5-Sep-2010 Dear Friend,
All of us have had the experience of losing things and finding them. Some of us may have the experience of losing someone and then finding that person again. There may even be some of us who have had the experience of being lost and then finding our way. Each of these experiences is painful and also joyful, but the joy of finding and being found far outweighs the pain of loss. Today we are reminded that God is our final destination and we are always welcome home! Enjoy the homecoming! Fr. Jude Sunday Reflections: Twenty-Fourth Sunday ‘Lost and Found! Rejoice!’ 12-Sep-2010 Exodus 32: 7-14; 1 Timothy1: 12-17; Luke 15: 1-32; Today’s first reading from the Book of Exodus tells us how the chosen people rebelled against God in spite of all that He had done for them as they journeyed to the Promised Land and while Moses went up the mountain to meet God, the people made a golden calf and worshipped it as their God. God decided to punish the people and destroy them because of their infidelity. But Moses intervened and interceded with God on behalf of his people and God listened to his prayer and was ready to forgive. We need intercessors and Jesus is our best mediator. We too need to intercede with God on behalf of others. Pray to Forgive and be Forgiven Consider the honest testimony of a woman damaged by one of the most psychologically ruinous experiences possible to women. Her husband left her. She said, “After that I was angry, bitter, and filled with resentment and hatred for my ex-husband. I went through questions like, ‘What have I done?’ and could come up with nothing. I had always tried to please him. So I asked, ‘Lord, how could you let this happen to me?’ I cried, I sobbed, I moaned, and I wailed. I beat my breast and asked for forgiveness for the spiteful feelings I had toward my ex-husband, and for the anger. Then, one sleepless night, I prayed aloud, ‘Father, forgive me, I want to trust and have faith like a child, but right now I don’t. Please help me really mean that I want to truly wish my husband all the best that life has to offer. You know I don’t mean this now, but I want to.’” Harold Buetow in ‘God Still Speaks: Listen!’ In today’s gospel we see Jesus surrounded by sinners and tax collectors, who gather around him to hear his word. The Pharisees cannot accept this and condemn Jesus because he lets these sinners keep his company. Jesus knows what they are thinking and in response tells them three parables. In all three we see the role of a mediator highlighted in different ways. In the first parable we have the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep and goes after the lost one. In real life it could be doubtful whether the shepherd would leave the ninety-nine and go after the lost one, which may not be found. But God is a different kind of shepherd who loves and cares for the lost and is able to risk everything for the lost one. The second parable is one where the main character is a woman who has lost a coin. She had ten coins out of which one is lost. She could have said, “Why bother? I have nine with me and that’s good enough.” But the woman searches meticulously every nook and corner, again and again, unmindful of the lateness of the hour or fatigue caused, not giving up till she has found the coin she lost. In both cases the joy is not only personal but social as well: The shepherd and the woman call upon the neighbours and friends to celebrate the joy of finding the lost one. Every one needs to rejoice, because every single lost individual is important to the owner and to the community. Only when every one has a place and there is a place for every one, is life, and the community, complete. The third parable is the familiar story of the prodigal father, who cannot rest while his son is lost. He loves both his sons, the one who stays at home and is hard-working and faithful, as well as the one who goes away, abandoning his responsibilities and his family. He takes his inheritance and spends it all till he has nothing left. Then he decides to come home because he has nowhere to go. One would think he deserves to be taught a lesson, to be punished, to be made to realize his folly. On the other hand, according to our logic, the elder son, who stayed at home, worked doing double-duty, needs to be rewarded. But the father acts so differently. He does not stand on dignity and insist on his rights, he does not think of himself but of his lost son. He waits for him to come home. When the son finally returns more out of hunger than out of love for his father, the father is overjoyed; he runs out to welcome him, embraces his long-lost son and organizes a party in his honour. There is no warning or conditions laid out for his return to the family. There is no reminder of his folly. When the elder son refuses to join the party, the father mediates on behalf of his younger son. “Come celebrate! He was lost and is found!” Through these parables Jesus drives home the powerful message of God’s compassionate and forgiving love. God’s standards are so different from ours! He seems to love sinners even more than the just ones! Even when we have gone astray we are always welcome home! The father’s arms are open wide to embrace us! He leaves us free to go and to come back anytime, everytime! “Three times in the gospel reading today we are told of rejoicing over something lost that has been found: the flock-owner and his sheep, the woman and her money, the father and his errant son. Under another aspect this joy is put before us as a reply to the complaints of the Pharisees and scribes over the welcome Jesus gave to sinners and his willingness to eat with them! Who then, when Luke was writing his gospel, was made indignant by the divine gladness and the rejoicing, which accompanied the entry of those who had been cut off into the house-Church? Who would even go as far as the elder brother of the prodigal and be so angry as to refuse to cross the threshold of the house opened to sinners? The answer to these questions