The Lost Sheep

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Suppose a man has a hundred sheep and one of them strays; will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hillside and go in search of the stray? In truth I tell you, if he finds it, it gives him more joy than do the ninety-nine that did not stray at all. Similarly, it is never the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost” (Matt. 18:12-14).

God loves us always, even when we stray. In this parable we read about the Divine Mercy which moves the heart. A man with a hundred sheep—a large flock—loses one, probably because the sheep strayed, lagging behind the others as they looked for new pastures.

Our Lord asks, “Will not the shepherd leave the other ninety-nine in the fields and go to look for the lost sheep?” One might think that He could say to Himself, ‘Well, I still have ninety-nine and those ninety-nine are more important than just the one.’

But we're told that he goes after the one. And St. Luke says, “When he finds it, he places it on his shoulders with joy” to return it to the flock (Luke 15:5).

Of all the images that the Church has promoted down through the centuries, perhaps the one that it most promotes is that of Christ carrying that sheep, that lost lamb or lost flock.

We could think of all the times when Our Lord has sought us out, in spite of our lack of generosity and correspondence. Even though we may not deserve His care, we stray through our own fault, He seeks us out again and again.

None of the sheep receives so much attention as the one that had strayed. The care that Divine Mercy pours out on sinners—on each one of us—is overwhelming.

How can we refuse the shoulders of the Good Shepherd if at times we lose the way? How can we not love frequent Confession, where we find Christ?

We have to take it for granted that we are weak and that we will stumble. It is this very weakness, when we acknowledge it, that will attract Divine Mercy, which comes to us with greater help and greater love.

St. Bernard says, “Jesus, our Good Shepherd, hurries to find the hundredth sheep that had lost the way. … A marvelous condescendence of God for him to seek man out. What great dignity man must have,” he says, “to be sought out by God in this way!” (St. Bernard, Sermon for the First Week in Advent).

We can always count on the love of Christ. Even during the worst moments of our life, He doesn't stop loving us. We can always count on His help to return to the right path if we have lost it, to begin and begin again.

St. John Chrysostom says he keeps us fighting and “a leader on the battlefield values more the soldier who, having fallen back in flight at first, returns to the fray and attacks the enemy with valor; he values him more than he does the soldier who never ran but never showed outstanding courage” (St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle to the Corinthians).

He who never sins is not sanctified, but he is who always repents, trusting in the love God has for him, getting up and getting on with the fight.

To have defects is not in itself bad. The only evil lies in making a truce with them, not struggling against them, thinking that they're part and parcel of our character or our nature.

Making a truce would lead to spiritual mediocrity. Our Lord doesn't want this to happen to those who follow Him.

God loves each one of us in a very personal way. Jesus loves each one as he is, with his defects. His love does not lead Him to idealize man. He sees them with their paradoxes and weaknesses, with their great potential for good, and with their misery that is so often evident.

John Paul II liked to say, “Christ knows what is in man. Only He knows!” (John Paul II, Homily, October 22, 1978). He loves us the way we are.

Christ has a great understanding of the human heart and a great positive conception of our abilities. “His eye knows how to look beyond the veil of human passions and penetrate the inmost self of man, where man is most alone and poor” (Karl Adam, Jesus Christ).

He understands us always and always encourages us to continue struggling. St. Josemaría liked to say, “Struggle right to the very end, until the last moment” (cf. Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 429).

If only we could realize the personal love Christ has for each person, His care, His solicitude. God loves us. This is the great reality of our lives.

We're carried in the palm of a hand of a God who loves us. He is the one who is capable of raising our spirits always, who makes us happy in spite of our sorrows and contradictions. In spite of perhaps our broken hearts or our frayed nerves, He lifts us up.

He loves us in spite of the deep-rooted wretchedness that is there in the human heart, in spite of all the ugly things that He said reside there.

“His love, in spite of everything, is incomparable. It's unique; so maternally tender and generous that it will be inscribed forever in the memory of humanity. … His love for humanity is very different from the abstract benevolence preached by thinkers and philosophers. It's not simply doctrine, but life” (Karl Adam, Jesus Christ).

“Where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

“His love for humanity is to suffer and to die with man. The Lord doesn't settle for merely examining human misery and prescribing a remedy to ease it. He makes actual contact with that misery. He cannot bear to know of it without taking it upon himself,” we’re told (ibid.).

“The love of Jesus surpasses the bounds of his own heart in order to attract others to himself, or better, in order to go out of himself, identifying himself with others so as to live and suffer with them” (ibid.).

He calls men brother and friend, sympathetically binds His fortune to theirs, and He looks upon anything done for another as being done for Him. “Whenever you did it to one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it for me” (Matt. 25:40).

Constant are the Evangelists’ statements that He felt compassion for the people. “He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34).

