Have you ever felt abandoned? I have known many people who have felt abandoned. Abandonment comes in many forms. When a spouse dies, the widow or widower experience not only grief of losing someone they loved, but also the feeling of being left all alone. There is the loneliness of being the sole surviving sibling of a family. There are those going through separation and divorce who experience not only being abandoned by their ex-spouse, but also by many of their family and friends. There are many children, caught in the world of foster homes who feel abandoned and unwanted. There are those children and adolescents who are so cruelly bullied and abandoned by their peers that they opt to die by suicide.
Abandonment is the curse of a society that glorifies the individual to the point of narcissism. We find that our world of “me first and the heck with everybody else”, condemns many to a life of loneliness and neglect. The readings for today are a much needed comfort for all who feel lonely and abandoned.
In John’s first letter he writes, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.” Though we may feel unloved and abandoned by all in our life, God loves us as His very own children. The bond of love that God has for us can never be severed. Paul expresses this in his letter to the Romans, “What can separate us from the love of God?” Paul answers the question saying that no matter what may happen to us, absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God. Today, Jesus tells us that the love relationship we have with him is as intimate as the relationship he has with the Father. “I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep.”
Though we may feel abandoned and unloved, Jesus, abandoned and betrayed by those he loved, knows our pain and assures us that his love relationship with us remains for all eternity.
