“God is searching for you, because from time immemorial He has been intent on bringing back the lost sheep.” (Hildegard of Bingen).
We are learning to understand ever more deeply this movement of our Father’s love.
Our Father is on the lookout for us, as illustrated vividly in the parable of the Prodigal Son. The entire Gospel bears witness to this through Jesus’s coming, as He sought to gather the lost sheep of Israel. While this becomes abundantly clear to us in the New Testament with the birth of the Son of God, it has been true from the very beginning. Even in the story of the Garden of Eden, God asks after His children: “Adam, where are you?” when Adam, through disobedience, lost the originally so intimate communion with his heavenly Father.
As St. Hildegard beautifully puts it, we could say that God has always been seeking us because He knew that humanity would turn away from Him. Thus, it is fitting to say: An essential part of God’s relationship with us is seeking us out. Although the initial concern is to save the “lost sheep,” it does not stop there, for our Father also seeks to ensure that the found sheep or the prodigal son finds full communion with Him. Humanity must be healed of the filth of straying and awakened to its dignity as a child of God.
Those whom our Father has found He now invites to join Him in seeking the lost sheep. God wishes to dwell in their hearts and find rest there, and He asks those who have allowed themselves to be found by Him: “Seek out souls who selflessly devote themselves to My honor and glory and who can grant Me this rest” (from the message of God the Father to M. Eugenia Ravasio).