Today’s gospel further develops last Sunday’s message wherein Jesus warns: Repent or perish. To repent means to return to God and failure to do so means to perish. Biblical scholars have an interesting way of explaining this with today’s gospel. When the prodigal son received his inheritance, he set off to “a distant country” (cora macra), which in Greek means “the great emptiness.” That is precisely what awaits us when we leave the Father’s house – the great emptiness and total loss. When we turn away from God, we turn away from life. For God is life and the source of all life.
Whenever we hear the parable of the prodigal son, we often focus our attention on the younger son who squanders all his property until he hits rock bottom. In his abject misery, he realizes his gross mistake and repentant, he resolves to return home and beg his father to take him back no longer as a son but as one of his hired servants.
We often forget that the elder son is likewise invited to come home for he too is distant from the father. True, the elder son has never left the father’s house, but he has never been home either. To use his own words, he slaved himself for years. Translate: he has not been a son for there was no filial love in all he did.
The parable is primarily intended by Jesus for the scribes and Pharisees. Remember at the start of the chapter when they complain why Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them? Jesus responds by telling the parable of the prodigal son (together with the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin). The elder son represents the leaders of Israel who are strict in their observance of the law but whose self-righteousness and sense of entitlement keep them far from God. They too are called to return to the Father’s house.
The moral is: we all need to return to God – whether we are “great sinners” or “just regular Christians.” This is the call of Lent, the call to conversion. Somehow, we have distanced ourselves from God and so we experience an emptiness in our life.
This also the call for us as a people today. We take pride in calling ourselves a Christian nation, but we surrender our loyalty to political lords, who turn us into blind followers and intractable fanatics. We profess a God who is Truth, but we are stubborn believers (and spreaders) of fake news, lies, and deception. We believe in a God who is Love, but we are apathetic and indifferent to murderous attacks against life.
In their recent CBCP pastoral letter, “May Pag-asa Pa Ba?” (Is There Hope Still?), the Philippine bishops wrote of the current realities which bring frustration and anguish to our people, such as, loss of the sense of sin, a culture of impunity, ecological disaster, increasing poverty, corruption and plunder, political dynasty, among others.
When we distance ourselves from God, we experience a great emptiness. We create a precarious vacuum which is readily filled by destructive and deadly forces. The realities mentioned by the bishops in their letter are precisely what fill this vacuum.
The CBCP letter opens with the question: Is there hope still? To which the same bishops respond with a resounding YES, there is hope!
Why? Because although we are only pilgrims passing through this “valley of tears,” we are pilgrims of hope. And our hope is Christ who is with us and leads us on our way home – to the Father’s house. For Christ is “the Way, the Truth and the Life.” (Jn 14:16)
Today is Laetare (Rejoice) Sunday. It is a day of joy in the middle of Lent which anticipates of the joy of Easter.
Laetare Sunday is also the celebration in heaven where “there [is] more rejoicing over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine virtuous men who have no need of repentance.” (Lk 15:7)
Above all, Laetare Sunday is the celebration the Father’s joy who eagerly awaits each and every one of us, his children, and welcomes us to his “kingdom which has been prepared for [us] since the foundation of the world.” (Mt. 25:34)