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Thought for the Day

The spiritually avaricious are those who can never have enough of embracing and seeking after countless exercises of piety, hoping thereby to attain perfection all that much sooner, they say. They do this as though perfection consisted in the multitude of things we do and not in the perfection with which we do them! I have already said this very often, but it is necessary to repeat it: God has not placed perfection in the multiplicity of acts we perform to please Him, but only in the way we perform them, which is simply to do the little we do according to our vocation, in love, by love, and for love.

-- St. Francis de Sales

From: Matthew 18:12-14

The Lost Sheep

[12] "What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them
has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go
in search of the one that went astray? [13] And if he finds it, truly,
I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that
never went astray. [14] So it is not the will of My Father who is in
Heaven that one of these little ones should perish."

Commentary:

12-14. This parable clearly shows our Lord's loving concern for
sinners. It expresses in human terms the joy God feels when a wayward
child comes back to Him.

Seeing so many souls living away from God, Pope John Paul II comments:
"Unfortunately we witness the moral pollution which is devastating
humanity, disregarding especially those very little ones about whom
Jesus speaks."

"What must we do? We must imitate the Good Shepherd and give ourselves
without rest for the salvation of souls. Without forgetting material
charity and social justice, we must be convinced that the most sublime
charity is spiritual charity, that is, the commitment for the salvation
of souls. And souls are saved with prayer and sacrifice. This is the
mission of the Church!" ("Homily to the Poor Clares of Albano," 14
August 1979).

As the RSV points out, "other ancient authorities add verse 11, "For
the Son of Man came to save the lost"--apparently taken from Luke
19:10.

Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.