4th Sunday of Lent (Mar 14, 2010)
Fr James McTavish FMVD
The merciful embrace of the Father
In the beautiful portrait of the Prodigal son, the artist Rembrandt shows the father mercifully embracing his wayward son. The evangelist Luke describes this moment “So he got up and went back to his father. 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.” If the father caught sight of his son it means that he was on the lookout for him, waiting for him to come home after such a long time away. And what a state the son was in when he came home! Rembrandt depicts the son wearing just an undertunic having lost all his money and all his dignity. The son is kneeling down in front of the father, and you notice that his sandals are falling apart. He has a scabbard for his dagger at his side perhaps representing some fear to come home. He has little hair perhaps lost from the ravages of syphilis contracted from his dissolute life with prostitutes. But this son is enveloped in the merciful embrace of his father. The red cloak of the father represents his overflowing love for the son. Even noticing the hands of the father holding his son, the left is bigger than the right. This represents the mercy being both masculine and feminine – firm but tender, strong but gentle. In fact one Hebrew word for mercy is rahamim. The root word here is rehem which means the mother’s womb. So it is a love that springs from deep inside, a merciful love of a bond that cannot be broken.
A fascinating feature therefore is the face of the son. His facial features are poorly defined. it is like the face of an unborn child. Being far from home, far from the merciful love of the father the child has been cut off from its womb and remains underdeveloped. The proper place to grow and develop is in the environment of merciful love. If we are cut off from this we do not grow as human beings. Yes we can grow and develop many capacities. Our bank balance can grow, our power and influence can grow but as human beings our growth remains stunted if we do not constantly experience the mercy of God. One clear example of this is our capacity to forgive. This is the litmus test of whether we are growing. How many people are tormented by hell fire because they cannot forgive, burning with anger, consumed by a desire to get even. One lady told me about the situation in her office where she could not forgive a colleague. Now six years on she is still dwelling on it. St Francis de Paola said that to remember an old injury is itself wrong. Why can’t we forgive? Because we don’t want to! Why are we not more merciful? If we realize how merciful God is to us then we will be merciful to others. Let us not remain in stubbornness but implore God to experience his mercy.
Experiencing the loving embrace of our heavenly Father renews us and regenerates us. St Paul in the second reading today describes this experience thus “Brothers and sisters: Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” (See 2 Cor 5, 17-21). Wow! A new creation, I want that. How many times people will search for newness in clothes but then the novelty wears off, in a new haircut even in expensive plastic surgery. Much better to place ourselves under the gentle and healing knife of the Word of God, which is sharper than a sword. Lent is a time of conversion, of reconstruction let us say. Lord renew the face of the earth and as I always add in the prayer ‘Lord renew the face of the earth and this face too!’
After having experienced the embrace of our Father that makes all things new, after having tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord (our responsorial psalm today, psalm 34) we may ask ‘Lord how can I repay all your goodness and mercy to me?’ For sure the best way is to help others experience the mercy of God. One definition of mercy I like very much is that of the moral theologian Fr James Keenan, S.J. He said that ‘mercy is the willingness to enter into the chaos of another’. A beautiful insight. It is not simply a feeling as we can feel merciful and feel for the other but do nothing about it. Enough of a mercy that does not move us to lift a finger! Authentic mercy will move us to act, to do something. And our good God equips us well for this task, this task that St Paul describes as to be “ambassadors for Christ”. Many people would just love to be an ambassador, to represent their country. How dimly this compares to the glorious task of being an ambassador of Christ himself.
This task of being an ambassador of Christ has been entrusted to us since baptism when we were incorporated into the priestly, prophetic and kingly mission of Christ. These three aspects of our mission are represented by the gifts received by the prodigal son on his homecoming – a robe, representing the priestly dignity, the sandals for the prophetic task to go and announce the good news, and a ring for the king. We are so fortunate to have a mission! It is the remedy for a terrible virus rampant in our world of today – selfishness. This is a terrible and destructive sickness. One friend of mine told me he had a 20 year reunion of High school friends. When they were in University and college they used to meet to discuss the future, and they talked of money, owning a car and a house. How sad this friend was when he met them 20 years later now that they have all these things and the conversation was only about earning more money, getting a bigger car and a larger house. HOW BORING NOT TO MOVE ON IN LIFE! Imagine them meeting at say in a funeral in 20 years time. How will the dialogue be? Exactly the same!
Fr James McTavish FMVD
The merciful embrace of the Father
In the beautiful portrait of the Prodigal son, the artist Rembrandt shows the father mercifully embracing his wayward son. The evangelist Luke describes this moment “So he got up and went back to his father. 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.” If the father caught sight of his son it means that he was on the lookout for him, waiting for him to come home after such a long time away. And what a state the son was in when he came home! Rembrandt depicts the son wearing just an undertunic having lost all his money and all his dignity. The son is kneeling down in front of the father, and you notice that his sandals are falling apart. He has a scabbard for his dagger at his side perhaps representing some fear to come home. He has little hair perhaps lost from the ravages of syphilis contracted from his dissolute life with prostitutes. But this son is enveloped in the merciful embrace of his father. The red cloak of the father represents his overflowing love for the son. Even noticing the hands of the father holding his son, the left is bigger than the right. This represents the mercy being both masculine and feminine – firm but tender, strong but gentle. In fact one Hebrew word for mercy is rahamim. The root word here is rehem which means the mother’s womb. So it is a love that springs from deep inside, a merciful love of a bond that cannot be broken.
