The joy of heaven over one sinner who repents
By Prof. Dr. Daniel C. Afonso · Updated
“Therefore, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous who do not need to repent.” (Luke 15:10)
The liturgy of Thursday in the 31st week of Ordinary Time presents us with two conflicting accounts that ultimately converge in one joy. On one hand, the Apostle Paul, in Phil 3:3-8a, balances his life and lists what the flesh considered gain as losses. On the other, the Lord, in Lk 15:1-10, teaches the arithmetic of the shepherd and the woman who abandon prudent calculation and run after what was lost. The responsorial psalm, Ps 104(105), sets the tone, Quærite Dominum, et confirmamini, seek the Lord and be strengthened. Seeking and being sought. Losing to gain. Every page of today rests on this exchange that is the heart of the Gospel.
I. Paul’s balance, losing everything to gain Christ
Paul writes to the Philippians as if presenting an account and, in presenting it, tears it up. The apostle lists his credentials first with meticulous precision, circumcisus octavo die, ex genere Israël, de tribu Benjamin, Hebræus ex Hebræis, circumcised on the eighth day, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews (Phil 3:5). Nothing here is insignificant. Rite, lineage, tribe, observance, zeal, justice according to the Law, all make up the impeccable record of a man before men. And it is precisely on this record that Paul delivers the harshest sentence, quæ mihi fuerunt lucra, hæc arbitratus sum propter Christum detrimenta, what were to me gain, I now consider as loss because of Christ (Phil 3:7). The Greek word he uses in the following verse is even more forceful, σκύβαλα (skýbala), refuse, dung, something thrown out. It is not a matter of despising bad goods. It is a matter of reordering true goods before an incomparably greater good.
Paul’s point is not renunciation as asceticism, but renunciation as knowledge. Propter eminentem scientiam Jesu Christi Domini mei, because of the excellence of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Lord (Phil 3:8). The verb that governs the entire passage is accounting, arbitror, I calculate, I evaluate. Conversion is, above all, a re-evaluation of what is valuable. He who found the pearl does not become poor by selling everything, he becomes rich. Paul did not lose his story, he placed it on the shoulders of Christ, like the shepherd will place the sheep.
II. The shepherd and the woman, the search that does not calculate
Chapter 15 of Luke begins with a scandal and responds with two parables. The scandal is formulated in the murmuring of the Pharisees and scribes, Quia hic peccatores recipit, et manducat cum illis, this one receives sinners and eats with them (Lk 15:2). The table, a sign of communion, becomes an accusation.
Jesus does not defend Himself with an argument, but responds with a story, turning the logic of His accusers upside down. The shepherd who has a hundred sheep and loses one does not abandon the majority, but risks himself for the minority of one, nonne dimittit nonaginta novem in desertum, et vadit ad illam quae perierat, donec inveniat eam (He does not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, but goes after the one who is lost until he finds her) (Lk 15:4). The Latin adverb donec (until) measures the persistence of love. The search has no clause of giving up.
The second parable expands the first and completes it. The woman who loses one of ten drachmas lights a lamp, sweeps her house, and searches carefully, quærit diligenter, donec inveniat (she searches diligently until she finds it) (Lk 15:8). The shepherd goes into the desert, while the woman turns to her home. One searches in the open field, the other by the light of the lamp. They are not two repeated scenes, but two aspects of God’s single face, who seeks both the one who has wandered far away and the one who is lost nearby. And in both, the conclusion is identical and disconcerting, the feast. Congratulamini mihi, quia inveni ovem meam (Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep) (Lk 15:6). What is lost is costly. What is found overflows. Heaven does not measure joy by quantity, but by encounter. That is why the Lord’s sentence, gaudium erit coram angelis Dei super uno peccatore poenitentiam agente (There will be joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents) (Lk 15:10), proclaims that there will be joy before the angels of God for one who turns back.
III. Conversion as Encounter, Synthesis of the Readings
The two readings declare, from two perspectives, one truth about grace. Paul shows the sinner who allows himself to be found, Luke shows God who seeks him. The apostle is the sheep who allows himself to be carried, the drachma that is found by the light of the lamp on his way to Damascus. What he calls loss, the rejection of his titles, is precisely the dead weight the shepherd removes from his shoulders to make room for the living creature. The word recorded in the Gospel is metanoia (conversion), a complete change of mind, and it is this same change that Paul carries out when he exchanges the column of gains for the column of losses. To convert is not to add merits, but to allow oneself to be found.
A third voice seals the synthesis, that of the Psalm. Mementote mirabilium ejus quae fecit (Remember the wonders he has done) (Ps 104:5). Remembering God’s works is the antidote to the confidence in the flesh that Paul denounces and to the murmuring of the righteous who consider themselves free from the need for conversion. Whoever remembers what God has done does not calculate his own merits, he exults. The joy in heaven is not a distant reward, but the atmosphere of one who was sought and found. Not the euphoria of those who never lost their way, but the jubilation of those who were found.
IV.
Mary, who never lost herself and seeks with us
Mary is the key to reading a chapter in which she is not named, because she is at once the unique sheep that never needed to be sought and the woman who, in the house of the Church, sweeps the floor to find what was lost. Tradition has read in the woman of the ten drachmas a figure of the Church and, in the heart of the Church, of the Virgin who seeks the dispersed children. She is Regina Angelorum, Queen of Angels, and the joy that rises coram angelis Dei, before the angels of God (Lk 15:10), has in her the first and purest resonance. Where angels exult over a sinner who returns, the Mother of Angels exults first.
However, the application is even deeper when read with Paul. What the apostle does for conversion, counting all as loss to gain Christ, Mary lived from the first instant in fullness of grace. She is the creature in whom nothing ever was σκύβαλα, refuse, because nothing ever competed with Christ in her. Conceived without sin, she is the sheep of the ninety-nine that did not wander, and yet it is she who best understands the feast of the hundredth, because she was made Mother precisely of those who were lost. The Immaculate does not keep her integrity as a treasure for herself, but offers it as a path for those who return. At the foot of the cross, when she receives John and in him the whole Church, Mary becomes the lit lamp that the woman of the parable holds, light that sweeps the house of the world in search of the fallen drachmas. To seek with her, to be found by Christ, to count everything as loss to gain him. This is the litany of today’s liturgy, and in this Mary goes ahead, first of the found and companion of every search.
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