“While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight
of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and
kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)
A week ago last night, 14 students that I taught in 8th
grade about 12 years ago, were all gathered in New York City and during dinner
they took a group picture. Many of them
I haven’t heard from in a long time, but two of these kids sent me the picture
separately a couple of minutes
apart. I was thrilled to see them
gathered together. They all grew up
together in grade school and yet life, and I like to think the Lord, keeps
bringing them together. Later on that
night, a little past my bedtime, they called me through FaceTime and I talked
to many of them for about 10 minutes. I
was overjoyed to catch up with some of them that I haven’t heard from in year. Others have stayed in touch, but don’t hear
from them that often.
For me, this was a Prodigal Son moment. Almost every single Sunday, I see a child
come back to Church and I welcome them back just like the Merciful Father did
in today’s gospel. Going back to that
picture that I was sent, I know many of my old students are scattered
throughout the country and world for that matter, doing great things that make
me proud, yet many, but not all, have wandered far from the safe confines of
the small church where we used to celebrate school Mass every Friday
morning. Many times I feel like the
Father in the Prodigal Son parable who sits every day waiting for them to
return. Waiting for them to remember
what I so lovingly taught them, and what they so lovingly embraced from the
Lord when they were younger. I will
admit that nothing gives me greater joy than when one of them returns home to
the Church, when one of them calls me up and says, “Father, I’ve been lost and
I need to go to confession.” Just like
the prodigal son, they may forget briefly who they are (Christians) and where
they came from, but when things don’t make sense, when things seem lost, and
when “a life of dissipation” gets old and tiring and unfulfilling, they know
they can walk into any church in the world and feel like they never left. And they know that they could always pick up
the phone and reconnect with the priest from their childhood. (Today I’m being overly explicit, but if
those kids only knew how many homilies I’ve written and posted that have been
implicitly directed and written for them.)
There are many times that I sit on the steps of this church
right out there and just pray for all the souls that I have encountered through
my ministry and who have forgotten the Father’s love. I sit there, almost symbolically, because I
know that no one is going to show up during the late hours that I sit out
there, but I do it kind of to feel closer to the Merciful Father in the gospel
because that ultimately should be our goal in the spiritual life: to be like
Him. But for our purposes on this Fourth
Sunday of Lent, I want to direct your attention to two pivotal moments in this
parable. The first has to do with the
younger son coming to grips and realizing that he has sinned against his
Father. I was listening to Bishop Robert
Barron this morning who has a different take on this admission than I do, but I
find it intriguing nonetheless. When the
son thinks up this plan to go and say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven
and against you, “ that is like a confession.
All of us prepare our confession before we go and actually utter the
words to the priest. Like the prodigal
son, we go over and rehearse in our mind and heart what we are going to say. But here is what is striking about this
confession: the prodigal son never gets
to finish it. Behold the second pivotal
moment I want you to pay attention to.
The Father sees his son at a distance, goes off and runs out to greet
him. And when the son starts his
confession, the father doesn’t let him finish.
He quickly orders that his son be clothed and have his dignity
restored. So many times we wander into
that confessional looking as worn and as tattered as the prodigal son. What confession does, and the priest’s
absolution accomplishes is restoring us to the dignity of being children of the
Father: clothed in splendor and made to inherit divine life.
Like the Merciful Father in the parable, many priests sat in
confessionals this weekend waiting for their children to come home. A priest friend of mine told me that he sat
for four hours in his confessional and only 4 people came. Thankfully in the almost 8 hours we heard
confession here at our parish, our priests never stopped receiving
penitents. And while I am glad to see or
hear every person that enters my confessional or sits across from me when I
don’t have a confessional, I still sit there and pray for all my parishioners,
all my children to surprise me like the prodigal son and enter that sacred
sacramental space. Which leads me to my
last story. In my first parish, every
Advent and Lent, we would hold penitential services where my pastor and I would
hear confessions for several hours. Now
there was a mother whose son was always at football practice who would tell me
that I wasn’t allowed to leave the confessional until her son showed up. So sometimes the lines were long enough that
I didn’t need to wait, but sometimes I would be done for some time and I would
sit there in the quiet of the church waiting for this wonderful kid to show
up. He always did. What was beautiful was not his faithfulness
to the sacrament or even his obedience to his mother, but that each time he
would open the doors to see me sitting by the altar, he would always smile and
that smile would light up the now darkened church. That smile was a confirmation of God’s mercy
at work. That smile speaks to the power
of the sacrament of confession. That
smile is the smile that every priest has when one of their children
return. That smile is a reflection of
the love and mercy of God at work in our hearts. Yes God will wait for us, but this Lent, let
us not wait for God to run towards us:
it’s time to run back to Him!
