The shepherd who smells

  This past weekend, I was thrust into an almost deja vu moment. I was sitting in the pew of a beautiful church in the hot desert heat of West Texas watching a very dear friend make a solemn promise. However, this time...he was transitioning from deacon to priest. At 26, Ryan Rojo was laid prostrate either mentally berating himself, thoughtfully contemplating, soulfully pleading, or heartfelt praying just waiting for the moment when the Holy Spirit would descend upon him.

  Last year,  Bishop Sis gave a homily after the transitional ordination of Ryan. The thing that stood out to me then was this: uncomplicated joy. I still enjoy just saying that phrase. It brings me awe. But, this year it was this: "may you be shepherds that smell like sheep."
  Alongside Ryan, there were two other men, Adam Droll and Felix (last name unknown to me), that were ordained this same day. I have had the pleasure of knowing Adam from a distance. Felix I don't know at all. But, I felt honored all the same, just to be in the presence of God watching the power of the Spirit continue the work of the Church through these men.
  Back to Sis's homily. I don't know Bishop Sis well; I shook his hand a grand total of once. But both homilies I have had the pleasure of hearing have changed a small piece of my world. While he went on about what it means to be a priest and what it means to stand in the place of Christ and all of what you would imagine would be told at an ordination, the thing I couldn't stop hearing...over and over and over..."may you be the shepherds that smell like sheep."
  Shepherds are the lowest of the low. If I tried to compare them to a vocation we have here in America, I would probably be considered judgmental. So, I am going to assume you know how very unattractive and ridiculously unsocial shepherds are. But, they are necessary. For most other countries that rely on agriculture and small town villages for economic support, the shepherd is the one sustaining never changing factor. In our own scripture, we have shepherds from the beginning until the end of the books. Able was a shepherd, Abraham was a shepherd, Jacob was a shepherd, Amos was a shepherd, David was a shepherd, and Christ was "The Good Shepherd." We don't first see these men as shepherds...we see them as: first obedient and slain, Father of the Jews, the man who wrestled with God, a prophet of God, the man after God's own heart, and God himself...respectively.
  So, pardon my jaw drop when Bishop Sis states, "may you be shepherds that smell like sheep." For Christ, himself, came down "pitching his tent among the excrement" becoming a lowly human with nothing flashy but salvation for all of humanity. But it didn't come wrapped in anything but swaddling clothes. Sis calls these men...men that the Catholic Church hold to a high esteem and granting them honors above other lay people, and rightfully so...to become excrement. May we hold them to it as they shepherd us to our life forever in eternity with our Christ, their intimate role model.

Be blessed Father, friend, Ryan Rojo