Lost And Found

THE PARABLE OF THE LOST SHEEP … To the untrained eye, all sheep look pretty much alike. But a good shepherd’s eye takes a different view of his flock. A good shepherd comes to know the flock’s individual members in a variety of ingenious ways. Often he will name them according to their defects. He can readily pick out “Blind Eye,” or “Crooked Leg,” or “Bent Horn,” from even a very large flock. Moreover, the flock gets to know the shepherd too. At the close of day, Palestinian shepherds lead their flocks into an enclosure in the Holy City. In the morning, though they are all mixed together, each flock responds to its own shepherd’s peculiar call, while the others simply ignore it. Such is the relationship between the good shepherd and his flock in the Gospel Parable.

Jesus begins by posing a question: “What man among you with a hundred sheep, losing one, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go…