Sunday the 30th of March 2025 - Fourth Sunday of Lent - Laetare Sunday

Joshua 5:9a, 10-12/ Ps 34(33)/ 2 Corinthians 5:17-21/ Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

The family unit should be the foundation of society. We learn from the first book of the Bible that man is incomplete until joined by woman. The man and woman join together and become one single unit. If their marriage is split up, they do not simply revert to single beings but are now a broken part of a whole. Together the man and woman share in God’s creation through the act of procreation. The family unit should provide a safe and secure place for the bringing up of children. Sadly, this ideal is not always achieved and too often the family unit can be damaged in various ways.

The familiar parable of the Prodigal Son, presented to us in the gospel today, highlights some of the tensions that can arise in a family. On occasions similar tensions within a family are encountered when ministering to those suffering bereavement. With an eye to possible inheritance, arguments can arise, and new wounds inflicted along with the opening of old ones. At a time when the love and support a family can provide is most needed there can be hate and division wreaking havoc among those who should be there for each other.

The youngest son in the parable family could not even wait for his father to die before demanding what he considered was coming to him. In an extraordinary show of disrespect for his father and the family unit he took what he was given and left home. We hear then how he squandered his inheritance after which he had to hire himself out to just about survive. Reviewing his behaviour this son remembered how even his father’s servants had more than enough to eat. He resolved to return home and offer to work as a servant.

Even after treating his father with contempt, not having the good grace to wait for his inheritance to occur naturally, his father was still looking out for the possible return of his wayward son and saw him even when he was still some way off. The love the father had for his son had not been diminished by his behaviour or his absence. The father, full of compassion, could not wait to embrace his son and restore him to the heart of the family, he did not even wait to listen to his son’s carefully prepared speech. There was no suggestion of employing the son as a servant, instead he was treated as an honoured guest.

The eldest son, who had remained loyal to his father, and was supporting the family by working in the fields, was angry not at the return of his brother but his father’s response to it. He had a feeling of self-righteous jealousy as opposed to his brother’s selfishness. This older son had seen his inheritance divided up prematurely and a proportion given to his younger brother. Did he feel that was just? Should all the estate be given to the elder brother either by right of birth or due to his younger brother abandoning the family and the work required to sustain it? The older son could not even acknowledge his younger brother referring to him only as ‘this son of yours’ to his father. Consumed by jealousy the older son failed to appreciate that all that belonged to his father also belonged to him, he failed to have any of the compassion his father displayed.

This parable is very familiar, and we have heard it many times. The temptation can be to skim over it and miss the message it might have for us. Scripture is God speaking to us and is rich with many layers that will speak to different people in different ways depending on their needs at a given time. Scripture will also speak to us individually in different ways depending on where we find ourselves in our own lives. Sometimes we might identify with the younger son, sometimes the older one, and sometimes with the father, or even as a casual observer from the outside of the story altogether. Whatever way this parable speaks to us it will always be meaningful and relevant to each of us. This is the same for all scripture if we absorb it for what it is, God’s living word speaking to us in our own condition.

The parable of the prodigal son and the other readings for today speak to us of reconciliation, a theme relevant to our journey through lent. Our life as a Christian is a journey of reconciliation as we travel from sin to grace, from exile to homecoming. Everything the Church exists for is based around reconciliation between us wayward children, and God our compassionate Father. The Hebrew people of the Old Testament journeyed from exile in Egypt, through the wilderness to their homecoming in the promised land. The gospel passage is also about a journey from alienation to reconciliation, the reconciliation spoken about by Paul in his letter to the Corinthians, our journey from the slavery of sin to the freedom of forgiveness.

Lent can help us understand the limitless love and compassion of God our Father. The Gospel today reminds us of this love but also reminds us not to give in to sin and always seek ways back from it to the Father who is looking out to welcome us home. We hear the important message of not falling under the influence of self-righteous pride, thinking ourselves better than others, who, from our perspective, receive more love and forgiveness than we might feel they deserve. We should be concerned about our relationship with God and with others always seeking reconciliation with God, Our Father, and with our neighbours.

God Bless Brendan.