enables us to draw a lasting lesson from these three parables. It seems that the parables were addressed to those faithful who refused to welcome certain people and to eat with them. People, who judging themselves true Christians, did not accept that others also were full Christians. Believers, of rigorist tendencies, took offence at mixing with brothers they judged sinners of impure. Because of serious faults, or because of their pagan origins? The conclusion of the Acts of the Apostles would seem to confirm this second suggestion. All those sinners who came to listen to Jesus put us in mind of the crowds of pagans drawing near to the Church at the end of the first century. However that may be, St. Luke reminds us here that all exclusion or intolerance of others, even if coupled with the most evident fervour, is not in accord with the gospel. A changing of the sense of brotherhood is always linked to a changing of the religious sense, to a warped conception of our relations with God, whose joy breaks out when he recovers that which was lost. ” -Glenstal Bible Missal ST There is a story told about two brothers who were convicted of stealing sheep. They were each branded on the forehead with the letters ‘ST’ – Sheep Thief. One brother immediately ran away from the area and attempted to build a new life in a foreign land. Even there, people asked him about the strange letters on his forehead. He wandered restlessly and eventually, unable to bear the stigma, took his own life. The other brother took a different approach. He said to himself, “I can’t run away from the fact that I stole sheep. But I will stay here and win back the respect of my neighbours and villagers.” As the years passed, he built a reputation of integrity for himself. One day, a stranger saw the old man with the letters branded on his forehead. He asked a citizen of the town what the letters stood for. The villager replied, “It happened a great while ago. I’ve forgotten the particulars, but I think the letters are an abbreviation of ‘Saint’. John Rose in ‘John’s Sunday Homilies’ May I Come Home? There’s a short story by Richard Pindell called “Somebody’s Son.” It opens with a runaway boy, named David, sitting by the side of a road. He’s writing a letter home to his mother. The letter expresses the hope that his old fashioned father will forgive him and accept him again as a son. The boy writes: “Dear Mother, “In a few days I’ll be passing our property. If Dad will take me back, ask him to tie a white cloth on the apple tree in the field next to our house.” Days later David is seated on a train. It is rapidly approaching his home. Two pictures flash back and forth in his mind: the tree with a white cloth tied on it and the tree without a cloth tied on it. As the train draws nearer and nearer, David’s heart beats faster and faster. Soon the tree will be visible around the bend. But David can’t bring himself to look at it. He’s afraid the white cloth won’t be there. Turning to the man next to him, he says, nervously: “Mister, will you do me a favour? Around this bend on the right, you’ll see a tree. Tell me if there’s a white cloth tied to it.” As the train rumbles past the tree, David stares straight ahead. Then, in a quaking voice, he asks the man, “Mister, is a white cloth tied to one of the branches of the tree?” The man answers in a surprised tone of voice: “Why, son, there’s a white cloth tied to practically every branch!” Mark Link in ‘Sunday Homilies’ Lost and Found A teacher asked her class to rewrite the parable of the lost sheep in a way that would make sense to the rest of the class. One student wrote: Suppose you had just finished typing a 100-page term paper. You had worked long hours in drafting it, and typing it. You were exhausted, but deeply relieved that the job was finished. You were collecting the pages to staple them, and bind them, when you discovered that there was one missing. Imagine the horror, the panic, the sick feeling in the pit of the stomach. You drop the other 99 pages, and begin the anxious search. Everything in you is longing and aching for a sight of that missing page. Without that page, the whole project falls limp. Suddenly, there, away in the corner, is the page. You excitedly push a chair aside, sending the 99 pages on it flying in all directions, and you are on your knees, reaching into the corner to touch and to grasp that page. Jack McArdle in ‘And that’s the Gospel truth!’ Lost Sheep and Coins In her novels Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, author Rumer Godden tells an intriguing tale. The Heroine of the story is Lise, an English army girl who falls upon hard times and becomes a prostitute after the liberation of Paris in World War II. Within a short time, she becomes the leading madame in one of Paris’ smartest brothels owned by a man named Patrice. But Patrice soon tires of Madame Lise as his mistress, and so she is humiliated. In trying to help a younger prostitute escape from the same fate she suffered, Lise shoots and kills Patrice. So she is sent to prison where she meets the French Dominican Sisters of Bethanie. Sister Lise is a prototype of the lost sheep and lost coin in today’s twin parables. She was wayward and lost, but through the Dominican Sisters of Bethanie our Lord went searching for her. And when he found her he embraced her, took her in his arms and invited her to become his spouse, a nun. Albert Cylwicki in ‘His Word Resounds’ May we always come back to God even if we lose our way time and again! Fr. Jude Botelho [email protected] PS. The stories, incidents and anecdotes used in the reflections have been collected over the years from books as well as from sources over the net and from e-mails received. Every effort is made to acknowledge authors whenever possible. If you send in stories or illustrations I would be grateful if you could quote the source as well so that they can be acknowledged if used in these reflections. These reflections are also available on my web site www.netforlife.net Thank you.