He's moved by misfortune and pain. He cannot reject a suffering soul, not even the Syrophoenician woman who was a pagan (Mark 7:26).

He's quick to attend to those who came to Him, even when doing so led others to claim that He was breaking the Sabbath (John 9:16).

He mingles with publicans (Matt. 9:11) and sinners (Like 15:1-2), even though those who feel that they themselves fulfill the Law well are scandalized.

Not even when in agony does He fail to tell the good thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).

His love doesn't tolerate class distinctions. He welcomes the rich like Nicodemus, Zacchaeus, and Joseph of Arimathea, and poor folk like Bartimaeus, a beggar, who, once cured, followed Him along the way (Mark 10:46-52).

He attends more promptly to those with troubled bodies, and above all, those with troubled souls.

His concern for those most in need is not exclusive. It's not limited to those without fortune or friends. There are evils that are common to all social classes—loneliness, lack of affection, rejection.

Our own life is the story of Christ's love for us. He has looked at us with a love of predilection and has time and again sought us out when we had lost our way.

We ought to ask ourselves today how we are corresponding to Our Lord's constant concern for us. What efforts do we make to receive the sacraments frequently and devoutly? Do we strive to recognize Christ in spiritual direction, and when perhaps we're corrected on some issue, or put right?

Do we look with gratitude upon those to whom the Church has entrusted, as our pastors, the care of our souls? Do we know how to exclaim in those situations, “Dominus est—It is the Lord!” (John 21:7).

He has often looked upon us with predilection. St. Paul says, “Jesus loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20). This is the great truth that consoles us. He showed His love by giving His life.

He loves each of us as if each one was the sole object of His affections. Even if we are the only person in the whole world, Christ would still have died for us. He would have shed all of His blood for us. We should meditate often on this truth: that God loves us.

There was a little boy once who was asked to give some of his blood for his baby sister who needed a blood transfusion.

After thinking about it for a while, he agreed, although he hated needles. When the nurse linked him up to the tube that was to take his blood and the blood began to flow—they saw the blood there—he said to the nurse, “Will I begin to die soon?”

The nurse had to reassure him that she wasn't going to take all of his blood; she was just going to take a little bit of his blood.

Christ didn't give just a little bit of His blood; He gave all of His blood. This surpasses the most improbable expectations of the human heart.

No one—without divine Revelation—would dare to guess at or acknowledge the sublime vocation to which each and every person is called: to be God's son or daughter, called to live a close relationship as a friend, to participate in the very Life of the three divine Persons.

“No longer do I call you servants, but I have called you friends” (John 15:15).

Considered with earthbound eyes, it seems a dream, or scarcely credible, but it is the truth, the great truth that has to move us to correspond.

Christ never stops loving us, helping us, protecting us, talking to us, not even in our moments of sheer ingratitude, or after we have committed the greatest disloyalty.

Possibly it was during such sad circumstances that Our Lord has been most attentive to us, as this parable of the lost sheep suggests. Among the hundred sheep in the flock, only the one that was lost had the honor of resting on the shoulders of the Good Shepherd.

“I will be with you always” (Matt. 28:20). In each situation, at every moment, Our Lord tells us these words.

What a great consolation to spread to so many people whose hearts may be breaking from loss, from disappointment, from failure, from rejection, from loneliness.

And particularly, when we begin that final journey towards Him, we know that the Good Shepherd will be seeking us out.

Certain that Our Lord is close to us, we should be moved to begin and begin again in the interior struggle, without being disheartened by the negative experience of our defects and sins.

A man came to me once in another country. He had left his family, he had ended in disgrace, he ended up living under a bridge.

But one time in his life he'd been a member of the Legion of Mary. Another member of the Legion of Mary, in her older years, began to seek out people under the bridge and bring them food and clothing, and happened to know him from thirty, forty years previously, and recognized him, and brought him to a center city confessional box where I used to hear confessions.

He told me, “You know, Father, I think after all these years, Our Lady hasn't forgotten me. She's brought me back. And now I have cancer, I haven't long to live, but Our Lady has brought me here to make my peace with God. I'm so very happy to be here.” It's a very beautiful story.

The Good Shepherd seeks out the lost sheep; He looks after them in all sorts of ways. Every moment that we live is unique, and therefore provides us with a good opportunity to begin again and help people around us, this Lent, to begin again.

We can confide an awful lot in the special graces that Lent provides.

There are possibly people that we knew in primary school or secondary school, people that we bump into, or retired colleagues, or other people who may be far from God, and somehow, maybe, we reconnect with them. God wants to use us as instruments to bring them closer.

The Book of Deuteronomy says, “The Lord will go before you. He will be with you. He will not leave you or abandon you. Do not fear or be cowardly” (Deut. 31:8).

For many centuries, the Church placed on the lips of priests and the faithful, at the beginning of the Mass, the words of the Psalm: “I will go to the altar of God, of God who gives joy to my youth” (Ps. 43:4).

