Saturday, July 25, 2026

The one lost sheep, the righteous one, who goes astray non-iniquitously

I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant, | for I do not forget thy commandments.

Ps 119:176 RSV, italics mine.

All we like sheep have gone astray; | we have turned every one to his own way; | and the Lord has laid on him | the iniquity of us all.

Is 53:6 RSV.

     Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, 'This man receives sinners and eats with them.'
     So he told them this parable: 'What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost." Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.'

Lk 15:1-7 RSV.

     Image:  Habib Mhenni (photographer), "The Good Shepherd" (23 September 2013), from the Catacomb of the Good Shepherd, Hadrumetum (modern Sousse, Tunisia), but housed now in the Bardo National Museum in Tunis.  On the original excavation, see, for starters, A. F. Leynaud, Les catacombes africaines: Sousse-Hadrumtète, 2. éd. rev., et augmentée (Alger: Jules Carbonel, 1922).

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