Today is the feast on which we celebrate God's love for us as shown by the life and death of Jesus. The heart is a symbol of the very centre of a person's being and in Jesus' case love is at the centre. So Paul tells the Romans: "The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us." And that happened when Jesus, showing the greatest love a person can show for another, gave his life for us - even when we were steeped in sin. The First Reading and the Gospel speak of God as the shepherd of his people. "I shall look for the lost one, bring back the stray, bandage the wounded and make the weak strong." In the Gospel Jesus gives the same image as He leaves the 99 'good' sheep and goes in search of the stray until He has brought it back to the fold. We all can identify with those lost sheep in need of caring and compassion but we are also called to have the same attitude ourselves to people who have strayed far from God and the Way of the Gospel.