Written by ‘To many of us, our beliefs are of fundamental importance. For me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life. I, like so many of you, have drawn great comfort in difficult times from Christ’s words and example.’ ~ Queen Elizabeth II, Millennium Christmas message.
The words and teaching of Christ we hear today concern what God is like when a person strays from His love. Jesus compares God to being a worried shepherd, desperate to find a missing sheep; and a poor woman, down on her knees, searching for a lost coin (rather like a woman today searching for a missing earring).
In each example the shepherd and the woman are both relieved and joyful when they have found what was lost. This, says Jesus, is how God feels when people who lose their way in life return to His love.
Jesus originally told this story for two reasons. The first was to highlight God’s mercy when someone returns to his love. The second was to challenge his critics in Judaism who resented Jesus welcoming and accepting public sinners. In the two parables he was telling them: if you want God’s mercy for yourselves, then don’t begrudge God offering this same mercy to others, especially to people you can’t abide.
These and other parables were recorded some 40 years or more after Jesus told them. Of all the things Jesus said, these were selected to address problems in the Church all those years later. Just as the scribes and pharisees were upset with Jesus, it seems that some people in St Luke’s time were upset with how pagans and public sinners were being welcomed into the Church. They were offended that less than desirable people (in their eyes) were being accepted into the Church. So St Luke recorded these two parables to remind them that they had forgotten Jesus’ approach to sinners.
Sometimes it can be easy for us to forget this message. Ours is a Church of sinners, for sinners. Pope Francis describes it as a ‘field hospital’, a refuge for people seeking the healing grace of God’s mercy. The parables of the rejoicing shepherd and poor woman remind us of the need to be delighted when others wish to join us in seeking that very mercy of God that sustained the late Queen Elizabeth throughout her life.
As we thank God for the Queen’s life of service, may God inspire us to follow her example. And may the Christian faith that nourished her in difficult times, sustain us also in ours.
May she rest in peace.
Michael Campion
Holy Name, Jesmond
11 September 2022
Sunday Mass: Saturday 4pm, Sunday 10am 