In today’s reflection, Msgr. Vlaun emphasizes the need to “sweat” the small things in life. It is often in the small things that we get lost or lose ourselves. When we skip Mass, forget to pray, don’t read our Bibles even a little, forget to thank God and others for what we are given and what we are enabled to do, we easily stray off the path that Jesus has set out for us.
The Gospel reading is from Luke 15. I love to tell these parables to children. I remember how they touched my life when I was young.
1. The lost sheep - carelessly straying and becoming lost. It wasn’t paying attention and lost sight of the path.
2. The lost coin - accidentally falling from a table, perhaps. The climate it was in caused it to get lost. It wasn’t really the fault of the coin.
[In the story I tell children, the cultural aspect of how meaningful that coin was to the woman. Some say it would have been part of a coin necklace given to her on her wedding day. Its loss would be similar to a wife losing her wedding ring. It was very precious to her, and it somehow got lost in the house.]
3. The lost son - the son who deliberately disobeyed his father and sinned in great ways.
Not paying attention. The climate we live in. Deliberate disobedience.
3 ways we can get lost. Paying attention to the small things can keep us from losing our way spiritually.
Clear. Simple. True.
The hope we have is that Jesus came, sent by His Father, to seek and to save the lost. We are not groping around in the darkness trying to find our way. Jesus comes to us in our lostness. The Shepherd is Jesus, the woman is Jesus, the Father is God.
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
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