Little Man Protects the 99 Sheep

AM Psalm 102 • PM Psalm 107:1-32
1 Macc. 4:36-59 • Rev. 22:6-13 • Matt. 18:10-20

I learn an awful lot from the very smart, strong, and kind woman, who cleans our apartment at Butterfield Trail Village. Her experience has given me an idea about who is taking care of the 99 sheep that Jesus says a good shepherd would be willing to abandon to find a single lost sheep.

Shella and her family also raise livestock, in a part of the state where there are coyotes, wild dogs in packs, bears, and surprisingly dangerous eye-plucking, lamb-and-calf-attacking black vultures.

I asked her who protects the flocks and herds when she, her husband, and college-age kids are not home. Her answer surprised me: two donkeys; Raymond a full size guard donkey, and Little Man, a miniature donkey who does not know or care if he’s little, he just guards. Donkeys charge at ill-intentioned intruders, braying loudly, biting, and kicking them.

The moral: Jesus remains the uniquely powerful Good Shepherd finding the lost lambs, but big or small asses that we might be, we still have a job to do for the rest of the flock.

Written by Tony Stankus

When Tony Stankus was 7, the first phrase he memorized in Catholic altar boy Latin class was the response to the priest’s “Introibo ad altare Dei,” which was “Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam.” He was superciliously proud of getting the Latin right every time. But he only felt its meaning when he sat through his first full Eucharist at St. Paul’s. While our priests did not say: “I will go the altar of my God.” Tony suddenly felt that at age 66, he really was in the presence of “the God who gave joy to my youth.”