That one of these little ones be lost

13 AUGUST (Mt 18,1-5.10.12-14)

It is the will of God that every man is looked for in order to be conducted into his house. The Old Testament already announced this desire of God. Rather, God himself is the shepherd of his flock. It is He who goes in search of the lost, confused and tempted man. God seeks man even before sin. He looks for him by creating him. He looks for him to show him what his will on him is, and to complete his work, through the creation of the woman. Man is the constant and perennial thought of God.

The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it. The Lord God gave man this order: “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.” The Lord God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.” So the Lord God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The Lord God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man. When he brought her to the man, the man said: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body (Cf. Gen 2,4-24).

He looks for him after sin, in order to put him back on a path of hope and salvation. That of God is a continued attention towards man. We can say that the passion of God is man. He also wants the passion of man to be man. For man God dies on the cross. For man a man must also offer his life in sacrifice. The Lord wants to communicate his passion to other men, by calling them and constituting them shepherds of his flock. In this work he sees a perennial failure. For this reason he promises that he would have generated shepherds who would have taken care of the flock in a worthy manner.

Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds. I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have driven them and bring them back to their meadow; there they shall increase and multiply. I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear and tremble; and none shall be missing, says the Lord (Jer 23,1-4).
Jesus is the Good Shepherd who came to seek and save every man. He is the Universal Pastor. It is he who gives life in abundance to the sheep of the flock of his Father.

At that time 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 humbles himself 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.

The pastoral is of care, but also of research, of administration of the sacraments, but also of evangelization, of the preservation of what is already sheepfold of the Lord; but also of leaving the sheep in the fold in order to go find the lost one. The two things go together. Only a strong pastoral within the Church is transformed into a true work of evangelization. The internal weakness is always an external weakness.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us true seekers in Jesus.