On Friday June 15th, the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, I’ll be delivering the homily at an 8th grade graduation. I’ve never preached to a group of 13-year-olds before. But here’s a draft of my homily.

I’ve never had a sheep, so I can’t tell you what it’s like to lose one.

But I can tell you that I once lost a sheepdog.

When I was your age, I had a little Shetland Sheepdog, a miniature collie, named Gerry. He was a great little dog. Very smart. And very quirky. He used to like to sleep on his back. He’d lie next to wall and than roll over, propping himself against the wall so he’d stay on his back. You’d walk through the living room, and he’d be there, on his back, asleep, snoring.

My wife tells me I sleep the same way.

Well, one day some men came to do some work on our yard, and they left the gate open, and Gerry got out. I found out about it when I got home from school, and I ran up and down our road, calling his name until my voice was hoarse. People kept saying, “Well dogs have a great instinct, he’ll find his way home.” But he didn’t. One day passed, and then another, and then another. We couldn’t find him. He didn’t come back. I was sure he was gone for good.

About the third day, my parents decided to go for a drive and look for him. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to be disappointed. I stayed home and tried to accept the fact that Gerry was never coming home.

But about an hour later my parents came home. And they had Gerry with them. He looked awful. They’d found him in the middle of a street in a subdivision about five miles away, just sitting there, lost. He was wobbly, but he was home. I picked him up and he smelled awful – but it was the most beautiful smell in the world. I looked at my father and he was wiping his eyes. It was the first time I’d ever seen him cry.

I thought about that little lost dog when I read today’s gospel about the lost sheep. I remembered how I felt when Gerry came home. And I thought: imagine what God feels for us.

We are used to thinking of God as this great, mysterious figure. But the God in the gospel isn’t that kind of God. He is a God with broad shoulders and warm arms. A God who searches for us when we are lost…and cradles us in his arms when we are found. A God who watches over us and worries over us…and who loves us so much.

On this feast of the Sacred Heart, we’re reminded of the depth of God’s love for us. The boundless passion of His sacred heart.

And on this, your graduation day, it’s my prayer for you that you will carry that with you, wherever you go, whatever you do.

He is with you, no matter what happens. “I will tend my sheep,” the first reading tells us. “I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark.” The great shepherd will not leave you stranded, or scattered. Trust in that. Cling to it. Hope in it.

You will need it for the adventure ahead.

Because this life is, above all, an adventure.

The writer Joseph Campbell spent years studying mythology – everything from the ancient Greeks to “Star Wars.” And he said the great myths and legends throughout history all had something in common. “Every hero’s story,” he said, “begins when he leaves home.”

In a way, as you leave this parish school, you are leaving home, a place that’s comfortable, and familiar, and warm. You know the halls and the classrooms and the teachers. This school is where you made friendships, took tests, worked on projects, and grew up. I know when I left grade school I remembered how I had shared a lot of laughter there, and shed some tears – usually over final exams.

But as you leave this “home,” remember: you are the hero or heroine of your own story. And the narrative is just beginning. You can’t know what will happen, or how the plot will twist, or where life will take you. But that, too, is part of the adventure.

The important thing is to face it joyfully — and with faith.

Faith. It’s one of those little words with big meaning. It’s more than remembering to say your prayers or go to church – though that’s part of it. It is something deeper.

It’s believing.

It’s believing that God is tending to you, like a shepherd tends his sheep. It’s believing that God will look for you if you’re lost. It’s believing that He is rooting for you – and that He loved you so much, He gave His only son for you.

When I was studying to be a deacon, one of our teachers once told us to remember that “God has a dream for you.”

Faith is wanting to make God’s dream for you come true.

Hold fast to that faith. Ask yourself, every day: What is God’s dream for me? And how can I make it come true?

After all these years, I’m still asking myself that question. And I hope I’ll be asking it for the rest of my life.

Whatever God’s dreams, know this much: they are born out of the most profound love you can imagine. The human heart grieves over what is lost and celebrates what is found – whether it’s a lost ear-ring or a lost dog.

But God’s sacred heart is beyond all that, for what HE cherishes is each of us. Each of you.

As you mark this moment in your lives, remember that. Because whatever happens … whatever open gate you find yourself going through, whatever unknown road you find yourself on…God will be ready to take you in His arms, and carry you where you belong.