It gives me great delight and inspiration both as a Catholic as well as a priest to read Jane Camilleri Haber's letter (The Sunday Times, November 15).

I liked the way she valued our Vicar-General, Mgr Anton Gouder. As Fr Joe Borg wrote in the same issue, "one cannot but admire his excellent performance" on Xarabank. But is not a Vicar-General expected to behave like Christ, as Mgr Gouder magnificently did? The answer is undoubtedly yes.

The angry festa supporters on Xarabank helped Mgr Gouder immensely in conducting himself with the utmost dignity as a respected pastor would. He was showing a caring solicitude towards God's people.

Mgr Gouder's pastoral sensitivity reminded me of Origen's encouragement to the Church's pastors to scrupulously and lovingly imitate the example of the Good Shepherd, who goes and looks for the stray sheep. "You are the shepherd; you see the little sheep of the Lord, unaware of the danger, being carried along the precipices and hanging from the cliffs! And do you not run to them? Do you not call them back? Do you not even restrain them by your voice and deter them by the cry of your rebuke? Are you so forgetful of the mysteries of the Lord, how he left 99 in the heavens and for only one little sheep which strayed, came down on earth, found it, and carried it back on His shoulders to heaven? And we, are we not bound to follow the example of the master shepherd in caring for the little sheep?"

During Xarabank, Mgr Gouder conveyed his pastoral charity for the Maltese Catholic community through his Christ-like way of approaching the discussion.

When our village feasts are missing their spiritual content, are they not heading towards the cliffs of paganism? Can pastors who want their flock to grow and flourish in Jesus Christ bless or assent to activities that do not induce their flock to surrender their lives to Jesus?

In this perspective, why do we, who profess the Catholic faith, not heed what St Augustine writes concerning the responsibility of our bishops? "If we pastors feed the sheep with fear, and also fear for the sheep, how much should the sheep be fearing for themselves? So let ours be the responsibility of pastoral concern, yours the responsibility of obedience; ours the duty of pastoral vigilance, yours the humility of the flock. As a matter of fact, though we appear to you to be speaking from a position of superiority, we are really prostrate with fear under your feet, because we all know how perilously strict is the account that has to be rendered from this apparently exalted bishop's throne."

If Mgr Gouder is accountable for us, Christ's flock, in front of God, who can blame him for exercising his pastoral duty by helping us meet Jesus in the way we celebrate our feasts? The outstanding example of conduct he gave on Xarabank on November 6 is powerful enough to show how he is being an example to the flock.