In today’s Gospel we hear, “What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?”
I have often wondered how it feels to be “the one” in this parable. While these days I am happily more often part of the ninety-nine — steady, faithful, staying put — the truth is, not too long ago, I was the lost one. Even when Jesus gently carried me back, I would find myself focusing on the wrong path, and before I knew it, I was lost again. Sometimes I wandered by accident, distracted by the noise of the world. Other times, if I’m honest, I chose my way, ignoring the Shepherd, because I wanted my will and was unwilling to trust in His will.
What amazes me is that Jesus never lets me stay lost. He doesn’t sigh in frustration or weigh whether I’m worth the trouble. He comes after me — every time. He knows my name. He knows my broken places and is willing to mend and heal when and where I let Him in. And when He finds me, He lifts me onto His shoulders with joy and carries me back to safety. Oh, He will gently correct later, not to make me feel guilty, but more out of love and a desire to prevent me from straying too far and risking being hurt.
In this Gospel, Jesus reveals the heart of the Father: it is not His will that anyone be lost. He loves us all without condition and would go to the ends of the earth to bring us back to the fold. Every soul is precious to Him, uniquely loved, and worth the pursuit. That includes you. That includes the person you’ve been praying for who seems far from God. That includes the parts of your own heart that are still afraid or rebellious.
Today, I invite you to place yourself in the scene, wandering and afraid in the pasture alone. Let Jesus find you. Feel the relief of being rescued. Then, ask Him to make your heart like His — ready to notice who’s missing, ready to leave your comfort zone to help bring the lost back to the fold, ready to rejoice when even one comes home.
Daily Reading
Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent
Reading 1 Isaiah 40:1-11 Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt…
Saint of the Day
St. Juan Diego
St. Juan Diego
Feast date: Dec 09
On Dec. 9, Roman Catholics celebrate St. Juan Diego, the indigenous Mexican Catholic convert whose encounter with the Virgin Mary began the Church’s devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.In 1474, 50 years before receiving the name Juan Diego at his baptism, a boy named Cuauhtlatoatzin — “singing eagle” — was born in the Anahuac Valley of present-day Mexico. Though raised according to the Aztec pagan religion and culture, he showed an unusual and mystical sense of life even before hearing the Gospel from Franciscan missionaries.In 1524, Cuauhtlatoatzin and his wife converted and entered the Catholic Church. The farmer now known as Juan Diego was committed to his faith, often walking long distances to receive religious instruction. In December of 1531, he would be the recipient of a world-changing miracle.On Dec. 9, Juan Diego was hurrying to Mass to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. But the woman he was heading to church to celebrate came to him instead.In the native Aztec dialect, the radiant woman announced herself as the “ever-perfect holy Mary, who has the honor to be the mother of the true God.”“I am your compassionate Mother, yours and that of all the people that live together in this land,” she continued, “and also of all the other various lineages of men.”She asked Juan Diego to make a request of the local bishop. “I want very much that they build my sacred little house here” — a house dedicated to her son Jesus Christ, on the site of a former pagan temple, that would “show him” to all Mexicans and “exalt him” throughout the world.She was asking a great deal of a native farmer. Not surprisingly, his bold request met with skepticism from Bishop Juan de Zumárraga. But Juan Diego said he would produce proof of the apparition, after he finished tending to his uncle whose death seemed imminent.Making his way to church on Dec. 12, to summon a priest for his uncle, Juan Diego again encountered the Blessed Virgin. She promised to cure his uncle and give him a sign to display for the bishop. On the hill where they had first met he would find roses and other flowers, though it was winter.Doing as she asked, he found the flowers and brought them back to her. The Virgin Mary then placed the flowers inside his tilma, the traditional cloak-like garment he had been wearing. She told him not to unwrap the tilma containing the flowers until he had reached the bishop.When he did, Bishop Zumárraga had his own encounter with Our Lady of Guadalupe – through the image of her that he found miraculously imprinted on the flower-filled tilma. The Mexico City basilica that now houses the tilma has become, by some estimates, the world’s most-visited Catholic shrine.The miracle that brought the Gospel to millions of Mexicans also served to deepen Juan Diego’s own spiritual life. For many years after the experience, he lived a solitary life of prayer and work in a hermitage near the church where the image was first displayed. Pilgrims had already begun flocking to the site by the time he died on Dec. 9, 1548, the 17th anniversary of the first apparition.Blessed John Paul II beatified St. Juan Diego in 1990, and canonized him in 2002.