These words were repeated when the priests and the people were young, and when they had long since passed the years of their maturity.

They are the cry of the soul going straight to Christ, a soul who knows he is loved and desires love.

“God loves me. And John the Apostle writes: ‘Let us love God, then, since God loves us first’ (1 John 4:19). —As if this were not enough, Jesus comes to each one of us, in spite of our patent wretchedness, to ask us, as He asked Simon Peter: ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?’ (John 21:15).

—This is the time to reply: ‘Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you!’ (John 21:17) adding, with humility,” said St. Josemaría, “‘Help me to love you more. Increase my love!’” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 497).

These are aspirations that can serve us well these days. They will bring us closer to Christ. He awaits our correspondence with Him. God has great joy at the sight of our daily conversions.

Jesus was always with His people, even after day was done. There were many times when they wouldn't let Him rest (cf. Mark 3:20). His life was totally given over to His brothers and sisters. He loved them with the greatest love that the world has ever seen (cf. John 13:1).

He was raised for our justification (cf. Rom 4:25) and ascended into heaven to prepare a place for us (cf. John 14:2). He sent the Holy Spirit to forestall our becoming orphans (cf. John 14:18).

The more we have needed Him, the more He has been among us. This Divine Mercy exceeds anything the human mind can imagine. This superabundant mercy “is proper to God and is the greatest manifestation of his omnipotence” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, Question 30).

“Rejoice with me,” He would say, “I have found my sheep that was lost” (Luke 15:6).

St. Gregory the Great comments, “Supreme mercy will not abandon us, even when we abandon him” (St. Gregory the Great, Homily on the Gospels). The Good Shepherd never gives up on a single one of His sheep.

The Lord also wants to express heaven's joy at the conversion of a single sinner: “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing among the angels of God over one repentant sinner.” (Luke 15:10).

God is delighted when we begin again after small defeats, when we struggle to correct defects in our character, when we fight to overcome any sense of discouragement.

He values the way we pursue our studies, the effort we put into doing our work well, our striving to begin and end on time, our avoiding making unnecessary phone calls.

God sees our generosity in those small habitual mortifications which perhaps no one else notices. That daily struggle keeps us close to the Lord.

When we begin again, each day and every day, our heart can be filled with joy—and so is the Master's heart. Every time that we allow Jesus to enter into our life, we please God immeasurably.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus “overflows with joy whenever a lost soul has been recovered.” We're told that “everyone has to join in the celebration—all the angels and the saints in heaven, as well as the just on earth, for this wonderful development” (Georges Chevrot, The Gospel in the Open Air).

“Rejoice with me,” Our Lord invites us. There's also a special joy whenever we bring a friend or relative back to the sacrament of pardon. Our Lord awaits His brothers and sisters with open arms.

The Church sings in an ancient hymn: “Lord, you have worn yourself out looking for me: O that your labors will not have been in vain” (Hymn, Dies irae).

Jesus comes out to look for us, comes in search of us. He took upon Himself all the evil of the world and yet He seeks us out. He knows better than anyone the foul nature of sin; nevertheless, He's not angry.

“The Just One presents to us the moving image of Divine Mercy. To the Samaritan woman, she who had six husbands, He says simply, ‘Give me to drink’ (John 4:7). Christ knows what the soul can become—it can be a reflection of God Himself.

“What possibilities there are! God wants only good things for the soul” (Federico Sopeńa, Confession).

Jesus draws near to the sinner with real respect. His words are always an expression of love for the individual.

We could think of the words Our Lord spoke to the woman caught in adultery: “Go, and do not sin again” (John 8:11). They are words of pardon, of joy, of consolation.

Our Lord waits for each one of us in each Confession. The Good Shepherd has such a burning desire to reclaim the lost sheep that He goes out to find it Himself.

As soon as He finds the lost sheep, He showers it with affection. He carries it home on His shoulders.

Having returned to the safety of the flock, “the lost sheep brings a great peace to the fold, even to the watchdog” (Federico Sopeńa, Confession).

The divine attentions lavished upon the repentant sinner are truly overwhelming. God's pardon does not consist only in forgiving and in blotting out and the forgetting of our sins. That's certainly a great deal in itself.

But along with the remission of our sins, God infuses new life into the soul. He strengthens it, fortifies it.

That which was dead is converted into being itself a source of life. Barren ground is made to bear abundant fruit.

The Lord teaches us about the immense value of a single soul. He is ready to do anything for the sake of one conversion. He's happy at the sight of a renewed friendship!

We have to try and share the Lord's concern that no one stray from the flock. If anyone has wandered away from the Lord's fold, we have to pray that he or she will return as soon as possible.

We can ask Our Lady, Refuge of sinners, to take care of all the lost sheep.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.