For not a few people, God is anything but someone who is capable of bringing joy to their lives.\u00a0 <\/b>Thinking of him brings them back bad memories: awakened within them is the idea of a threatening and demanding being who makes life more disgusting, uncomfortable and dangerous.<\/p>\n
Little by Little they have done without him.\u00a0 Faith has remained \u201crepressed\u201d\u00a0 inside them.\u00a0 Today they do not know if they believe or do not believe.\u00a0 They are left without ways towards God.<\/b>\u00a0 Some still remember \u201cthe parable of the prodigal son,\u201d but they have not listen to it in their hearts.<\/p>\n
This parable\u2019s real hero is the father.<\/b>\u00a0 He repeats twice the same shout of joy: \u201cThis son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.\u201d\u00a0 This shout reveals what is there in the father\u2019 heart.<\/p>\n
This father is not concerned about his honor, his interests\u00a0 or the treatment he gets from his children.\u00a0 He does not at all use a moral language.\u00a0 He only thinks of his son\u2019s life:<\/b> that he does not stay destroyed, that he does not remain dead, that he does not live like someone lost, not knowing life\u2019s joy.<\/p>\n
The account describes with every detail the father\u2019s surprising meeting with the son who left home.\u00a0 While still a long way off,\u00a0 the father\u00a0 \u201ccaught sight of him\u201d coming, hungry and humiliated, and he was \u201cfilled with compassion\u201d to the very depths of his being.\u00a0 This kind look, full of goodness and compassion, is what saves us.\u00a0 Only God looks at us this way.<\/p>\n
Right away, \u201che ran to his son.\u201d\u00a0 It is not the son who returns home.\u00a0 It is the father who goes out running and looks for embrace with more ardor than the son himself.<\/b> \u201cHe embraced him and kissed him.\u201d\u00a0 God is always like that, running with open arms towards those who come back to him.<\/p>\n
The Son begins his confession: he has long prepared it within himself.\u00a0 The father interrupts him in order to spare him further humiliation.\u00a0 <\/b>He does not impose on him any punishment, he does not demand of him any ritual of expiation;\u00a0 he does not put any condition that he has to meet in order to be welcomed home.\u00a0 Only God welcomes and protects sinner in this manner.<\/p>\n
The father thinks only of the dignity of his son.\u00a0 <\/b>One must act quickly.\u00a0 He asks that they bring him the best clothes, the son\u2019s ring and the sandals needed to enter the house.\u00a0 He will be so received in a banquet in his honor.\u00a0 The son has to know, together with his father, a dignified and happy life he has not enjoyed away from him.<\/p>\n
One who hears this parable from the outside will not understand anything.\u00a0 He will go through life without God.\u00a0 The one who listens to it from within his heart will perhaps cry for joy and gratefulness.\u00a0 He will feel for the first time that in life\u2019s ultimate mystery there is Someone who welcomes us and forgives us because he only wants our happiness.<\/b><\/p>\n
Jos\u00e9 Antonio Pagola<\/b><\/p>\n
March 10, 2013
\n4 Lent (C)
\nLuke 15:1-3, 11-32<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"