Mar 4, 2013
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalms 34:2-7
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
In today's First Reading, God forgives "the reproach" of the
generations who grumbled against Him after the Exodus. On the
threshold of the promised land, Israel can with a clean heart
celebrate the Passover, the feast of God's first-born son (see
Joshua 5:6-7;
Exodus 4:22;
12:12-13).
Reconciliation is also at the heart of the story Jesus tells in
today's Gospel. The story of the prodigal son is the story of
Israel and of the human race. But it is also the story of every
believer.
In Baptism, we're given a divine birthright, made "a new creation,"
as Paul puts it in today's Epistle. But when we sin, we're like the
prodigal, quitting our Father's house, squandering our inheritance
in trying to live without Him.
Lost in sin, we cut ourselves off from the grace of sonship
lavished upon us in Baptism. It is still possible for us to come to
our senses, make our way back to the Father, as the prodigal
does.
But only He can remove the reproach, restore the divine sonship we
have spurned. Only He can free us from the slavery to sin that
causes us - like the prodigal - to see God not as our Father
but as our master, One we serve as slaves.
God wants not slaves but children. Like the father in today's
Gospel, He longs to call each of us "My son," to share His life
with us, to tell us: "Everything I have is yours."
The Father's words of longing and compassion still come to His
prodigal children in the Sacrament of Penance. This is part of what
Paul today calls "the ministry of reconciliation" entrusted by
Jesus to the Apostles and the Church.
Reconciled like Israel, we take our place at the table of the
Eucharist, the homecoming banquet the Father calls for His lost
sons, the new Passover we celebrate this side of heaven. We taste
the goodness of the Lord, as we sing in today's Psalm, rejoicing
that we who were dead are found alive again.