Dear Parishioners,
In the parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:1-32), the son asking for his inheritance from his father who is still living is like saying: “Dad, I wish you were dead, because then I could get your money. Since I neither love nor respect you, why don’t you just give me my inheritance now?” But more shocking than the son’s shameful request is the father’s response: he freely gives the inheritance to him!
The father is seemingly an accomplice to the son’s irresponsible behavior, knowing that his son is prodigal (wastefully extravagant). At this point we realize that the parable is not about a natural father (who would not give in to such a brazen request) but rather about the Father who is God. This leaves us with the first important first point of the parable: God’s greatest gift to humanity is extravagantly wasteful: our human freedom. In other words, God wills that every human person have virtually autonomous free will, which is a sign of His great love for us, because without it, we would be like puppets on a string or robots constrained to do only what we are forced to do. On the flip side, such virtually unlimited freedom is also the source of human evil and suffering (let’s come back to this).
The Boundless Mercy of God. Fascinated with his illusory freedom and abandoning his father’s house, the son squanders his fortune and finds himself in extreme misery and deep humiliation at feeding swine, longing to eat their food. When he hits rock bottom, he reflects on all he has lost, repents, decides to declare himself guilty before his father, and journeys back home. At this point, we see that the central character of the story, the father, is exceedingly merciful: he generously welcomes his son, is filled with compassion and joy, and gives him a beautiful robe, a ring, and the festive banquet symbolizing new life—pure, worthy, and joyful—a dramatic story of conversion and returning to God and His family, the Church (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1439).
The Point of the Story: God is an All-Powerful and All-Loving, Merciful Father. While many people do not believe in God because of human evil and suffering, the parable of the prodigal son provides insight into the mystery of why God deliberately chooses to not intervene in human free will that causes suffering: the prodigal son would have NEVER experienced the immeasurable depth of his father’s merciful love if he didn’t have complete freedom and autonomy of his will. But one more thing is necessary for this explanation to work: God must have the power to bring good from evil—from all human suffering—and this is precisely the God we believe in, the God who rose from the dead: the greatest evil led to the greatest good. Suffering makes sense only from the perspective of eternity, from an all-powerful, all-loving and merciful God.
Run to the Father. Whenever we fall, like the prodigal son, we, too, can return to the Father; this is why Jesus gave us the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Be like the Father. While God the Father longingly waits for all of his children to return home to Him, He is not passive about it. He sends you and me out among those He has put in our lives to be lovingly merciful like the father of the prodigal son, and to point the way to God the allpowerful and all-loving Father.
Peace in Christ,
Fr. Jim
