“God’s saints come out of two different schools. The school of the righteous and the school of the sinner,” the poet, Charles Péguy, wrote. “Fortunately,” he continued, “in both cases God is the schoolmaster.”
What he meant, of course, was not that sin isn’t really sin but that hope really is hope, because God’s mercy is real. Such is the first lesson of this great parable of the prodigal son: that our sins, however squalid, needn’t ever have the last word, but rather always the Father’s grace (cf. Lk 15:1-15). It’s a parable always new, Péguy said: “And he who hears it for the hundredth time, / It’s as if it were the first time.” That is, there’s a reason we all find this parable comforting or at least attractive in some way, and that’s because repeatedly we sin and so repeatedly need to hear of this grace, repeatedly desire it or remember its sweetness.
| March 27 – Fourth Sunday of Lent |
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Jos 5:9, 10-12 |
Again and again we sin, but still we yearn for God. We can never quite completely forget his grace. The prodigal always somehow remembers. The Lord does not wish that “any should perish” (2 Pt 3:9). That’s the faint thought even the worst sinner can’t shake, that the Father always wants his children safe by his side, no matter what. That’s why this parable both comforts and haunts us, because it reminds us of the deceit of despair, that our sins needn’t destroy us, “for his mercy endures forever” (Ps 136:1).
Yet there is a second very important lesson, what the elder son learns. Seeing God’s mercy, the celebration of his brother’s merciful homecoming, the elder son is enraged. He refuses to share the Father’s joy, refuses to enter the celebration. In fact, he protests, demanding from his father the reasons for such seemingly irrational liberal mercy. He reindicts his younger brother, rehearsing his crimes, even adding a few more not mentioned earlier in the parable. A self-excommunicating anger, it’s the very thing barring this good, moral and spiritual man from the Father’s grace and kingdom — that he can’t imagine the sinners he so despises so welcomed. Because they are ushered in, he wants out. Which, of course, is the lesson: that we avoid damning ourselves because we won’t accept that God’s mercy is bigger than we want it to be, bigger even than our moral rectitude and shock — inexhaustibly bigger.
God forgives sinners, but do we? Do we accept God’s forgiveness for ourselves? I am a sinner, a wicked one. But do I accept that God is stronger than my sins, that God still desires me even though I remain a weak, wicked sinner? By faith — sometimes strong, sometimes faint — I remember God’s grace. But do I accept that merciful fact? Do I believe it enough to return to the Father’s house? Will I go to confession, or will I continue to wallow among swine? And do I accept that God forgives others?
Often, like that elder brother, we begrudge the grace given to those closest to us. Can we accept that God loves and forgives people in our family, our workplace, our parish, our neighborhood? Or do we often throw past sins into the faces of the forgiven? That’ll keep us from heaven, too, you know. That is why these are haunting questions this parable raises, especially for us good religious.
Mercy is a mystery that challenges and should change each of us. It’s just a question of whether this Lent we’ll let it. Will we accept the fullness of mercy? Will we receive mercy for ourselves? Will we show mercy to others? It all depends on whether this Lent has so far been merely pious or real.
Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books.
