30 October 2017
Monday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
Lion is a 2016 biographical film based on the story of Saroo Brierley, who was separated from his Indian family at five-years-old. After two months of living on the street, Saroo is taken to the police by a young man. Unable to trace his family, they put him into an orphanage. Three months later, Saroo was informed that an Australian couple is interested in adopting him. Saroo moves to Hobart, Tasmania in 1987, to be under the care of Sue and John Brierley. Saroo slowly settles into his new life. Sue and her husband Joe could have biological children, however, they wanted to rescue children who were living in difficult circumstances and bring them into their loving home. They believed adoption gave them a greater capacity to accomplish good. Twenty years later, Saroo was miraculously reunited with his birth mother following an exhaustive google earth search.
The Roman custom of adoption made the adopted children full heirs of the adoptive father’s estate. In Jewish tradition, being God’s son meant intimacy with God and entitlement to the inheritance: first the land and later the eschatological salvation. In the letter of Romans, St. Paul discusses the issue of the adoption of the followers of Jesus as Jesus called God, Abba. Paul focuses on the familial status and privilege believers share with God as God’s children. In other words, they are “joint heirs” or “coheirs with Christ the Son. Because of the adoption into God’s family the followers of Christ will share in the inheritance of resurrection and life.
What do you want to say to Jesus about being an adopted son or daughter of God? Speak to him freely and openly, sharing what is in your heart, knowing that he understands it all.