Thursday, March 24, 2022

Compassion , Forgiveness and Welcome

 

Dear Friends,

                Let’s think about the younger son in today’s Gospel – the one who took his inheritance and squandered it on loose living. When he came to his senses and made his way home, the younger son rehearsed his speech to his father, expecting the worst when he got home.

                “Father,”  he repeated, over and over again, as he walked, ” I have sinned against heaven and against you. Do not take me back as your son but only as a hired hand.”

                The older son, on the other hand, wore a veneer of faithfulness. He seemed steady,  loyal  and dependable, until his attitude was revealed when his brother came home.

                “I have slaved for you –“  the older son impressed on his father. But the older son, too, had wasted his life, doing what he didn’t want to do but felt obliged to do. He wasted his life on sullen, seething anger.

                When asked which of the figures in today’s Gospel we identify with, we often say one of the sons, but how many of us would identify with the Father?

                What the Father exercises in this story is compassion, forgiveness and welcome. In this parable, we are called upon to be the Father.

                In other words, God invites you and me to show the same compassion to others as God shows to us. We are called to make the Father’s life of forgiveness and welcome our own: to be like God, to love like God, to embrace like God, to throw a party like the Father.

                Situations arise to be like God in our lives more often than we think at first – in our families and in our workplaces, where we play and pray. Here’s one way.  We go to the hilltop and keep watch on the road for our loved one’s return, then run to meet them.  You and I know people who have been away in a far country like the younger son – away from their family, the sacraments, away from the Church. And we know people like the older son, who have been driven by duty, ambition, unhealthy relationships. feel these same stirrings.

                With Holy Week and Easter coming, these family members, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances may well have been in a far country or mired in place, rankled by a seeming lack of appreciation at home and now feel the same stirrings.

                I know this happens in people’s lives because, over the years, I have seen these moments of potential tenderness myself, when loved ones returned to the family, to the faith community only because someone was compassionate with them, invited them to return, accompanied them.

                A simple invitation may be just what they need. Not just: Why don’t you go? But: I'm going to Holy Week services this year. Why don’t you come with me for Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil?

                Come with them. Help them to follow the liturgy. As you go together, you are the embrace of the Father, who can’t wait for the prodigals to come home.

~Sister Joan Sobala


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