Saturday of the Second Week
The Gospel story for today, the Prodigal Son, is one of the most beloved and well known. And that may mean we are too familiar with it! You know how it goes when we’ve heard a story many times. Our ears and heart go quickly to the finish, perhaps then missing a new or deeper insight. However, for as many times we’ve heard a story, we are never the same at a new hearing of it.
This Lenten season we are still living through a global pandemic, the country is smarting from divisions, our planet suffers from the ecological damage inflicted on it. And each of us daily tries to meet what life is asking of us at home, in class, or at work. Into the midst of this we are given a story about a ruptured family with a surprise ending of unearned, undeserved, and unconditional love. The father (or mother!) does not play by the expected social norms of the day. In the parable this mother/father is unconventional in that the inheritance demanded (read choosing to leave with the very essence of the family, a shared bond of love, care and responsibility for one another) is handed over. It was unheard of, a father/mother refusing to demand submission or punish rebellion. Rather, the God of the prodigal acts with tender compassion, respects freedom, mourns alienation, waits patiently for our return and accepts us with love. Pure gift. How awesome and practically incomprehensible is that! And because of this we can be and offer mercy and forgiveness and expansive love because we have first known and received it from our God of radical mercy.
Prayer
Oh God of radical mercy and love, may we have mercy on ourselves, one another and our beautiful home, planet Earth. Give us hearts and ears and eyes that feel, see and hear your lavish love poured out on all. Then may we live mercifully toward all.
Sister Anne Curtis, RSM, M ’83, Director, Mercy Ecology
Gospel: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
Daily Scripture readings can be found online at the USCCB website
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