Tuesday, December 10, 2019 - Second week of the Advent.
Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Matthew 18,12-14.                                                                                                                                                              God does not want doesn't want any of us to be lost. Each one of us is so precious in the eyes of God that if one of us gets lost, He does not leave us in his wandering but he does everything to find him.

In this Advent season, we are not the only ones to question God, like this Gospel, it is Jesus who asks the opinion of his disciples. "What is your opinion?" he asked. In such circumstances, let us be careful not to be at loss of words. It is obviously not a question of debating with God, but of maintaining a conversation, a dialogue.

Jesus speaks in parable here in reference to the flock of sheep, an animal so emblematic in Jewish culture that if it happens that only one is lost, everything is done to find it. It is true that compared to the cents, only one seems almost insignificant. But in the eyes of God, none of us is insignificant. Each person is so precious that at the slightest mistake, He sets out to find us. And our return is always a great joy. A Doctor of the Church has affirmed that we are all one and the same sheep in the eyes of God.

No matter how great our faults and sins, it is our fault that God does not love, but not us, we are always precious in his eyes. He is looking for us and wants us to come back to Him. Thus, it is not the ugliness of our sin, which often makes us lose hope, that is important, but our willingness to return. There is nothing good in sin, what is bad is bad, but let us not find an excuse not to return to the Lord.

Only the Lord knows how to change evil into good. Only He can remove the error so that there is rightness. This is not a way to encourage us to go astray in order to have value in the eyes of God. His only desire is that we all stay with him and always remain with him. That's what we all hope we would do when we left this life.

The other temptation is to think that we are part of the ninety-nine and not the one who has gone astray. This is a sin of pride. Let us not lose oneself in reasoning against God, He is far above what we can conceive. Thus, it is not so much the number that matters, whether it is one or ninety-nine, but the word of Jesus which is clear: "Your Father who is in Heaven does not want only one of these little ones to be lost". Amen.

 Translate by Ramiarimalala Armancia Victoria