A fascinating feature therefore is the face of the son. His facial features are poorly defined. it is like the face of an unborn child. Being far from home, far from the merciful love of the father the child has been cut off from its womb and remains underdeveloped. The proper place to grow and develop is in the environment of merciful love. If we are cut off from this we do not grow as human beings. Yes we can grow and develop many capacities. Our bank balance can grow, our power and influence can grow but as human beings our growth remains stunted if we do not constantly experience the mercy of God. One clear example of this is our capacity to forgive. This is the litmus test of whether we are growing. How many people are tormented by hell fire because they cannot forgive, burning with anger, consumed by a desire to get even. One lady told me about the situation in her office where she could not forgive a colleague. Now six years on she is still dwelling on it. St Francis de Paola said that to remember an old injury is itself wrong. Why can’t we forgive? Because we don’t want to! Why are we not more merciful? If we realize how merciful God is to us then we will be merciful to others. Let us not remain in stubbornness but implore God to experience his mercy.
Experiencing the loving embrace of our heavenly Father renews us and regenerates us. St Paul in the second reading today describes this experience thus “Brothers and sisters: Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” (See 2 Cor 5, 17-21). Wow! A new creation, I want that. How many times people will search for newness in clothes but then the novelty wears off, in a new haircut even in expensive plastic surgery. Much better to place ourselves under the gentle and healing knife of the Word of God, which is sharper than a sword. Lent is a time of conversion, of reconstruction let us say. Lord renew the face of the earth and as I always add in the prayer ‘Lord renew the face of the earth and this face too!’
After having experienced the embrace of our Father that makes all things new, after having tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord (our responsorial psalm today, psalm 34) we may ask ‘Lord how can I repay all your goodness and mercy to me?’ For sure the best way is to help others experience the mercy of God. One definition of mercy I like very much is that of the moral theologian Fr James Keenan, S.J. He said that ‘mercy is the willingness to enter into the chaos of another’. A beautiful insight. It is not simply a feeling as we can feel merciful and feel for the other but do nothing about it. Enough of a mercy that does not move us to lift a finger! Authentic mercy will move us to act, to do something. And our good God equips us well for this task, this task that St Paul describes as to be “ambassadors for Christ”. Many people would just love to be an ambassador, to represent their country. How dimly this compares to the glorious task of being an ambassador of Christ himself.
This task of being an ambassador of Christ has been entrusted to us since baptism when we were incorporated into the priestly, prophetic and kingly mission of Christ. These three aspects of our mission are represented by the gifts received by the prodigal son on his homecoming – a robe, representing the priestly dignity, the sandals for the prophetic task to go and announce the good news, and a ring for the king. We are so fortunate to have a mission! It is the remedy for a terrible virus rampant in our world of today – selfishness. This is a terrible and destructive sickness. One friend of mine told me he had a 20 year reunion of High school friends. When they were in University and college they used to meet to discuss the future, and they talked of money, owning a car and a house. How sad this friend was when he met them 20 years later now that they have all these things and the conversation was only about earning more money, getting a bigger car and a larger house. HOW BORING NOT TO MOVE ON IN LIFE! Imagine them meeting at say in a funeral in 20 years time. How will the dialogue be? Exactly the same!
Selfishness is such an insidious thing that is why we need to pray. Why to pray? Someone asked me that and said that we pray for the same reason as a car has brakes. ‘Why does a car have brakes?’ he asked me. ‘To slow down?’ I replied. ‘No’, he said ‘to be able to go very fast!’ If you find you have no time to pray because you are too busy better to be a little more honest with yourself. The truth is that you are not so busy at all, in fact you are quite disorganized, wasting a lot of time, not disciplined and often running around but without direction. Prayer allows us to go very fast in life but we can come back to the embrace of the Father to experience his mercy and then set off again. Without prayer even one struggle, one awkward person will stop you in your tracks.
How wonderful the gift of mission we have. We need mission to grow, to develop as human beings. If we don’t have a mission we get lost in ourselves. Mission is a little moment to think of others. What is your concrete mission? Woe to the man who has no mission. He will soon be trapped in himself. You have a right to share the Good news so exercise that right! If you don’t believe it is a right then just read number 225 of the Canon law of the Church – “All the Christian faithful possess the right to work so that the divine message of salvation is made known and accepted by all persons everywhere in the world. This obligation is even more compelling in those circumstances in which only through them can people hear the gospel and know Christ.”
Let us enjoy the merciful embrace of our Father. May his mercy be the motor of our missionary response as Christians. And may Mary our Mother accompany us day of this short life as try to bring many prodigal sons and daughters back to the house of the Father. Amen.
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