Cycle C - Year II:  

11 September 2022: Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time 

(Liturgical Color: Green)

Readings:

First Reading:        Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14

Second Reading:   1 Timothy 1:12-17

Gospel:  Please Read  Luke 15:1-32 (Lk 15:1-10) 

When sinners encounter a loving God!

Do you remember in the olden days, where schools and even some establishments had a "Lost-and-Found" corner, an area where people can go to retrieve lost things that may have been found by others?  The purpose was to instill honesty among people.

Today, we will hear in the Gospel proclamation three of the so-called "Lost-and-Found" parables in the Gospel of St. Luke. No, it's not to teach us honesty, but to illustrate how our Lord Jesus cares for the lost sinners and how much He wanted them to be found.

The Gospel narrative is about an incident in the life of our Lord. The Pharisees criticize Him as they are upset and angry that Jesus not only welcomes sinners but He also has the audacity to actually sit down at table and eat with sinners.  Now, we know that Pharisees are self-righteous people who follow their laws and rules to the letter, and look down on public sinners.  So in their minds they wonder that a great religious leader and a prophet would "receive sinners and eat with them".  This is something that Pharisees would never do.

Jesus is able to read the minds and the hearts of the Pharisees. But instead of responding directly, Jesus decides to respond to their unspoken criticism in a round about way. And as Jesus often does, He tells the crowd a series of parables: The Parable of the Lost Sheep, the Parable of the Lost Coin, and the Parable of the Lost Son.

Let us refresh our minds: Parables are fictitious stories about common stuff that Jesus' disciples understood to explain unknown spiritual truths they did not completely understand.

Quickly let us go through these parables to understand their purpose: 

In the Parable of the Lost Coin, the emphasis of the story is on the woman's zeal in searching everywhere to find her coin. That's how important the lost coin is to her.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep has a timeless message of love and redemption. It describes how to reach out and keep those who have been left behind. Jesus is telling us in this story that every life is precious in His eyes.

The last Parable of the Lost Son is well-known to us as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The youngest son asked his father for his share of inheritance and then squandered everything. When he was destitute and hungry, he went back to his father to ask forgiveness and beg him to hire him as one of the father's servants. But the father welcomes him back and restored his dignity as his son.

All these three parables have one theme in common: they were lost but found again. So Jesus is teaching us that such is how God deals with our own sinfulness.  God is always waiting for repentant sinners with open arms, even when we don't really deserve it. The bigness of our sins doesn't matter when we open our heart and return to the Lord.  So in these parables, Jesus teaches that no one is excluded from God's forgiveness and that sinners can become beloved children of God again when we repent and convert.

Clearly, our Lord Jesus Christ's response to the unspoken criticism of the Pharisees is this:

"I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." (Lk 5:32)

"For the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost." (Lk 19:10)

So the Church teaches that we can return to the Father's love and mercy by means of the Sacrament of Reconciliation in which by confessing our sins, we put on Jesus Christ again and become His brothers and members of God's family.  Our merciful God does not rejoice in the loss of anyone but desires that all be saved and restored to fellowship with Him.  So that the whole community of heaven rejoices when one sinner repents, is found, and restored to fellowship with our Lord.

A blessed Sunday to us all. And thank You for a moment with God.

Ad Jesum per Mariam!