one verse, the account to be rendered for every soul, confessing that the priest stands at the altar to do what angels dare not, and must therefore be purer than the rays of the sun (On the Priesthood, III, VI). The Church’s own rite of ordination engraves the charge upon every priest at the moment of his making: at the Liturgy of his ordination, after the consecration of the Gifts, the bishop places into the new presbyter’s hands a portion of the Lamb, the Body of Christ, with the fearful words: “Receive this Divine Trust, and guard it until the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, at which time He will demand It from you”; and the newly ordained, holding the Trust upon his palms, bows over the holy table in prayer until the time of Communion. What is laid in his hands is what is laid in his charge, the Body of Christ, at once the Eucharist and the flock (1Co 10:16–17; 12:27; see Q418), his to guard, never his to own, and to be rendered back, whole, to its Owner on the Day of account (Heb 13:17; 1Pe 5:4; see Q252, Q357). The Lord’s own threefold commission to Peter grounds it all in love rather than aptitude: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?… Feed my lambs… Tend my sheep… Feed my sheep” (Joh 21:15–17; see Q453), three questions healing three denials, and teaching every pastor after him that the flock is fed rightly only by a shepherd who loves the Chief Shepherd more than these. The flock, for its part, should measure its pastors by this Scripture, and pray for them in proportion to the weight of it (1Th 5:25; see the section on the honor due to pastors above; see Q100, Q266).
