December 9, 2025
Second Tuesday of Advent
Fr. Graziano Buonadonna
I am fr. Graziano Maria, friar from the Convent of the Memorial of Saint Paul in Damascus, Syria.
Today’s Gospel is dense, brief, swift, like the time of Advent, because God is eager to meet us, to be born again in our hearts.
Jesus’ opening is tremendous, lightning-fast: “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that has gone astray?”
The Shepherd in the parable has one hundred sheep and has not lost the taste for a personal relationship with each of them. He seeks the lost one because each relationship is worth a hundred.
The Shepherd shows the lost one that he has not lost his taste, his interest for her. Is your wife, your husband, your children, that friend lost because you do not look for them? Why don’t we look for them? Do we still have interest in them? Or perhaps, in our lack of interest for those we claim to love, we too are becoming lost?
The Gospel highlights that the Shepherd “leaves the ninety-nine sheep on the mountains,” he goes down, leaves the heights to search below for the lost sheep, like Jesus, the Son of God, who leaves the heights and descends in search of us who are lost.
On us there is a force of gravity that has a precise name: sin, which weighs on us and prevents us from flying, from staying on high, and which pulls us downward, and the Lord knows it.
He notices that a sheep is missing not because he counts them, but because for the Shepherd each individual relationship counts. He misses that look, that dialogue. Ligabue is wrong when he sings:
Love counts
Love counts
and counts the years of those who have never been ready.
Love does not count, it is not a calculation, and Jesus does not love like we do, as the song says:
…we choose each other to have a bit of company
on this journey where you don’t go back to start.
The Shepherd always wants to be in our company!
Courage! Let yourself be loved. It is time to be carried on his shoulders. This is Advent: He comes down to bring us back up on his shoulders.
Holy journey to all!
