IN PASTURES GREEN

 A REFLECTION FOR GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY

I find this time of year very nostalgic.  It evokes memories of day trips after Easter with my parents, long drives in the countryside of the Yorkshire Dales.  Most of all I remember the fields filled with sheep and their newborn lambs.  Sometimes we’d stop and park the car for a picnic near one of these fields, and watch as the shepherd whistled and controlled his sheepdogs who would gather the flock together and herd them from one pasture to another.  Lambing season in Yorkshire is from February to April, so by the end of April there would be more of the little lambs than there were adults.  As one Yorkshireman put it, “ It's such an optimistic sight - new life, happy active lambs playing in the Spring sunshine, their protective mothers never far away. There's an air of carefree times to come, as Spring turns into Summer. But behind this lovely sight is a lot of work and worry for farmers.”

It's no coincidence that the Church chose the second Sunday after Easter as Good Shepherd Sunday.  Although we’re celebrating the feast of the Holy Apostles Philip and James this year, our proper Last Gospel helps us keep in mind this other aspect of our devotions today.  To get a better idea of the responsibilities of a shepherd, I’ve included a snippet of an article that describes some of the extra duties and worries of the sheep farmers at lambing season.  I would ask you to apply these to the care with which our blessed Saviour, the Good Shepherd himself, looks after us, his own sheep, dwelling faithfully still in his pasture, the Church.  It might also give us some idea of our responsibility as sheepdogs to our own children!

“Most lambs are born outside without any help, but some farmers will bring ewes into barns or fields closer to the farm to help them lamb, particularly if the weather is bad or they are first time mothers.

When we see cute lambs gambolling about the hillsides we often don’t acknowledge that for farmers lambing means huge responsibility and exhaustion. They have endless early mornings and late nights (if they get to bed at all), watching and helping ewes to lamb, making sure they bond, and the lambs are fed. If the weather is bad, the job is even harder.  The first few hours are vital, so farmers need to check on them frequently. The initial colostrum milk carries essential antibodies and nutrition. Some lambs may need to be brought inside for feeding. In cold weather it’s important to keep up their energy levels with sufficient nutrition, and some ewes may be less good at suckling their lambs.

A strong elastic band is fixed around the base of the tail, which withers and falls off. This keeps them clean and free from disease. Newborn lambs are particularly susceptible to wet weather and may need extra protection: this is why you sometimes see them in plastic coats!”

After all this hard work, we really need to ask you to make sure you have your dogs on leads. Many say their dogs would never worry sheep. That may be true - my spaniels wouldn't chase sheep but they do chase rabbits and if they happened to be a field full of sheep while chasing rabbits, they'd freak the sheep. A pregnant ewe can abort due to shock, or get separated from her lambs in a panic. A farmer seeing that sight might well believe their sheep were in danger and they'd have every right to shoot my dogs.  By law if a dog causes damage by injuring or killing livestock, the keeper of the dog is liable for the damage. The law provides statutory defence to farmers who injure a dog in order to protect their livestock, if the dog is not under control.”

 This last paragraph reminds us that we must preserve our children from bad influences around them.  These include not only the dogs of bad company, but also those harder-to-notice pressures put on them through the various agendas in place among some of our school teachers and certainly all of the mass media.  They must be protected at all cost from any environment that might confuse their little minds and their way of thinking.  If necessary, parents must take the time to deprogram them after any exposure to the devil’s influence.  The Good Shepherd will shoot the devil, but the sheepdogs must do their part in steering the lambs away from danger!