Reflection for December 7, Tuesday Memorial of Saint Ambrose, Bishop and Doctor of the Church: Matthew 18:12-14

Gospel: Matthew 18:12-14

Jesus said to his disciples: “What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.

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Reflection:

Can we compare the love of Jesus with how we exercise our love for our fellowmen?  

No, we cannot compare because majority if not all of us love with preconditions and conditions. We love with limitations and we love only those who give us love. Jesus loves us without any preconditions, limitations and He loves us even if we don’t love Him in return. 

We all know that Jesus is alluding about His infinite love for us when He told this story of the lost sheep.  By way of this story He is also telling us that His love for us is always there no matter how sinful we are and no matter who we are. 

As we follow Jesus, we must also ask Him to deepen our faith and to erase our preconditions and conditions when we love. For example, if before we could only love those who give us love, now that we have become mature followers of Jesus. We would love even those who do not give us love and those people who do not love us anymore. 

To love even those who do not love us and those who hurt us is very hard to do. But if we really are sincere in following Jesus, we would be able to love them. And we would search for them until we find them and forgive them without any precondition. 

Let us find those who went astray, let us forgive them and give them the unconditional love of Jesus. -  Marino J. Dasmarinas