The Lost Sheep

A hundred sheep.  One goes missing.  Is this such a big deal?  After all, that’s a lot of sheep, so many that you’d have a hard job counting them all before you fell asleep.  But to a shepherd, at least to a true shepherd, the loss of just one single sheep is no short of a disaster.  He will even leave the other ninety-nine in the wilderness to go after the missing sheep.  In today’s Gospel our Lord makes a point of telling this to the publicans and sinners who drew near to hear him.  It’s a point that we should all listen to.  He is admonishing us that the devotion of this shepherd is something we should all admire and even emulate, extending our concern beyond the dumb beast of the field to our fellow man.  It’s a devotion that should reach out to all our neighbors, not just the ones who share our faith, our moral values and our politics.  In fact, we should have take particular care of the ones with whom we disagree, those who have wandered far away from the Church, from doing God’s will, from common sense.

What exactly is the nature of this altruistic concern for people with whom we don’t get along?  Our Lord simply calls it love.  He tells us that close behind the greatest commandment which is to love God, comes the love we must show our neighbor.  These are the two fundamental laws on which depend all other laws.  Remember the Ten Commandments?  The first four show how we must love God, the six others order us to love our neighbor.  Each of these ten commandments, indeed any law that exists anywhere in the world, depends upon these two most basic of precepts, love of God and love of our neighbor.  In today’s Gospel, our Lord expands upon this principle, describing how our love must be shown not just to a few select neighbors but to all men.  If just one of them goes astray, we must be prepared to leave the rest of our family and friends and go after the one who wanders off.

Today, we might feel rather overwhelmed by the prospect of having to chase down the vast number of souls who have lost their way.  So many have turned their back on God and wandered off in vain pursuit of other material pleasures and possessions, seeking happiness in places where it can never be found.  How can we bring them all back?  The sad fact is that we cannot.  Most of these misguided souls have abused their free will so many times and to such an extent that they can no longer grasp that it is only in God that true peace and happiness can be found.  So when we do go after them and try to bring them back, mostly they refuse our invitation.  We can’t force them.  God will not intervene to force a person’s free will, and neither can we.  While they might look like that little lamb we see in the holy pictures, where the Good Shepherd is climbing up the cliff to rescue it from peril, these little lambs are telling their Good Shepherd to leave them alone, that they would prefer to remain on the cliff’s edge even if means they will eventually plunge to their fate.

How do you think that strikes the Sacred Heart?  He has left his other sheep to fend for themselves only to be rebuffed by the one he has sought out.  And how many millions of such lost sheep have rejected our blessed Lord’s love for them?  We can begin to get an idea of the depth of love of the Sacred Heart, the extent of Christ’s love for us, and the extent of the hurt we mortal beings have caused him.  This Sacred Heart has so loved men that he died for us.  It’s something we’ve heard so many times that it doesn’t sink in anymore, but it’s truly an astounding thing that our blessed Lord, our Good Shepherd died for all his sheep, for every single one of them, not just the good ones but sinners too.  He died for these sinners knowing full well his sacrifice for them would be rejected, even mocked and held in utter contempt.  And yet, despite their ingratitude and the ultimate loss of their souls, he willingly died for each one.

So when one of these lost souls converts, when he gives up his attempt to find his ultimate happiness in sin and turns back to his Shepherd, humbly acknowledging his offences, when he reaches out his arms so that the Good Shepherd can reach him by the hand and bring him home, is it any wonder then that there is great rejoicing amongst the angels of heaven?

There is but one reason God seeks out every human soul, and that reason is his infinite love for each and every one of us.   Because the love of his Sacred Heart for us is so great, he literally pours his graces upon us, crying out, if we could but hear him, for us to convert from our wicked ways and love him in return.  With a Heart that was pierced for our sake, a Heart that loves us beyond measure, he asks all of us to turn back to him and unite our will with his.  This is all he wants from us.  The Sacred Heart of Jesus reaches out today, seeking our love.  All we need do now is to give him our answer.