Second Week of Lent, Saturday, March 13

Micah 7:14-15, 18-20; Luke 15:1-3,11-32

The Gospel of the Prodigal Son has countless aspects to meditate. One is the way the older brother reacts to his father's celebrating the return of the prodigal son. He's upset. There is reasonableness in this reaction from the point of view of strict justice, but family—the Christian family—is not based on justice alone.

The father explains to the brother that they have always been together and everything the father has belongs to him. He conveys to his son that it does not make sense for the father to say, "I am happy and you, my son, are unhappy." He insists, rather, that WE have to rejoice over the return of his brother. WE are one family and one of us made a serious mistake. We lost him to his sinful, selfish desires. But he came to his senses, though not without having caused harm to the family, and now WE are happy that he has returned repentant.

Individualism pervades much of what we do and think. But we are not individuals. We are a family, we belong to the People of God, and all of us rejoice together when someone turns back to God and rejoins the family. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is a sign of this. It is not about a personal—or say, individual—restoration to holiness. The sinner goes to the father, but he is asking to return to the family and restore his relationship with everyone, not just with God. For everyone's sake, our sins must be forgiven in the Sacrament of Confession. It isn't enough to receive forgiveness just through private prayer. Any private prayer in which we ask for forgiveness is the beginning of our return, just as the Prodigal Son first prays to himself about what he's done and how he wants his Father's forgiveness. Once decided, the prodigal son approaches his home and reunites with the entire family just as we do when we approach the Church and restore our place among the People of God.

We cannot apply strict justice to others when we, too, have made mistakes that others have had to accept. We are on this life journey together and we cannot be like the older brother in the parable who resents the news that his brother who was lost, has been found; who was dead, has returned to life. All of us are happy, not only for our brother, but for all of us now that he has come home.

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