The E-catechism: February 2001

  A new step The lost sheep 
  Archives of Partenia
  History of Partenia, Biography of Bishop Jacques Gaillot 
 

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    A new step

    Three years ago a team started to make a "different catechism ". The goal was to think about questions concerning our life and opening to a spiritual meaning.
    The initial purpose was to bring Jesus in our present situations. Did it not happen to those, men and women, who followed Him?
    We met every month, checking our work with each other's appreciation. Thanks to this exchange and cross-examination we have improved and enriched our text. Gradually we found a right pace and we can say that all of us are marked by this experience.
    Many told us that they benefited greatly of the text and they used it. We did hope to be more interactive but this rarely happened.
    Today we want to make a new step in proposing to make an update reading of the texts of the Bible. We have noticed with joy that small groups update and renew with skill the evangelical texts!
    Bring also your way of reading the Gospel, enriched of your experiences and of your faith.

    Jacques Gaillot

PARTENIA

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The lost sheep 
The parable of the "lost sheep" 

This December day was cold and rainy, quite dull. This part of the Gospel, the lost sheep parable was so much known by our assembly. Every body feels he knows it and thinks he can say it almost by heart.
However it was a memorable moment, full of charm and grace that we will remember for a long time. " Why be afraid of God after such a story, with God taking so much care of us?" said a woman, citing the opposite saying of the late Paul VI:" At the end of my life, I tremble to meet my Judge. And why speak in this period of Advent of reconciliation, of penance? For me this time is mainly a time of meetings"
A second comment astonished many. At a time of the controversial election of the President of the United States, I see in this text the "managing" ability of God, can we give him the title of the manager of the year?. Today a responsible manager is more often some body who makes people redundant for restructuring the company. In the mean time we speak of "citizen companies", careful about human resources and benefiting of much confidence. In the Gospel, the good shepherd does not accept the loss of one single sheep. He just cannot do it. He gets people on their feet again, looking for some progress.
And also many other enlightening words. But the best one for me came from the oldest amongst us who said with a timid voice:" In fact in the text it is not said of any fault of the lost sheep. It could have well been the victim of an accident" I suddenly understood how much my reading of this parable is made of presupposed culpability, almost like a miserable, despicable subject of God.
It was still raining, but I left feeling warm already paraphrasing an other text: "the reading of the Gospel in the assembly of the Church is like a treasure from which every body can always profit from the old and the new"