Lost and Found

Reflection for February 2022

It was the evening of Thursday, February 3, 2022.  I was at my desk when I discovered that my left ear was missing its earring.  I had put on both earlier in the day.  Friday was my birthday.  The earrings had been given to me by my parents, and I wanted to remember them in a special way when I celebrated my birthday on the 4.  Now I had lost one of the pair.

A lost earring is difficult to find.  I had no idea of how or when it got lost.  I had been to the dentist, gone to meals, taken my mask on and off, and walked outside.  It could be anywhere.  I reconciled myself to the loss. I tried not to allow it to spoil my day.  And then, on the evening of the 4, I was at my desk when I happened to look down, and I saw the lost earring.

I had told someone that God alone knew where it was.  I believe God did know, that God felt my distress, that God gifted me again, that God cares.

I am only a small atom of God’s care. God cares for the whole cosmos – for the stars, for the sun, for the moon, for the fish in the sea, for the flowers, for the birds, for animals, and for man. All parts of God’s cosmic plan, a plan which has the destiny of God’s Self.

In his book, The Cosmic Vision of Teilhard de Chardin, John Haught quotes Emmanuel Kant who has said that the most important questions man can ask are the following:  What can I know?  What can I hope for?

Given the gradual emergence of spirit, of soul, of awareness, of feeling, and of reflective consciousness of humans in the cosmos, I see that the general, overall, the direction of the cosmos is in the direction of meaning.

I believe that because of this general development of meaning, despite the vulnerability of finite created beings to fall backward, the cosmos and all parts of it are made whole both individually and collectively through the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the “amazing grace” of Jesus that finds whatever is lost. God’s loving care in and through Jesus Christ draws us forward to share in God’s eternal knowing and loving Trinitarian Life.

This is the promise of Easter. We affirm our belief in this promise when we repeat the vows we made at our Baptism during the Easter Morning Mass.