[March 27, 2022] Joshua 5: 9 – 12 / 2 Corinthian 5: 17 – 21 / Luke 15: 1 – 3, 11 – 32
In his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace, Phillip Yancey tells the story of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway grew up in a very devout evangelical family, yet there he never experienced the grace of Christ. He lived a libertine life that most of us would call “dissolute”… but there was no father, no parent waiting for him, and he sank into the mire of a graceless depression. In Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Capital of the World”, a Spanish Newspaper El Liberal, carried a poignant story about a father and his son. It went like this. A teen-aged boy, Paco, and his very wealthy father had a falling out, and the young man ran away from home. The father was crushed. After a few days, he realised that the boy
was serious, so the father set out to find him. He searched high and low for five months to no avail. Finally, in a last, desperate attempt to find his son, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read, “Dear Paco, Meet me at the Hotel Montana noon Tuesday. All is forgiven. I love you. Signed, Your Father. On Tuesday, in the office of Hotel Montana, over 800 Pacos showed up, looking for love and forgiveness from their fathers. — What a magnet that ad was! Over 800 Pacos!! We all hunger for pardon. We are all “Pacos” yearning to run and find a father who will declare, “All is forgiven.” The fourth Sunday of Lent marks the midpoint in the Lenten preparation for Easter. Traditionally, it is called Laetare Sunday (Rejoice Sunday). It is a sign of what liturgical authors call “anticipatory joy”— a reminder that we
are moving swiftly toward the end of our Lenten fast, and the joy of Easter is already on the horizon. This Sunday is set aside for us to recall God’s graciousness and to rejoice because of it. In many ways we have been dead, but through God’s grace we have come to life again; we have been lost but have now been found. We have every reason to rejoice. Hence, each of the three readings characterises one of the many facets of Easter joy. In the first reading, the Chosen People of God are portrayed as celebrating, for the first time in their own land, the feast of their freedom. Their joy is one of promises fulfilled. In today’s Responsorial Psalm the joyful Psalmist invites us, “Glorify the Lord with me; let us together extol His Name!” then gives us our reason for rejoicing, “I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears!”
The second reading joyfully proclaims the effect of Jesus’ saving act as the reconciliation of all peoples to the Father. In the Gospel, the joy is that of a young son’s “coming home,” where he discovers and is healed by the reality his father’s forgiving and gratuitous love. It is also the story of a loving and forgiving father who celebrates the return of his prodigal son by throwing a big party in his honour, a banquet celebrating the reconciliation of the son with his father, his family, his community, and his God. It is really the Parable of the Forgiving Father, the story of Divine love and mercy for us sinners, a love that is almost beyond belief. The common theme of joy resulting from reconciliation with God and other human beings is announced to all of us present in this Church – an assembly of sinful people, now ready to receive God’s forgiveness and His Personal Presence as a forgiving God in the Holy Eucharist.
1) We need to accept the fact that we are all prodigal children who have squandered our inheritance from our Father. There is a spiritual famine even in countries with a booming economy. Because of this spiritual famine, we resemble the younger son who lived with pigs. Examples of this spiritual famine can be seen in drug and alcohol abuse, fraud and theft in the workplace, murders, abortions and violence, premarital sex, marital infidelity, and priestly infidelity, as well as in hostility among and between people. Sometimes this “spiritual famine” exists in our own families and can be seen when we condemn some of our family members to “survival-level” existence, and even contribute to the death of some of them by refusing to associate with them. Let us accept the fact that we have been squandering God’s abundant blessings not only in our country and in our families, but also in our personal lives.
2) Lent is a time to “pass over,” from a world of sin to a world of reconciliation. The story of the prodigal son asks each of us an important question: “Will you accept the Father’s forgiveness and partake of the banquet, or will you remain outside?” Lent is a time to transform hatred into love, conflict into peace, death into eternal life. The message of Lent then, is, “We implore you, in Christ’s name: be reconciled to God,” as St. Paul tells us. The first step, of course, is to do as the younger son did: “When he came to himself, he said: ‘I will break away and return to my father, and say to him, “Father, I have sinned against you.” At every Mass, we come to our loving Heavenly Father’s house as prodigal children. We begin the Mass acknowledging that we have sinned and have closed our hearts to God’s perfect love: (“I no longer deserve to be called your child, so do with me as you will”). Next, we listen to the Word that heals our broken and imperfect relationships with God (“say the Word and I shall be healed”). In the Offertory, we give ourselves back to the Father, and this is the moment of our surrendering our sinful lives to God our Father. At the consecration, we hear God’s invitation through Jesus: “… this is My Body, which will be given up for you… this is the chalice of My Blood … which will be poured out for you…” (”All I have is yours”). In Holy Communion, we participate in God’s feast of reconciliation, the Holy Eucharist, the gift of unity with God and with His whole family. Here, we experience again the fully loving, give-and-take relationship with Him and His family, our restored brothers and sisters whom God gave us first in our Baptism. Let us come to the house of God as often as we can to be reconciled with God, our forgiving Father, by asking His pardon and forgiveness, and to enjoy the Eucharistic banquet of reconciliation and acceptance He has prepared for us, His returned prodigal sons and daughters.