Loss, Lost

Loss, and Lost

The tragedy of losing something can become a loss in our everyday journey.  We often may pray to St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost items.  But losing something that seems precious to us can appear to be a sudden excursion.  Stripping the covers off the bed or turning the world upside down to find this article that is our last treasure becomes our most ardent search.  

There are moments when the efforts to locate that particular item has our attention where nothing else matters until we find it.  The exhilaration shared with others appears to be a successful goal that no one could give you.  Luke tells us some parables regarding a lost sheep, a woman misplacing a coin, and the lost son who was seeking a new life by squandering his father’s fortune.  

Jesus went after the one sheep who wandered away from the flock, and if necessary placed it upon his shoulders to bring it back home.  Similarly like the story of footprints in the sand.  “I thought you said you would never leave my side, but when I looked down at the sand, when I was in my deepest need, I saw only one set of footprints.”  Jesus said, “That is when I placed you on my shoulders and carried you home.”

Perhaps the most endearing story is that of the Prodigal Son.  When we, because of sin, walk away with the little we have and spend it all on dissolute living, we realize the need of the ones we walked away from and now are afraid to come back.  This parable becomes the true essence of the Father, forgiving his lost son and treating him as the royal member of his family.  

When we lose something as small as a coin our search is for more than something so little.  It can become a pattern that will lead each of us to fill the empty cavity within our soul, searching for God even if we didn’t know he was always there.  

Searching for the lost sheep, coin, or wayward son, is what God continues to do.  He never wanted anyone to lose their way, but the stories represent that his creatures always find a path they believe will satisfy the empty heart.  (See Lk. 15: 1 - 32).

Sin and we may find the path in which our way back to salvation becomes a lost entity.  If we reject the effort God uses to search and find us hiding from shame, the loss will become our soul.  Accept his everlasting forgiveness and the lost among us will not be a loss, but a generous act of he who created us out of his Agape Love.

Jesus used these parables as a way to guarantee the mission he was sent to relate to mankind; freedom from sin, and the road back to heaven which one time was lost to you and me.  What was lost is now past tense.  Rejoice and be glad, we are now one with God.

Ralph B, Hathaway