:: Faith Today: Lent 2010 ::
Prodigal Son (Murillo)
framed print
(click to order)Fourth Sunday of Lent
Sunday March 14, 2010
News & Inspiration :: Today's Mass :: Divine Office :: Saints :: Intentions
(Standing at the mid-point of the Lenten Season, wishing you and yours a Blessed and Fruitful Lent ...)
USCCB brief reflection
on
Sunday Readings,
March 14The Prodigal Son: "While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. .... 'let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.'"
We are reminded that our true home, and the best life we can have, is with God, and that we are invited, during Lent and always, to conversion and a journey to God.
News & Inspiration
Saint Bonaventure:
The Soul's Journey
into God
(click here to order)
+ Saints News: Saint Bonaventure: A Man of Action and Contemplation - Pope Benedict XVI
+ Lent: Catechism of the Catholic Church
+ Lent: Papal Message for Lent 2010
+
Bioethics: Human Dignity and Natural Moral Law
+ Abide in God and Keep His Commandments: Pope Benedict on John Chapters 15-16
+ Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes: Pope Benedict tells Church to evangelize and care for the sick in body and spirit
+ Saint Anthony of Padua: Example to preachers, one of most popular Saints ― Pope Benedict XVI Audience
News Links
:: USCCB: Bishops Call For Extension Of Trade Preferences For Haiti As Part Of Long-Term Recovery Support
:: USCCB: Bishops Call for Bipartisan Action to Advance Health Care Reform That Protects Human Life and Dignity
:: USCCB: Series of Seminars Slated to Introduce Revised Translation of Roman Missal
:: USCCB: Archbishop O’Brien Speaks At Summit Aimed At Eliminating Nuclear Weapons
:: CNS: Pope expresses sorrow over murder of Christians in Iraq
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Today's Mass and Readings
Readings: usccb.org/nab/031410.shtml
"What Happens at Mass"+ "While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. .... 'let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.'"
+ "Whoever is in Christ is a New Creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come."
+ " Taste and see the Goodness of the Lord."
+ "On the day after the Passover, they ate of the produce of the land ... On that same day ... the manna ceased. No longer was there manna for the Israelites, who that year ate of the yield of the land of Canaan."
[please note: two different sets of Readings available today through: usccb.org/nab/031410.shtml]
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USCCB brief reflection
on
Sunday Readings,
March 14 GOSPEL: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
We are reminded that our true home, and the best life we can have, is with God, that we are invited, during Lent and always, to conversion and a journey to God. Parable of the Prodigal Son
Prodigal Son (Murillo)
framed print (click to order)Jesus is attracting tax collectors and sinners wanting to listen to Him, drawing criticism from the Pharisees. In response, Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son, a story of penitence, conversion, and new life.
This scenario of Jesus preaching to sinners is among the Scripture passages sometimes abused by those seeking to undermine the Faith, who argue that one should be complacent and welcoming to sin itself because Jesus supposedly associated with sinners. In reality, we see here that Jesus is not welcoming sin but welcoming conversion. As Jesus preaches the Gospel, there are sinners and tax collectors who respond by wanting to listen to His Call. God's Law is carved on their hearts as human beings. Jesus is calling them to convert, including by criticizing sin. Through God's Grace, the sinners are coming to Jesus because He is helping them realize they need to reject sin and come to New Life, a life different than a life of sin.
In the parable itself, Jesus talks of persons, places, and conversion.
The prodigal son gives up a good life with his father, only to find his own life in peril due to sinfulness in a strange land. After asking for his inheritance, he goes wayward and afar, and loses all he has through the sinful lifestyle he adopts while on his own. The heir becomes a poor, shoeless, starving worker exploited further as cheap labor by pagans who raise forbidden animals. Facing the stark reality of a life darkened by sin and resulting deprivation, the prodigal son has a change of heart, and returns in humility and penitence to his father, willing to live there even as a servant. His compassionate father is deeply moved by his return, meets him partway, and welcomes him to what is now new life back with the father.
