Sunday of the Prodigal Son

(Luke 15:11-32)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we come to the heartbreaking and yet ever-hopeful Gospel parable of the Prodigal Son. What is presented before us today is an illustration of repentance, diligence, and of steadfast love.

In this parable, our Lord tells us of a man who had two sons. These sons lived with their father where all that was necessary and good for their wellbeing was provided and available. In addition, the father had seen to it that each son would receive a generous inheritance of his wealth to take care of their future needs.

The younger son, demonstrating impatience, lack of contentment, and succumbing to the seductions of the world, asked for his inheritance in advance and left his home to go to a far country where he wasted his money and himself on the lusts of this world. It did not take long for him to squander his inheritance and for the fleeting enjoyments of his passionate pursuits to evaporate into the emptiness of depression and poverty and regret. He fell so low that he even envied the food of the pigs he was attending to.

At this lowest point, the Gospel tells us that he ‘came to himself’… he came to a moment of realization, of seeing clearly the state he was in, and this was a moment of crisis. The young man lamented his sorry state and turned in repentance – reasoning that he would go home and, even if he could only be hired on as a servant within his father’s estate, he would be better off than continuing in his current misery. And so, he took action and in humility he returned to his home.

The following scene always gets to me… The Gospel tells us that even while the son was still a long way off, the father was watching for him. And when he saw the distant figure of his long lost son approaching, he ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, I am no longer worthy to be called thy son.’ But the father was overjoyed to recover this lost sheep that was his son and commanded that a great feast be prepared in celebration of the return of he who was lost and is now found.

What strikes my heart about this scene is not only the beauty of this reconciliation of the father and the son, not only my recognition of myself in the figure of the prodigal son, but especially the generosity and the constancy of the love of the father – who spent each day of his son’s long journey away from home, watching and waiting and longing for his son’s return.

That outpouring of love from the father never ceased, it never changed. The thing that changed was the son. It was he who went off to a far country… removing himself from the constantly offered love of the father.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is the same with us. This is the story of mankind and of God, our Father. Our Heavenly Father is also unchanging in the offering of His love to us, His sons and daughters. But we go off to ‘far countries’… places of our self pursuits, our vanities, our sins. God watches and waits with hope for our return.

This parable of the Prodigal Son is a beautiful illustration of repentance. But the parable does not end with this happy reconciliation of the father and his prodigal son… it goes on to tell us about the other son; the faithful son, who had stayed behind all those years and diligently carried out his father’s work, doing everything right and remaining home at his father’s side. Yet, when the errant younger brother finally returns from his escapades, the older brother is jealous and indignant over the attention lavished upon the prodigal. The elder brother feels if anyone was to be rewarded with the fatted calf, it should have been him! Like the Pharisee of last Sunday’s Gospel, the elder brother did all the right things, yet his heart was hardened by his self-justification and pride.

And this brings us back to the remarkable generosity and constancy of the love of the father. The father reassures the elder son of his love and encourages him to share in his rejoicing of the return of his brother.

Neither the prodigality and repentance of the one son, nor the faithful dutifulness of the older son changes the steadfast love of the father. Both sons misunderstood the nature and the stability of their father’s love. One thought that he could lose it by straying so far away… the other thought that he could earn it by doing everything right. The reality is that the father’s love remained constant in its outpouring toward his children.

And so it is with God’s love toward us. His love is constant and true. This fact is a source of tremendous hope and consolation. But I think that it can also be a source of temptation… a temptation to become presumptuous of the mercy of God. We often say God’s love is unconditional. Well, that is half true… God’s love is unconditional, however our ability to receive that love is very much conditional. The variable factor is us. We are the ones who create conditions which remove ourselves from being able to receive that love of God. Just like the Prodigal Son, we remove ourselves from the love of the father. Repentance is the act of ‘coming to ourselves’… And having come to ourselves, and seeing our condition, we then may turn around and approach our loving Father, stepping out of our darkness and back into the light of His love.

This is the call of our Lord’s Gospel parable and this is the call of our Holy Mother Church as she prepares us for Great Lent. It is a call of repentance! It is a call to a correct understanding of what our Lenten efforts should be about! It is a call to the breaking of our hearts to see the constancy of our Father’s Love… a Light which is offered to us to the degree to which we will receive it.

May God grant that each and every one of us will take the opportunity provided to us in this season of repentance to change our condition and to open our hearts to God’s steadfast love.