“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, ‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me”. (Luke 15:11-12) Why does he ask for his inheritance? Serving his father seemed to be such dull slavery compared to the glittering promise that the world held out to him. In leaving the father, he thinks that he is walking into freedom, a wide world that holds endless promise of happiness, excitement and self-fulfillment. So the son leaves the father finely dressed, with high hopes, lots of money in his pocket and with a spring in his step.
The son wastes his inheritance and ends up in horrible trouble. His terrible hunger finally brings him to his senses. He returns months or years later after he has wasted all the money that he received from his father. He is a walking skeleton, literally starving to death. He’s dressed in rags and filthy dirty from living with pigs. He comes back to the father thoroughly beaten up by the world. He thought the world would give him freedom, and instead he is reduced to slavery. All the while the father with the greatest love waits for his son’s return. How wonderful is the father’s compassion; when his son returns he is given a warm greeting, he’s restored as a member of the family, and given a wonderful feast in thanksgiving.
Our Lord Jesus shows us the true heart of Our Heavenly Father. Our Father’s love for us is passionate, eager and watchful. It cannot be lessened because of our sins and failings. God loves us with such intensity that, even now, He gives us our inheritance: He gives us the sacraments, graces, blessings and the promise of Heaven. He guards us, gives us freedom and works His will in us even when we are unaware. How can we doubt His love for us. How can we doubt that even in the middle of the deepest and darkest sin our Father eagerly awaits us on the road to restore the robe of son-ship when at last we grow sick of our sin and turn again to our Father.
Because our Father loves us with such passion, there is no sin that is so deep that God’s grace is not deeper still. There is no sin out of which God cannot work great goodness if we will just run back to the Father. We know this to be true. We remember how, as a child, our fathers could fix anything when we ran to them with our tears. Our Father embraces us and washes away the bitterness, filth and sorrows that are the result of our sins when at least we run back to Him. The problem is not that God does not love us enough, but that we do not love Him or trust Him enough. If we did, oh, how we would run into his arms and say: “I have sinned against heaven and against you and no longer deserve to be called your son”.
Saints like Saint Paul and Saint Augustine sinned with great intensity, but with even greater intensity they returned to the Father. For the rest of their lives they loved God with an ardent love, absolutely convinced that He had restored to them the inheritance that they had so foolishly squandered. May it be so with us. When going to confession this Lent, we ask the loving God to restore our full sonship and daughter-hood through the forgiveness of sins. We have added an extra Confession time to our regular schedule on Monday, March 22nd, from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm. We will also have several additional times for Confessions during Holy Week.
