Category: Artists

Fr. Barron aptly describes God’s irrational love for us:

Jesus’ original audience must have been puzzled indeed when they heard one of the Lord’s better-known parables for the first time.  “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one . . . ” Well, they probably thought, precisely no man!  Sheep were a precious commodity int he ancient world, and no shepherd worth his salt would willingly risk ninety-nine in order to find one.  The Lord’s follow-up story would most likely have left them equally confused.  “What woman having ten coins and losing one would not . . . sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it?  And when she does find it, she calls . . . he friends and neighbors and says . . . ‘Rejoice with me.'”  The coin in quetion was of very little value, less than a penny.  For that minuscule amount of money, she would turn her house upside down and then, upon discovering it, would call for a party?  Her friends would think her mad.

And thus we come to the point.  Jesus speaks of the God who loves us lavishly, extravagantly, exuberantly, even, dare I say it, irrationally.  Think of the father of the Prodigal Son, who violates every canon of justice and right order when he welcomes back (with a party!) the child who had spurned him.  One way to sum up the good news of the Gospel is to say, quite simply, that the Father of Jesus Christ is crazy about us.