Wake Up and Come Back Home!

09-15-2019Weekly ReflectionFr. Julius Kundi

It is fundamental to our Christian faith to know again and again that God loves the just but does not ignore the sinner, for whom there is always a place in his kingdom. With the amazing warmth in His Kingdom we can always hope for a new heart and a fresh start.

Today we are invited to believe in a loving, patient, merciful, forgiving God who is actively seeking out the lost, wants their repentance and rejoices when the lost are found. We are invited to believe and celebrate a God who is eager to be merciful toward us, not vengeful and punishing but will stop at nothing until everyone is back home to Him, where abundant love awaits all. This Heavenly Father wants to save everyone through His Son Jesus, whom He sent.

All the readings today bring out the true nature of God's amazing love and grace. Moses in the first reading is imploring a forgiving God to have mercy on the sinful people who have abandoned Him and turned to idol-worship. He reminds God of His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Psalm is a song of the sinful man returning to God to seek His mercy. In the second reading, Paul tells Timothy that, although he, Paul, had been the greatest of sinners as the former persecutor of the Church, God has shown great mercy towards him. Again we see the Gospel here in Luke 15 giving us the distilled essence of the Good News about the mercy of our forgiving Heavenly Father. The whole chapter is essentially one distinct parable, the “Parable of the Lost and Found,” with three illustrations: the story of the lost sheep, the story of the lost coin and the story of the lost son. These readings remind us that we have a God who welcomes sinners and forgives their sins whenever they return to Him with genuine contrition and resolution.

The parable of the prodigal son is a classic of narrative skill that is timelessly relevant. We need to know that a loving Father awaits our return home. This familiar parable also should make us uncomfortable, for it reveals truths that we would rather not acknowledge, namely we are all prodigal sons and daughters, having foolishly rejected our true identity as God’s beloved children. We have all placed pride and self-centered desires before preserving a proper relationship with our Father and our brothers and sisters. And as a result, we have all made ourselves and others miserable in ways large and small.

Let's pray then for the grace to confront our fears and return home to God our father full of contrition for our sins, for His love and mercy will overwhelm us.

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