In the Eucharist the Father runs to us through the Son.

Fourth Sunday in Lent. Laetare Sunday. March 14th, 2010

Today’s Gospel is well known to all of us; in fact, for many of us, it is one of our favorite passages of the Bible. Certainly, it is one of the most well-loved of all of Jesus’ parables. It could be argued that it is the greatest short story ever told. It is truly a masterpiece. I think the reason for this is that it pricks at our heart, because in it we get an image of He who created our Heart, God our heavenly Father.

We must never forget, that one of the main reasons Jesus came to earth was to show us, the Father. Yes, Jesus came to save us, but He was sent by the Father. Jesus came to reveal the Father, to glorify the Father by doing the Father's Will. Jesus came to be the way for us back to the Father from Whom we came.

In our Gospel today, the Pharisees don't understand why Jesus is eating with sinners. To understand why Jesus eats with sinners is to know the Father. They do not know the Father; if they did, they would understand why Jesus is eating with sinners.

If we are honest with ourselves, we too have to admit that we have a hard time understanding our Father God. Mistakenly, we often rely only on our own limited human understanding of fatherhood in order to make a judgment about how God the Father should act. John Paul II once said, that because our experiences with earthly fathers may have not always been positive we have to be careful we don't put these negative experience onto God. We have to experience the Father in prayer daily so that our ideas of Him are purified of misunderstanding and error. God transcends all human fatherhood.

The only way Jesus' critics in today's Gospel can understand his motives for eating with Sinners is by coming to know the Father. It is the same with us. In order to avoid the attitudes of the Pharisees, we too, have to come to know the Father.

To know the Father is to know Christ. Every single aspect of Jesus' life is a revelation of the Father. In Christ we see the face of the Father. Even more, by telling us the parable of the prodigal Son, Jesus reveals to us the heart of the Father. And so, if we really want to know the Father, this incredible parable reveals much about Him.

The parable begins by really confronting us with the awful truth about ourselves. Because of our fallen human nature, we demand from the Father what we have no right to. We separate ourselves from communion with the Father, intimate friendship with Him. We squander the Father's gifts to us in a life of dissipation. And in our wretched state of desperation we realize that we do not deserve to be called the Father's beloved son or daughter. This is the truth of our situation, the reality of our situation. We need to realize and admit our wretched state, just as the prodigal son did. It took a pig pen for him to realized the state of his soul and his great need for his father.

It has been said that humility is realizing and admitting the truth about ourselves. This is why pride is so bad; it is such a lie. It denies the truth about ourselves and the truth about God and our relationship with Him. Like the prodigal Son we are in so many ways, "still a long way off." The knowledge of our situation, the situation of our sins and our sinfulness can either condemn us, or it can fill us with confidence to return to the house of the father. As mixed up and twisted as the prodigal son is, some grace still manages to enter into his heart and set him on the path home.

I can remember once reading St. Therese the Little the Flower speak about the Father and how we should react to Him. We can be like one son who upon messing up, says to his father, "I am so terrible, so worthless. How can you ever forgive me, I am such a piece of trash." Or we can be like another Son who just doesn't care one way or the other, indifferent to the father and his relationship with Him. Or we can like a third, who upon messing up runs into his father's arms, hugs him and tells his father that He loves him and that he will, with the father's help never offend him again. St. Therese said the actions of this last son is how we should be in our relationship with God. She said that though I sinned a million times, I would run into the Fathers arms, hugging him, telling Him I loved Him, asking for His forgiveness, begging Him for help never to offend Him again. In this we turn the Father's heart to us

The response of the father to the sight of his sinful son is such a stark contrast to the harden, prideful hearts of the Scribes and Pharisees; in their pride they knew nothing of the Father's love and mercy. The overwhelming compassion and mercy of the Father is revealed to us in three actions of the father of the prodigal son; The father runs to his son; he falls on his son's neck in an embrace, and he kisses him.

Unlike St. Therese's image of the son running into his father's arm and hugging him, here it is the Father who does the running, the embracing and the kissing. The Father doesn't even wait for the son to come running, the father runs to him while he is still a long way off. This running of the father, signifies the unabated initiative of the father to be reconciled with his wayward children at all costs. The embrace signifies the Father's desire to have us back, not as dutiful slaves, but as partakers in His boundless love and nature. And the kiss communicates to us a sharing in the Father's own life and being, like the breath of God once breathed into the first man--Adam.

We will never understand God our heavenly Father and his great love for sinners, unless we put ourselves in the position of the prodigal son, and open ourselves to receiving the Father's unmerited mercy, forgiveness and love. To open ourselves up we need to begin by recognizing our great need for the Fathers love. We are still a long way off; but the Father runs to us as well, will we allow Him to embrace us, fall on our neck in an embrace and kiss us.

The perfection of God the Father consists in giving himself wholly to us. As the father says to the older son, "Everything I have is yours." Yet that is precisely what the spoil brat son has forgotten in his blasphemous attempt to make the good father look like a bad father. Let us make sure we don't imitate this son; we cannot know the Father unless we are willing to see ourselves in the prodigal son. Like the father in the parable, the Father says to us, "Everything I have is yours." By giving us His Son, The Father has given us the fullness of His divine riches; everything He has and is; The Eucharist contains the fullness of the Father's divine riches, for the Eucharist contains the fullness of the Father's Son. The Eucharist is whole Jesus.

In the Eucharist the Father In the Eucharist the Father runs to us through His Son; and if we are open by leaving sin behind and turning to the Father, the Father through the Eucharist embraces us and kisses us. To know and understand this, is to know and understand the Father. Holy Mary, daughter of the Father, Mother of the Son and Spouse of the Holy Spirit, pray for us!