Sept. 11, 2022: 24th Sunday C
Sept. 11, 2022: 24th Sunday C - The Return of the Prodigal Son
Early this week, I went to visit a man who longs to return home to his Heavenly Father. He is bedridden in his own home; it is the home in which he and his wife raised beautiful children and baby sat their grandchildren. Over the course of his life, he has met wonderful people and seen incredible transformations in people. He was a public school educator who taught with patience and compassion. School administrators often sent “difficult” children to him, hoping the child would adjust or change. One fifth grade girl, he recalled, was sent to him by a frustrated principal. She was from a broken and troubled family. She was hopelessly lost; no one provided emotional support at home. Unlike a typical child her age, she was filled with anger and uncontrollable emotions–cursing, outbursts, fights, and acting out. When the frightened child arrived at her new teacher’s class, he looked at her tenderly and said, “You’re going to be my best friend from now on. Sit at the desk next to mine.” He treated her with utmost kindness and patience. He became the father-figure she never had. Recently she contacted him via social media when she learned that he was placed in hospice care. They spoke on the phone, and he learned that she is a wonderful mother and has a beautiful family of her own. He was overjoyed to learn that the once-thought wayward student was no longer lost but found.
We all have experienced being lost in some way and longed to get back home like the Prodigal Son. On one level the Prodigal Son is a mini portrait of the plight of Adam and Eve and the rest of humanity. All the while they enjoyed life within the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were tempted to take for themselves a life that can only be received as a gift. Their sin ruptured the friendship with God, thereby cutting themselves off from the life of grace. Likewise, the Prodigal Son demanded and grasped at his father’s property, thereby cutting off his relationship with his father and the life that he enjoyed in his house. Once the son set out to a “distant country,” or as the Greek translation implies a place of great emptiness, he experienced dissipation, famine, and starvation of his soul.
We can experience a rupture of friendship with God in another way. We may be tempted by voices of the world that are seductive and full of promises. These false voices tell us to go out and prove that we are worth something; they tell us that love needs to be earned by being successful, popular, and powerful. Once we walk away from the union with the Father and cease praying, we no longer hear Him say to us to remember that we are loved even before we were created and that His love is a free gift to be received.
When we enter our busy daily lives without God’s assuring voice, we are seduced into thinking that we must work hard and do everything possible to gain acceptance. Eventually like the Prodigal Son, we experience the famine of our spirit. In a sense we become dehumanized as illustrated by the Prodigal Son hiring himself out to feed the pigs in the ‘distant country’ whose citizens only hire, pay, and receive what is strictly agreed to; such a cold, competitive, and calculated marketplace is polar opposite to his father’s house where everything that belongs to the father is his and even the lowest hired hands are given more than enough to eat.
Our worthiness to be called sons and daughters of God has nothing to do with our own moral achievement. Our participation in the divine life is a gift; so in principle, it cannot be earned or merited, but only accepted. God the Father does not rejoice in the loss of anyone. He earnestly searches for the lost until they are restored and joyfully united with the whole community of heaven. This is the Divine Mercy of God whose mercy is so prodigal, that is generous and lavish beyond imagining. Once we decide to return to the Father’s house, once we decide to seek his mercy, the Father restores to us the life of grace as illustrated by the Prodigal’s father who instructs his servants to bring out the best robe, a ring, sandals, and begin a celebration. How beautiful it is to see a soul come into the Sacrament of Reconciliation full of fear and leave with a heart full of joy!
There is one more pitfall to avoid in our spiritual life, that is the temptation experienced by the Elder Brother in the parable. The Elder Brother represents those who are convinced that God thrives on divine justice; therefore, one must slave away to achieve perfection, being fearful every step of the way. I worry that some of our faithful are swayed by authors and prophets whose message is contrary to that of the Divine Mercy. The message of gloom, doom, judgment leads the faithful to distrust the goodness of the Father. The image they have of God is a divine judge with gavel in his hand to mete out punishment. Yet, Jesus told St. Faustina, “How painfully distrust of My goodness wounds Me! Sins of distrust wound Me most painfully…My child, all of your sins have not wounded My Heart as painfully as your present lack of trust does… Know that the greatest obstacles to holiness are discouragement and an exaggerated anxiety“ (Diary of St. Faustina, 1488 & 1076)
The dying teacher I visited early this week said to me, “Father, in recent years, I’ve been hearing God tell me in prayer, ‘Do not be afraid. I will come and embrace you, lift you to My heart, and take you home.’ Father, I’m ready to go home!” Jesus is the living image of the Father, whose whole purpose is to gather his alienated creation back to himself. Jesus achieves His Father’s plan of redemption by sacrificing his life on the Cross. The redeemer God wants nothing more than to give his own inner life away to the human race–”all that is mine is yours.” In the Parable of the Prodigal Son we are invited to trust the Father who is waiting to lavish his mercy on us.
