How could you not love the Good Shepherd???

If you have been anxiously awaiting my next post (which I am sure precious few, if any, have been), then I apologize for taking so long. I have been gone since last Wednesday at the St. John Bosco Conference for religious educators in Steubenville, OH.

Steubenville... its not exactly paradise, but the conferences there are always quite good. Some may not be aware that they have a whole slew of conferences during the summer. The St. John Bosco (or Bosco for short) is always a good one - especially for those who work at teaching the faith. I am always inspired whenever I go and it is always very enlightening.

As usual there were many good talks given. One of the best was by a women named Rosalind Moss. She was a devoutly Jewish woman who became a protestant. After a few years, she decided to become a Catholic. I bought her talk called "The Jewish Roots of our Catholic Faith." I have not yet had the opportunity to hear her talk, but I am excited to hear it. Fr. Schaffer actually took it with him as he travels for the next few days. But when I get it I will be listening intently.

One of the things she spoke about at her talk was about the Good Shepherd. I have heard many things about the Good Shepherd but I don't remember if I had ever heard this:

When a shepherd has a sheep that wanders off all the time. The shepherd will often let it wander, and go and retrieve it. It will wander, and then the shepherd will retrieve it. It wanders, shepherd retrieves. Eventually, when the shepherd becomes annoyed, the shepherd will break the legs of the little sheep. However, the shepherd will then place the sheep upon his shoulders and hold it upon his shoulders until the day when the little sheeps legs heal. While they are healing, the shepherd feeds the sheep, holds the sheep constantly, and watches over it. Then when the shepherd finds that the sheep has healed, he places the sheep on the ground and it walks. But now it follows the sheep happily for the rest of its days. This is the reason why when we when David had Uzziah killed for the sake of taking Batsheba as his own, he had wandered far from the Lord. David realizing the loving care of God then realized his sin, through the words of the prophet Nathan, and repented of his sin. He also wrote Ps. 51, which is a psalm of repentence. In that Psalm, David writes: "let the bones which you have broken rejoice."

I think this is so beautiful - for so many different reasons. There is so much there. No wonder Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd. Though we have it easy in our repentance - all we have to do is go to a priest to receive the Sacrament of Confession, it is powerful to remember the Lord asks of us some sacrifice by which we can make reparation for our sins. Not that we must have our legs broken, but now the Good Shepherd even asks us to figure out our own penitential practices to make reparation for our sins.

I know in my own life the greatest sins always cause me the greatest, what the older Catholics among us called, compunction. Its not much you hear about these days, but we must be moved to compunction for our sins. Compunction is the movement towards a hatred of one's sins. Each of us needs it. I know often it can be hard to want to feel sorry for our sins, but may we each think of our loving shepherd who invites us to receive his care and love - rather than to allow ourselves to wander into the painfully slow claws of sin.