Three Lessons From The Lost Sheep

Sacred Heart Novitiate, May 2025 by João Francisco de Jesus Barreto SJ

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ere are three timeless lessons we can draw from the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:1–10).

God’s Love is Personal and Pursuing

First lesson is about how God's heart works. To the practical or managerial mind, it seems unreasonable. Why risk ninety-nine for one? Shouldn’t a good shepherd guard the many rather than endanger the whole flock for a single stray?

But Jesus did not come to teach economics or efficiency. Jesus wasn’t giving a lesson in business or common sense. He was showing His disciples how God’s heart works. Richard Rohr explores God's heart in The Cosmic We podcast. I quote:

Divine love is infinite, but the notion of infinity cannot be conceived by the human mind. We can’t help but turn back to adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, one of my favorite Catholic mystics, shares, “There is a science about which [God] knows nothing—addition!” [1] What she was trying to say was that once we dive into infinity, which is God, any notion of adding, subtracting, meriting, losing, being worthy, is all a waste of time. God’s love is infinite, a concept the human mind cannot form. The divine notion of perfection isn’t the exclusion of imperfection, but the inclusion of imperfection. That’s divine love.

In the story of the lost sheep and the ninety-nine, it’s not about which one is more precious. The ninety-nine are just as valuable as the one, and the one is just as loved as the ninety-nine. But who is the one who is more in need?

In our world today, we often confuse success with more. We are easily impressed by outward appearances—titles, positions, achievements, or our ability to deliver results. We live in an age of performance, where value is measured by speed, output, and efficiency. We constantly ask, “How can we do more?” or “What can we do better?”

But Jesus turns the question around always with the person in mind.

“Whose joy have you restored?” “Who now feels found because you chose mercy over efficiency?”

The shepherd’s joy is not in successful management of the many, but in the restoration of the one. God’s mercy does not count heads; it embraces each one. Its measure is not quantity but closeness—the return of a single heart to His love.

Conversion is God’s Work Before It Is Ours

Whenever I hear confessions, I remind the penitents that the goal of the Sacrament is not to earn forgiveness. This is the second lesson: God’s mercy is never a reward for effort—it is a gift waiting to be accepted as gift from God. Conversion is God’s work before it is ours.

This is beautifully shown in today’s parable. The lost sheep does not see the shepherd’s wounds or feel the weight of his struggle while he searches. The lost sheep simply wanders, unaware of the cost of being lost and kept at a loving distance. Only later, when it is found and carried home on the shepherd’s shoulders, does it realize how deeply it was loved all along—that it had already been forgiven even before it was found.

In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we are not climbing our way back to God. We are letting ourselves be found, embraced, and healed by Him. God does the searching; we simply stop running.

True Joy is Shared Joy

Finally, the word for “rejoice” in our Gospel—synchairei—comes from two Greek words: sun (with) and chairo (to rejoice). The third lesson is about true rejoicing which means “rejoicing with,” to share in another’s gladness, to celebrate together. This is not a solitary kind of joy, but a shared joy.

In the parable, when the shepherd comes home, he calls his friends and neighbors and says, “Rejoice with me" (Lk 15:6–7).

This is the joy of Divine Love—a love that cannot remain silent, a joy that overflows and draws others into it. God’s joy is not self-contained; it multiplies when shared. Heaven’s happiness is complete only when we, too, share in the joy of those who have been found, forgiven, and brought home. The old hymn says it simply:

Come and rejoice with me!

For once my heart was poor,

And I have found a treasury

Of love, a boundless store.

Do you want to rejoice with God? A joy that comes not in getting more for ourselves, but in giving joy to someone else? Fr JM Manzano SJ