“And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ ”
I think of the Thomas Wolf novel You Can’t Go Home Again. In early adulthood, you might feel that as you go away to college and come back home, you find that everything seems different. Nothing at home is ever quite the same. That sense seems to grow over the next few years, punctuated by graduation, a first job, marriage, and children. You can’t go home again. Well, maybe. The question is, from the moment of birth until death, has earth really ever been home? When Jesus describes the finding of the lost sheep, he says, “with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors.” What home can Jesus mean except his Father’s kingdom, heaven? Who are the friends and neighbors but the beloved children of God, abiding in heaven? You can’t go home again? Well, yes you can.
God, help me understand that your son takes joy in doing your will and rejoices in returning the lost ones to you. On this solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the manifestation of Jesus’ love is All Heart—not as the world loves but caring for the lost sheep by giving us his body and blood, soul and divinity as the wellspring of all of the sacraments.
In “Birches,” Robert Frost says, “Earth’s the right place for love: / I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.” True enough. Love on this earth is all I’ve ever known. But this has never been home and will never be. I ask as a sinner myself, can returning home be as simple as acknowledging sinfulness and repenting? What is the result of that? He sets me on his shoulders and with great joy brings me home, to his Father’s home, to the only real home I will ever know.
Today, Sacred Heart of Jesus, let me follow you as you seek out the lost sheep and rejoice in finding them. Let me see what you do and I myself seek out and bring back the strayed, handing them over to you because I wouldn’t know on my own what to do with them. Even more, let me be found, and find me where I fall short. In the Gospel acclamation, Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.”