At the beginning, there is a place that is a good place, created and led by the father. Life is good there, and material well-being also exists there. While the father has power, he does not use or abuse, but rather treats all well, including the servants. Even to be a servant there is to have a good life, to be well provided-for, and to be treated with dignity and worth.
At the beginning of the story, the prodigal son is not satisfied there, apparently because he is prone to temptation.
In his own way, the son implicitly recognizes the honorable stature of his father and the father's home, by realizing that the life of sin, that temptation is trying to nudge him towards, cannot occur at his father's home. It is inconsistent with the goodness of the father and the good life the father has created.
Blind or reckless to the real dangers posed by sin, the wayward son leaves the safety of his father's house for a strange land of sin. He goes there for a different kind of life, a different way of life, a life of sin.
He first takes the resources that exist for him because of his father, his share of the inheritance. Ironically it is the security gained through his father's way of life, the resources of his inheritance, that enable him to act more freely. But he then squanders them in the strange land. He squanders them on sin, particularly sins of the flesh.
Now, recall that the sins of the flesh are particularly selfish and particularly dishonest. Like drugs that provide a false sense of importance or well-being, while undermining a person's ability to survive, sins of the flesh mimic acts of love in the process of extreme hatred and degradation. They create an illusion of removing barriers to pleasure, while actually mocking love, mocking the creation of life that can result from sexuality, throwing up barriers to true life, barriers to true love, and selfishly destroying respect for human dignity. There is a cheapness to sins of the flesh inconsistent with the son's dignity as an heir. There is a mockery of the procreative act that could have produced more heirs in the father's line, but instead drains his inheritance, drains him, and enslaves him to sin.
It turns out that the strange land, which differs from the father's home by tolerating sin, is also perfectly willing to exploit the son's sinfulness to take away all that he has.
Recall how mortal sin, unrepented and unforgiven, denies us of our inheritance as Children of God by denying us Eternal Life.
It also turns out that the land of sin, a pagan land, is a land of scarcity, where human workers are exploited and treated worse than animals.
In that alien land of sin, there is selfish sin of the flesh, disrespectful of human dignity. There are the selfish exploitation of the son's newfound addiction to drain all his has and plunge him into poverty. When a famine breaks out, and he is shoeless and starving, there is the additional selfish disrespect of human dignity represented by the exploitation of a human worker.
The landowner exploiting the son raises pigs, therefore non-Jewish, in that era, pagan.
It should come as no surprise that these people in the land of sin are pagans who do not worship and obey God. The self-separation of an entire culture from God's Law, God's Truth, and God's Love result in poverty, famine, and exploitation.
The pigs eat better than the prodigal son.
The son recalls that in his father's home, even the servants are well-treated and well-fed.
So he reflects and has a change of heart. He decides he will go back and declare his penitence to his father, saying he has sinned against Heaven and against his father and is unworthy to be the father's son. But in humility, he will offer to be a servant there.
The son's conversion is marked by suffering; reflection; a change of heart; a conscious choice to repent; a conscious embracing of humility; and the undertaking of a journey to leave the world of sin and return to the good home of the father.
As the son's journey back is concluding, the father catches sight of him from a distance and is deeply moved with compassion. The father rushes out to greet him.
Note that the son is not even all the way there, when the father realizes he is returning and goes out to meet him part-way and welcome him the rest of the way.
The son declares, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son." But the father tells the servants to put fine clothes and shoes on his son, and to kill the fatted calf for a celebration.
In another twist to the story, the father's other son, who has been with him all along, is upset that the father is welcoming the other son back. He complains that he has never even been given a goat to have a feast with his friends, let alone a fatted calf.
The father responds
"My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found."
Note what the father says: "you are here with me always."
He reminds the other son that the son's presence with the father, living the life the father has created, far surpasses any fleeting pleasure from feasting on a fatted calf.
The son who, through simple loyalty and obedience, has enjoyed a much better life remaining with the father, has done so without learning the bitter lesson suffered by the prodigal son.
And the father demonstrates the love and compassion that helped create this better life for all.
Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible with Revised New Testament © 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C., at times enhanced to provide additional capitalization. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
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FIRST READING: Joshua 5:9a, 10-12
wheat.pw.usda.govThe Exodus reaches the Promised Land, God provides the yield of the land instead of manna
The Israelites concluding their Exodus, having finally arrived in the Promised Land, eat of the produce of the land, and the manna stops appearing. God had fed them manna and quails during the Exodus, where all they had to do, to eat, was to gather the manna each morning.
This stage in God's unfolding Plan is fulfilled, and they move onto the next stage, living in the Promised Land, and living off its yield. God still provides for them, but instead of providing food directly, as during their journey, He provides by giving them land, resources, and their abilities.
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"Praying the Psalms
with the Early Christians"
PSALM 34: 2-3, 4-5, 6-7
Psalm 34 proclaims: "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord."
We join the psalmist, praising and glorifying God.
When we are in distress, God hears our cries, saving us.
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SECOND READING: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Reconcile with God:
In Christ each of us is a New Creation
God reconciled humanity to Himself by Christ Redeeming us.
The Apostle Paul explains to us that if we are in Christ, we are a new creation. He implores us to reconcile with God, through which we become Ambassadors for Christ, entrusted to be Messengers of Reconciliation.
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Liturgy of the Hours
Volume II:
Lent-Easter Season Divine Office (Liturgy of the Hours)
For the Fourth Sunday of Lent, the antiphon for the Canticle of Mary in Evening Prayer II echoes the Gospel reading about the prodigal son (Evening Prayer II is for Sunday evening; Evening Prayer I is for Saturday evening, the beginning of the Sunday Liturgical Day):
My son, you have been with me all the time and everything I have is yours. But we had to feast and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost to us and has been found.
Evening Prayer II, Fourth Sunday of Lent, The Liturgy of the Hours, According to the Roman Rite, Vol. II, Lent - Easter Season, Catholic Book Publishing Co., New York, 1975, at 281.
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"Confession of
Saint Patrick
and Other Works"
(click to order) Saints of March
+ "Saint of the Day" by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
+ Saints of the Day, from St. Patrick's Church, Washington, D.C.
+ Saints with Feast Days in March
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Prayer Intentions
Pope Benedict's Prayer Intentions for March 2010
+ General Intention: World Economy Just and Equitable, Caring for the Poor - "That the world economy may be managed according to the principles of justice and equity, taking account of the real needs of peoples, especially the poorest".
+ Mission intention: African Churches Serving Justice and Reconciliation: - "That the Churches in Africa may be signs and instruments of reconciliation and justice in every part of that continent"
Additional Faith Central Prayer Intentions
+ For additional support and guidance for the development of Faith Central: Catholic Home on the Web
+ For the elderly and infirmed, their protection by the Blessed Mother, and that they be treated with respect, dignity, and love.
+ For respect for human life and the dignity of the human person, from their creation
prior to conception, to natural death.
+ That God's Will be obeyed by all actions of government and all government-related actions of the populace
+ For an end to the recession, and for all humanity to work together to bear fruit in service to the needs of all
+ For those of means to divert resources to help those in the human family, locally or abroad, who are hungry, starving, or homeless
+ For peace in the world, and the conversion of the hearts of terrorists.
+ For peace in the world in families, especially for women and men facing crisis pregnancies, their preborn children, and those assisting them, especially their relatives and those volunteers and professionals dedicated to prolife work.
+ For the conversion of the hearts of sinners.
+ For the Faithful Departed, especially the relatives of those
praying and those they have met or have known.
+ For the Faithful Departed, especially those with no one praying for
them.
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Keywords: Jesus Christ, Lent, Prodigal Son, Parable, Luke 13, Book of Joshua 5, Psalm 34, 2 Corinthians 5, Saint Paul, Divine Office, Liturgy of the Hours, Daily Readings, Mass, Catholic Faith, Christian, Pope Benedict XVI, Holy Father, Prayer Intentions, Catholic News
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