Matthew 18:12-14. Jesus said that if a man has a hundred sheep and one goes astray, he will leave the ninety-nine and look for the one who is lost. If he finds it, he will rejoice more over it than the ninety-nine who never went astray. "So it is not the will of my father who is in heaven that any one of these little ones should perish."

(The last line gives me much hope for my own personal lost sheep. If it is not God's will that they shall perish, then certainly they shall not, unless they wholeheartedly refuse His love at every step, which I don't think they will.)

I was thinking in Mass this morning that "the last shall be first" might not only refer to the poor and the littlest of this world being glorified in Heaven, but maybe also to the fact that the last ones, in time, to "get it" and convert will be the first to enter into the kingdom. After all, I think at this point that is what we are all waiting for! The kingdom can't come while they are so many holdouts. Maybe the conversion of the last holdouts will be like.a trigger that begins the coming of the kingdom, and because they were the ones to effectively pull that trigger, they will be the first to see it!

Like the laborers who shoudl not mind that they are all paid the same wage no matter when they started working, or like the prodigal son's father's exhortation to his older son to rejoice, fo he has always had everything the father had, none of the faithful should be resentful if this is the case. We should (and will) rejoice!! We are supposed to be helping with the conversion of the holdouts, so our joy will be profound when the last one converts and the kingdom comes. It will be like the joy of the shepherd finding his lost sheep, only better! It will matter not at all to our joy who got there first.