The one who is lost

TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
September 11, 2022

Jesus appears to have failed Sheepherding 101. Leaving ninety-nine sheep in the desert while trying to find one   other is extremely reckless. At best, a shepherd would lead the ninety-nine back home and search for the lost one only once the others were    secured. But Jesus is not your typical shepherd. His concern is with the one who is lost, with the one who needs him. And if he comes back with the lost one and finds only ninety-eight, you can bet that he will leave the herd again to search for the one who wandered away. And so on until no more are lost. The Good Shepherd looks quite foolish, pursuing a single lost sheep, not knowing what would happen. On 9/11, hundreds of first responders rushed into the burning buildings to rescue those in danger. It may have looked foolish to an observer, putting your own life in danger in a desperate attempt to save total strangers. But this was their calling. Jesus came into this world as our Savior and is now on the road to Jerusalem, getting closer and closer to the mortal danger of his cross. He is doing this for individual people he does not know, for sinners, for people who “deserve” his actions no more than the lost sheep. Yet he does not waver from his calling. Though it looks foolish to struggle under the weight of a cross, or to run into danger for the sake of a stranger, or to pursue a lost soul across heaven and earth, we are challenged to do so by the one who accepted a sentence of death in order to rescue a world of sinful people for no other reason than that they were lost and they needed him. Amen. (Casey, Most Reverend Robert G. Pastoral    Patterns. World Library  Publication, 2022)