The Prodigal Son: With Whom do You Identify?
My Dear Brothers & Sisters in Christ, What’s the problem with the older son in the famous parable? He himself could not understand a loving father’s wasteful love. Why should he waste all that love and affection on a son who clearly did not deserve it? The older son could not find a way to adopt his father’s way of judging the younger son with mercy and compassion. He felt it was unearned and undeserved. The unconditional love of the father was beyond his comprehension. During this Lenten season of conversion and return to the Father we are challenged to enter into this parable and identify with one of the personages. With whom did you identify? Out salvation might depend on our answer. Only those who show mercy, even toward the undeserving will be shown mercy. Thank heaven that we have a prodigal Father who is willing to forgive both…
Not a God of the Dead, but of the Living
My Dear Parishioners, MID-LENT CHECK-IN God says to Moses, “This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you…The LORD, the God of your [ancestors], the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:14, 15). As Jesus would later say, God is not a God of the dead, but of the living, and so we believe that the dead will one day rise. At this midpoint of Lent, we pause to consider how our repentance is leading us to the Resurrection, to our reunion with the great “I AM.” Part of our repentance involves working to secure justice for all and helping our neighbor to live in God’s ways. We encourage each other and nurture each other, like the compassionate gardener of today’s Gospel, who tells the owner of the orchard that he will nurture the tree, fertilize it, and perhaps…