THE WELCOME MAT OF GRACE

A SERMON FOR THE SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF SACRED HEART

In today’s Gospel, our Lord asks the question, “What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?”  It’s a question which would have made a lot of sense to the shepherds and farming people who followed him.  They knew all about sheep, and the loss of one of them would have been something they would have taken personally.  The sheep were a source of income for the shepherd’s family, who would sell the wool for clothing and the meat for food to the other villagers.  And so the sheep ended up being a source of food and clothing to the whole village, and it was the shepherd’s job to be responsible for every last one of them.

One of the routine jobs a shepherd had was to count his sheep, and make sure none of them had gone astray.  And if one were missing, it was not uncommon for him to leave the others and go in search of the lost sheep.  Christ the Good Shepherd uses the analogy to refer to us, his sheep, all of us sinners no doubt, but sinners who hopefully know their way back to the confessional at the end of the week.

Not so the lost sheep.  This poor little lamb who has lost his way does notreturn to the confessional.  There are many reasons why not.  I’ve come across many such little black sheep in my time, and usually it does not end well, no matter what the reason.  Sometimes, on the other hand, God provides an unusually generous amount of grace to bring back these sheep to the fold, and sometimes they even listen to this invitation from God, guiding them back out of the darkness of their sin to the light of sanctifying grace.

Today’s question for you is a very simple one, and you will all find it easy to answer, although some may find it difficult to do anything about it. Are you a lost sheep?  Or are you one of the other ninety-nine, patiently waiting for the Good Shepherd to come back from his long and patient search for that lost sheep?  If you fall into the latter category, you can continue your vigil, patiently waiting for the good Lord to come again in glory and judge us all.  Stay out of trouble, strive to grow in God’s love, and above all, stay as close to him as you can by your frequent reception of the divine Eucharist.

But I look to the others in this congregation, who think of themselves as “lost sheep”.  Lost sheep, lost souls, what’s the difference?  You don’t feel as though you will go to heaven when you die.  You have perhaps despaired of God’s forgiveness, of your own ability to give up a sinful lifestyle, or maybe you are simply enjoying your sins too much to even wantto give them up?  There are such people all over the world, and statistically it is more than likely that some of them are here with us today.  

What a sad place to be, for sure.  We all sin, but a wonderful part of our humanity, one that our Lord particularly loves, is the grief we feel after we have sinned, the repentance that follows, and the resolution to do better that allows us to move on, away from our past iniquities towards a future that has more hope and less sin.  As priests, we hear the steps of this journey in almost every confession.  And while we may sigh in frustration sometimes that a penitent doesn’t seem to be shaking off some particular sin, or conquering his vices, we understand from experience that people are usually trying, and we pray that Almighty God will continue to give them the graces to do better and keep them out of mischief. 

Sometimes we are grief-stricken to notice that one of our penitents is gradually coming to confession less and less frequently, that he, or she, displays fewer outward signs of sorrow for having offended God.  And we steel ourselves for the day when they cease to come to confession altogether.  We wrack our brains to think of a way to bring them back, we preach sermons, we reach out if we can, but usually in vain.  The truth is, they used to come, and now they don’t.  They were forgiven by God more times than they can remember, only to step out of church back into the world and to their sad behavior, like a dog returning to its vomit.  Eventually, God does withdraw his graces from those so ungrateful as to throw them back in his face, adding to their own sins by doing so.  In his mercy, God now allows such a lost soul to wallow in the depths of his depravity for a while, before again, reaching out to draw him back with his divine grace.  Such is the patient mercy of a loving God, and as priests, we watch for the opportunity to reach out with God, as his instruments, to such lost sheep desperately seeking their way home. 

I remember one such soul in my early years as a priest.  It was an elderly lady who had left her husband and had been living with another man for many years.  On her deathbed she called for a priest, and because of my inexperience, I was a little hesitant to provide the Last Rites, repeating to myself how she would need to make a firm resolution to leave the man she was living with, and return to the sacraments.  Such are the doubts of man.  When I visited her in the hospital, she grasped the crucifix out of my hands, holding it to her lips, and her eyes filled with tears.  She made a good confession, received Extreme Unction, and I left the crucifix with her.  She spent the next few weeks being moved between ICU and other hospital rooms, finally being sent to the hospice where she died.  They found my crucifix under her pillow. 

Stories like that one are more common than we think, and should help all of us, I think, get through life with a little more joy and a little more faith. Indeed, our Lord himself tells us that there is greater joy among the angels of heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.  If you are one of those lost sheep, don’t be afraid to return to the arms of your Good Shepherd.  While the devil whispers in your ear that you’re too far from God’s grace to be worthy of ever returning to it, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, on the other hand, stands before you with open arms, ready to welcome you back into the fold. Your return to grace will be such a cause of joy for so many of us, so for once, don’t ignore the welcome mat of grace that God is spreading out before you. “I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”