Beyond Statistics!

Luke 15:4
What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it?

Malcolm Muggeridge once remarked that today’s verse is “anti-statistical.”  Modernity, which tends to think in terms of “masses” and demographics and enormous statistical probabilities, is better at pontificating about generalities than at honoring or respecting the human person in all his or her particularity.  Stalin once quipped, in his monstrous way, that one death was a tragedy, a million deaths was a statistic.  God, not hampered by our callous reliance on numbers, sees each and every human being as precious and does extravagant things to find and save each one.  He does not scoop immense hands down into the human race as if we were grains of sand with a statistical chance of slipping through His fingers by accident.  He lavishly expends all His power so that each and every one of us might be saved.  He calls us by name.  Today, answer that call.  It’s for you.

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Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog and regularly blogs for National Catholic Register. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.

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