Reflection for Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent

7 December 2021
"The Lost Sheep", William Webbe, 1860s. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

 

Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent

Feast of St Ambrose

Year C 

 

Reading 1: Isaiah 40: 1-11 

Responsorial Psalm: 96: 1-3; 10-13  

“The Lord our God comes with power”  

Gospel: Matthew 18: 12-14  

 

Matthew 18:14 – “it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost. ” 

 

Today’s Gospel passage recounts the story of the shepherd finding his lost sheep. Let’s look at that lost sheep. A sheep is something more than a lost coin, which is to say it has mobility, sense, appetites, and so on. Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles noted once when he was on retreat at the Abbey of Tamie in the Alps, he heard the desperate bleating of a sheep who had fallen into a pit. All night he cried, knowing that he was in trouble and hoping that someone would come to save him. 

There are souls who are like the lost sheep. Spiritually compromised, unable fundamentally to help themselves, they are at least aware that they are in a mess. They are like people who commence the AA process by admitting that they have hit bottom and are out of control. They bleat, they cry for help. 

And God finds them—and when he finds them, he carries them back, for they are unable to move on their own. 

Pray that we can simply trust that no matter what happens, God will always find us. 

 

With thanks to Holy Name of Mary Parish, Hunters Hill, who have supplied these daily Advent and Christmas 2021 reflections from their publication Daily Inspirations of Faith: A Season of Prayer – Advent to Epiphany 2021-22. 

 

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