Our sharing in God's search and rescue mission for lost souls is known as the apostolate.

Luke 15: 1-32. Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Sept 12th, 2010
The Parable of the Prodigal Son

The parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son are all very familiar to us. The parable of the lost sheep and prodigal son are so popular that you can see in many people’s homes pictures of Jesus with a sheep on his shoulders or the Father receiving the prodigal son. We have read some fairly difficult Gospels the last few weeks on discipleship- topics like humility two weeks ago, and last week's taking up your cross each day, are not easy.

Certainly, many of us have tried to respond anew, and with greater intensity to Jesus’ call and have started to put into practice what he asks- like giving God the first part of our day and making an act of adoration the first thing we do in our day. Perhaps you made a resolution to do this, and low and behold, you missed a couple of mornings. It is certainly hard to develop new habits or virtues, and we can easily become discouraged and disheartened. Even though in our hearts we long to follow Christ fully and to do the right thing, we know we are very weak and live in world where it is so very difficult. And so, it’s really easy to become discouraged in our efforts and say, “Oh, what’s the use- I’ll never get this right!”

Well today, through the readings, God speaks to our discouragement. He desires to help us to be faithful in our desire to be good and faithful disciples. He wants us to know that he is merciful God, a God who is patient and kind. He is a generous and understanding God; quick to forgive those who are contrite of heart. He is a God who never keeps score or tallies our iniquities. No, He is not a scorekeeper but a promise keeper. Being well aware of our human weakness, He prefers not to condemn us; after all He has presented us with his greatest gift imaginable, the gift of His only Son for forgiveness of our sins. Our reception of this forgiveness by our repentance and the sincere confession of our sins is the cause of true freedom and the cause of great rejoicing in heaven.

In each of the parables in the Gospel today, the central figure is God Himself. He is God who is on a search and rescue mission. A God who does everything He can to recover those of His children who have succumbed to temptation and so separated themselves from Him.

God is the Good Shepherd who misses the sheep gone astray by sin, seeks him out in order to bring him back to the fold. Once he has found it, He carries it on His shoulder since it is trembling and weak from its disobedience and the great burden of its sins. God also seeks us, similar to the actions of a woman who having lost a coin of great value, lights a lamp and searches the whole house diligently and patiently until it is found. As well, God is seen as a loving father who longs for the return of His son, going out daily, scanning the horizon to see if His son is coming so that as a Father He can run to His son and throw His arms around him and cover him with kisses.

These beautiful images of God are given to us to encourage us in our struggles, but at the same time they are given to us as an example to follow in our discipleship. They let us know that discipleship involves taking into our hearts the qualities of God himself. We are to have a merciful, forgiving heart who like God desires that none be lost, that all be found and saved.

If we are to take on the qualities of the Father's heart, true discipleship then, includes a sharing in God’s own mission, which is a search and rescue mission. It is a sharing in the mission through the Sacred Heart of the Son in finding the lost sheep and bringing them back into the one fold.

The second Vatican council applies the image of the Good Shepherd especially to priest when it states: “They should be mindful that by their daily conduct and solicitude they display the reality of a truly priestly and pastoral ministry both to believers and unbelievers alike, to Catholics and non-Catholics; that they are bound to bear witness before all men of the Truth and of the Life, and as good shepherds seek after those too who, whilst having been baptized in the Catholic Church, have given up the practice of the sacraments, or even fallen away from the faith.”

But the second Vatican council doesn’t limit this rescue mission merely to priests. It reminds us that we have all been the lost sheep at some time in our lives. And because we have all been searched for and found by the mercy of our God, we are now all call to imitate God in His search and rescue mission by answering the call to discipleship from our Lord. With full, active, conscious and fruitful participation we are to seek out the lost and rescue them by our lives of holiness bringing them the light, love and live of Christ alive in us.

Our sharing in God's search and rescue mission for lost souls is known as the apostolate. This is what Vatican II said is the true role of the laity. And this role of yours begins and has its source and summit here at Holy Mass. All of us are called to take a full, active, conscious, fruitful participation in the Sacred Liturgy of the Holy Mass. What does these mean? We are to participate with mind, heart, body and soul, with our whole being in the once and for all offering of Jesus Christ the High Priest to the Father made truly present here. How do we do this? By placing our self as a victim on the paten as an offering to God the Father, so that along with the bread that will be change in to the Divine Victim, the very Person of Jesus, His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, we too will be transformed, changed through holiness into another Christ for the renewal of the world.

Here at Mass all of us are to understand (conscious participation) that we are to offer ourselves, both as individuals and as a parish family, by an interior act of our will, to the Father, in union with the Son, by the Power of the Holy Spirit. In this act of sacrificing of ourselves to God, (again not to be destroyed, but to be one with Christ, the body united to the head), we offer the Father perfect praise and adoration in Christ. We then become more and more in union with God, one with God, and are transformed more and more into His image and likeness and become, not just channels of grace for the world, but reservoirs overflowing with grace for the world.

In other words, we become divinized, we become "other Christ's, active and full members of His mystical body," who take what we have been given, literally the love of God, God Himself alive in our hearts, out into our world to the lost and forsaken sheep.

The truth is, is that it is only the Holy Mass, which is the action of the Head, Jesus Christ in union with His body, all of us and the Church around the world, that can save our world and the souls in it. The Holy Mass is the source of all, all the graces which come into the world. But this grace must flow out into the world through us, through our lives of holiness and faithful discipleship. This is the universal call to holiness. Holiness is not just for ourselves, but it is the means by which God desires to seek and rescue and so to save lost souls.

In the Holy Mass, through the Son in the Holy Eucharist, the Father embraces each of us in love and covers us with His kisses; but then He calls us to go out and bring other sheep to Him, here at the Holy Mass, so He can embrace them as well with His divine love and life. And then, because our brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.'" we will with him celebrate and rejoice here, in praise of our God, at this sacred feast, the Holy Mass in which heaven and earth unite, eternity breaks into time, and Man begins to share already in that for which he was created, in the Oneness, in the Love, in the very Being of the Blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the glory of God and man fully alive.

Holy Mary, Mother of the lost and forsaken, pray for us who have recourse to thee. Help us to become one with your Son and lead others to share in the oneness of love.