Reflection for August 9, Tuesday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time: Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14

Gospel: Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14

The disciples approached Jesus and said, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, “Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name receives me.  

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father. 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:

The story is told about a man who was labelled as the black sheep of their family by his siblings. As such nobody amongst his siblings want to be associated with him anymore. Who would want to be associated to a so-called black sheep? No one among us want to be associated with a black sheep. Right? 

How about Jesus? Oh, He loves dearly the black sheep and those who stray. He constantly searches for them wherever they may be until He finds them. This is the love of God for us, He will patiently look for us until he finds us. And when He finds us He will stop at nothing to bring us back to His loving embrace.  

We always have to remember that Jesus’ mission is to bring back the lost, misguided and sinners. However, what if those who are lost do not want to renew their life and they want to continue on living their sinful life? What are we going to do?  Should we give up on them and let them live their sinful life?  

 Of course not, because when we give up it’s like we already surrender to the power of the Devil. We let evil triumph over good and this must not be the situation. It must be the other way around, good should always triumph over evil. Thus, we must not give up on the lost we must seek them until we find them and once we find them we forget the past and we introduce Jesus to them.  

Do you also seek out the lost? -  Marino J. Dasmarinas