Today, the evangelist of God's mercy recounts two parables of Jesus that illuminate his divine behavior towards those sinners returning to the right path. With the human image of joy, he reveals God's goodness finding pleasure in the homecoming of those who moved away from sin. It is like coming back to the Father's home (as more distinctly will be said in the Parable of the Lost Son). “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (Jn 3:17), and He did it while welcoming those that, full of confidence, “were all drawing near to listen to Jesus” (Lk 15:1), as He healed their soul just as the doctor heals the body of the ailing (cf. Mt 9:12). While the Pharisees believed they were so righteous and felt they needed no doctor, the evangelist says it actually is for them that Jesus presents the parables we read today.

If we feel spiritually sick, Jesus will tend to us and will be happy that we have gone to Him. But if, on the contrary, we would think as those proud Pharisees did, that we need not plead for forgiveness, the divine Doctor will not heal us. Each time we recite the Lord's Prayer, we must feel like sinners, as we say “and forgive us our trespasses...” And we surely must be grateful to Him for doing so! As we must also be grateful that He has placed so mercifully at our disposal, the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Let us hope our haughtiness will not make us look down on it. Saint Augustine tells us that Jesus Christ, God and Man, gives us an example of humbleness by removing the corruption of our arrogance, “for, though great is the misery of a haughty man, greater still is the mercy of the humble God.”

Let us further add that the lesson Jesus gives to the Pharisees is also an example for all of us; we cannot keep sinners away from us. The Lord wants us to love them as He has loved us (cf. Jn 13:34) and we must rejoice to bring the lost sheep back home or to recover the lost coin.