11 September, Sunday — The lost, the least, the last

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Exo 32:7-11,13-14
1 Tim 1:12-17
Lk 15:1-32

I have found my lost sheep

At the lift landing in front of the Adoration Room at the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd in Singapore, hangs a painting. The scene is that of today’s Gospel on the Prodigal Son. Do spend a moment to look at the painting if you have the opportunity. There are some interesting subtleties weaved into it. The painting depicts shadows of the main protagonists, which essentially reveal what is truly behind the actions that are visible in the painting. The one that left a deep impression is that of the father, in his old age, ambling towards the son who has returned and is running towards his father. The shadow of the elderly father, however, shows him running at full speed, arms outstretched towards his son. It was poignant in the way it was able to convey the desperation of the father to embrace his son, of how much he missed the son, how deeply he longed for his return, how relieved from the endless years of worry at finally seeing that his son was alive and safe, how long-awaited and joyful the anticipation of finally being able to hold his son again in his arms…the son whom he thought was forever lost. But who, who in his heart, could never still worry about and hope for his return?

God our Father loves us. That we all know, kind of. My take is that most of us do not know how much He loves us. We cannot fathom this in full, because He loves us with Divine Love whilst our love is only human. That’s why His love is beyond anything we could ever experience in the limits of our frail, fallen and foolish human nature. It is the divine and incomprehensible love of our Father that makes the impossible possible for us. Because nothing is more powerful than that love which throws everything out the window to come to the rescue, so long as one of His own is in danger, hurt, wounded, broken, lost, astray, in peril of mortal danger and eternal damnation; who cries out in desperation to the Father’s love. So long as that one of His own chooses to be loved and saved by the Father, nothing, absolutely nothing, will get in the way of that saving love.

The longing of the Prodigal Father lies not in his inability to enter into the lives of His children, but in the inability of His children to turn to the saving love of the Father. We remain lost, broken, tired, frustrated, in despair, in desperation, in oppression, the least, the last, so long as we continue to choose to be so. By holding ourselves out from our Father’s love for us. Our Father is ever waiting for us to allow Him to save us, to heal us, to console us, to protect us, to provide for us, to redeem us, to comfort us, to guide and lead us, to love us. That moment comes when we finally realise we cannot save ourselves because we realise we are indeed the lost, the least and the last. But take courage, it is precisely because we have our Father’s love that the lost, the least, the last become the found, the greatest, the first. It is what He exists for. It is what He sacrificed His own Son for. It is what our faith is all about – the relationship of us loving God and God loving us.

(Today’s OXYGEN by Justus Teo)

Prayer: Father, help us. We are so clueless about the love you have for us which is immeasurable, unknowable but yet so abiding, unchanging and unchangeable. Help us to come to see and experience that love. And to be saved by that love.

Thanksgiving: Father, thank you; for time and again, your loved has lifted us from our nothingness and our unworthiness. For all the times, in your love for us — you allow us the privilege to be found, to matter, to be first in your heart.