Do you know how many shepherds are featured in Scripture?

We wanted to share this sweet reflection from the creator of the Very Young Catholic series:

When I set out for Australia to work on the next book in the Very Young Catholics series, I knew that the family I was writing about ran a sheep farm in a small town (resident population: 26). 

I assumed that any book about a Catholic sheep-farming family would somehow illuminate our understanding of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. As I was thinking about it, I began to realize how many people in the Bible are shepherds. 

If I asked you what David was doing before he went off to take on Goliath, most of you would correctly note that he was a shepherd. Fewer would be able to identify Abel as a shepherd, and probably fewer still would accurately note that when Jacob first came across Rebecca, she was caring for her father’s sheep (a shepherdess). And in the Nativity Story–the first people who are told of Jesus’ birth are shepherds!

In my book on Australia, I was able to write a cute chapter about the family discussing shepherds throughout Scripture. The children get to discuss this beautiful similarity between their family and the Nativity story on Christmas Eve (making it a beautiful story for families to read during the Christmas Season–and I can’t wait for you to read it next year). This Catholic family in Australia is engaged in one of the most ancient of occupations, one that is constantly honored in Scripture–even in the Nativity Story itself.

While writing this chapter, I landed upon a challenge. My books are written for kids approximately seven to twelve years old, and they are full of photographs to engage the reader! Although the conversations are fictional, the culture, context, family life, and parishes are all very real. If I am writing a chapter about the family discussing the shepherds on Christmas Eve, I want a way to include a starry sky over Australia on Christmas!

While I was driving through the Australian countryside, I noticed a sign for a local astronomical observatory. I reach out to the observatory and asked if they could get me a picture of the Christmas Eve night sky to share in my book. You have probably heard that everyone in Australia is friendly and I’m not going to tell you anything different! While the observatory told me that their best pictures of the night sky were taken in April, my new friend at the observatory agreed to take a special picture of the night sky on Christmas Eve.

Stop and think about this for a moment…I found an observatory specializing in astrophotography in this sparsely populated area (observatories are always in sparsely populated areas, but they aren’t in every sparsely populated area)!  Then I found an astronomer who thought it would be fun to stay up until 4:00 am during Christmas week, to take a photo for a total stranger, just to ensure that the children reading my story would see an accurate picture of the starry sky over this farm. This is a true blessing and I cannot wait for my readers to see it.

I undertook this project of writing a book about Catholic families in every time zone of the world because I thought it was the Lord’s will for me to bring a message of courage to His people. I thank Him all the time for the wonderful way that He works out the difficulties that I encounter. This one was particularly enchanting!

We hope you enjoyed this insight into Emily’s work on the newest book in the Very Young Catholic series! You can find more of her writing (including why she created this project) HERE.

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