the Lost sheep- do you feel lost from God?

COLLECT SERIES.

THE MASS: COLLECT SERIES ICON.

COLLECT

The Collect for the Twenty Fourth of Year C reads as follows:

Look upon us O God,

Creator and Ruler of all things,

and that we may feel the working of Your mercy,

grant that we may serve You with all our heart.

. Through our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son,

Who lives and reigns with You

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

One God, for ever and ever.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Converting this prayer into spirituality in action, the following reflection questions emerged:

1.What is my image of God-Creator and Ruler of all things?

2, Are there any hindrances in my image of God which is impeding me from living a good Catholic and holy life?

3. What does God’s mercy feel like to me?

4. How might I offer God’s mercy in the way I behave in a situation this coming week?

5.hat does it mean to me to serve God will all my heart?

5. If a stranger was to be asked about me, would they recognise that I am a believer in Christ or not?

GOSPEL REFLECTION

The Gospel is from St. Luke 15:1-32. The lesson that these stories, made up by our Lord himself, has for us is clearly a lesson of hope and confidence in the infinite mercy of God in His dealings with us. We are all sinners in one way or another. We have all gone astray, got lost like the sheep and the coin in those stories, sometime or other. What is worse, we are all capable of going astray from God again at any moment. If we had only the justice of God to deal with we might well despair, our chances of reaching heaven would be slight indeed.

We are dealing, however, with a God of infinite mercy, who loves us with a love we cannot grasp or understand. All this infinite mercy of God is there for our benefit as long as we have the breath of life in us in this world. The whole of the Old Testament is full of examples and proofs of this mercy of God for man. 

It is in the New Testament, however, which begins with that almost incredible act of divine mercy, the Incarnation, that the infinite mercy of God for all mankind is seen in its fullness. The coming of the Son of God on earth in our human nature, His teaching, His sufferings and death, His resurrection were all accomplished for us, so that we could rise glorious from the dead and share the joys of heaven, to which we have no claim whatever, except the merciful goodness and generosity of God.

God does not need us to make his existence happy. He is all-powerful, all-perfect, all-happy in himself. Because He is a God of love, a God of infinite generosity, He wants to give us a share in His happiness. At times one must wonder how any man who knows of God's generosity and of what that generosity has led Him to do for us, could ever think of abandoning that loving God, or get lost in futile earthly folly. Yet that does happen when we sin grievously.

God does not cast us out forever as sinners unworthy of His gifts. Instead, He foresees such folly on our part, and has left us lessons of encouragement, as in today's parables, and set up in the Church ways and means to carry on His work of mercy for weak, mortal men. During His life on earth, Christ dealt mostly with sinners—he said he came to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He told the Pharisees that it was the sick who needed a doctor, not those who were well. The Pharisees in their pride thought they were not sick but they were, and He was only too ready to heal them too if only they would let Him.

He spent his days then among sinners, the tax-gatherers, the robbers, the adulterers, the usurers. The twelve special friends He chose from amongst His followers had more than their share of human failings.

We are all sinners to a greater or lesser degree. With this knowledge and conviction, which any true Christian must have, of the infinite mercy of God, no sinner need ever, and should never, despair. No sinner was ever lost and no sinner will ever be lost, because of his sins. Sinners are lost only because they will not trust and believe in God's mercy and turn to Him to ask for pardon.

Not a day passes but our merciful Father sends out and calls to us His erring children to return to our Father's household. Today, one of those calls is in the very words of the parables you have heard. There may be another call for the sinners amongst us. There may not. Heed this one and the other call will not be necessary. Turn to God today with a truly contrite heart. God will do the rest.