Word to the Wise
Saturday, March 18, 2017 - 2nd Week of Lent - Sat
[Mic 7:14-15, 18-20 and Luke 15:1-3, 11-32]"My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, beause your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found." [Luke]
The words from AMAZING GRACE could echo in the background as we reflect on the powerful story of "the Prodigal Son." "I once was lost but now am found; was blind but now I see." This story is one of three in a row in the Gospel According to Luke in which Jesus responds to criticism from the Pharisees and scribes that he "welcomes sinners and eats with them." The first two involve a lost sheep and a lost coin. But the third is more powerful because it involves a lost son (really two lost sons).
The story can be applied on an individual level and on a collective level. On the individual level, Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI in his book SACRED FIRE points out how many of us go through a time of rebellion in our youth (the younger son) and then settle into the "respectability" represented by the older son. We go from needing and seeking mercy to showing no mercy. We can easily forget what it was like to be that younger one. Both brothers are in need of mercy and both receive it. The father goes out to both of them.
On a collective level, I cannot help but point to Pope Francis who is reaching out to so many alienated from the church because the door of mercy seems closed to them. His document, Amoris laetitia, has provoked the very kind of "sour grapes" response from some circles in the church that one hears in the older brother's complaint. Those circles have forgotten what mercy means in their zeal to protect their own righteousness. Pope Francis reaches out to them, too, with gentle firmness, while trying to find a way to help persons who are caught in terrible marital failure.
It is important not to sit outside this story but to enter it and take all three roles: father, younger son, older son. Do we find some of each in ourselves? Where is mercy? AMEN
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