Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are anger and courage—anger at the way things are, and courage to change the way things are. –Augustine
"Brother Timothée will not be returning to his classes," Father André-Hilaire informed the school assembly one morning after mass. "His opinions, verging upon the heretical, have rendered him unfit to teach you. We will soon have another brother here to teach full-time, but for the moment the rest of us will be covering his classes. You must all be careful to put from your minds the ideas he tried to implant there."
Jean-David Prouvaire, eleven years old, swung his feet and bit his lip as he thought. Brother Timothée had been gentler than the others. The boys had liked him; he had talked about potential and grace and using one's intellectual abilities freely. They had asked questions in his class. Sometimes, he had answered "I don't know," but they didn't mind that. In fact, "I don't know" was a much better answer than the ones designed purely to shut them up, which the other brothers usually gave.
Jean-David did not understand why he should have to forget the way Brother Timothée had taught, when it had given him such a lot of hope. In fact, he did not understand why Brother Timothée should have to stop teaching and leave. He was the best teacher they had.
A surge of anger rose in his heart, and he bit his lip harder as he wondered what he could do about it.
At the end of the school day, he knocked bravely on the door of Father André-Hilaire's office, getting an indifferent "Come in."
Opening the door, he came in quickly before he could change his mind. Father André-Hilaire looked up from his paperwork. "Ah, young Prouvaire." His voice was not welcoming. "Have you a problem, my son?"
Jean-David cleared his throat. "I—I just wanted to talk to you about Brother Timothée," he managed.
The priest's face became sterner. "He is gone now. That is enough."
"But Father—" He imagined Brother Timothée's kind face, encouraging him. "I just wanted to ask why. Why he's gone."
"I explained after mass."
"I need to hear it again."
Father André-Hilaire sighed. "A teacher is a shepherd, Prouvaire. And Brother Timothée did not guide the students appropriately."
A shepherd. Jean-David stiffened at that—Brother Timothée, not an appropriate guide? He was the only teacher who noticed the boys, who would bother to seek out one that was getting lost, who strengthened their minds and hearts.
"He's a better shepherd than anyone else here," Jean-David said quietly.
The priest began to react in shock and anger, but Jean-David did not give him a chance to say a word. Squaring his shoulders, he took on a formal tone and began to recite. "Should not the shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them."
He hardly saw Father André-Hilaire anymore. The words from Ezekiel bore him away, and he was no longer a slip of a boy but a prophet, condemning the unjust and the merciless of the world.
"Thus says the Lord God," he continued, half-breathless, "Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them. For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice."
He had to take a breath, then, and as he did his eyes suddenly locked with the priest's.
"Boy," said Father André-Hilaire, his voice shaking in barely-contained rage, "you don't know what you're saying."
Jean-David gazed at him steadily. "I think I do," he said. "I think that I know full well, and that you know why I'm saying it. 'Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture; and to drink of clear water, that you must muddy the rest of the water with your feet?' You bring us here to learn, and yet you refuse to share real knowledge. Brother Timothée—he did."
And then he was lonely, desperately lonely, at the thought of school without Brother Timothée, and ran out of the office to make his way home in tears.