14 March 2020
Saturday of the Second Week in Lent
Why listen to the Word of the Lord? Why seek His Face? Because the Lord it is who loves us most, who knows us best, who desires what will most fill our hearts. The Lord it is who forgives us, who promises us true rest.
The parable of the prodigal son (and two preceding parables which we do not hear today) is prompted by the following complaints: “Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” (Lk 15:1-2) Those who desperately need Jesus, and come to the Word of God to be healed and converted, and reconciled become for others an occasion to criticize the Lord. So the Lord gives us the image of a sinner, a son who departs from his father after treating his father as dead (you don’t normally get your inheritance from the living). Yet, far greater detail is lavished upon the son’s repentance, return, and reconciliation with the father who never ceased loving him and longing for his return. He had been deaf to his father’s love before, but now he can’t even deliver his apologetic speech in full because his ears are too full of the father’s excited orders for celebrating his return. Then there is the image of the other son who hears the celebrating, and refuses to enter into the joy of his father, because he wants to hold a grudge against his brother. That son, too, is spoken to with words of love from the father. As we finish this intensive week of listening to the Father’s beloved Son, how might the Lord be inviting us to hear anew? With whom in our lives is He inviting us to hear His kind invitation to reconciliation? Will we listen to Him?