Face of the Father's Mercy

Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C

The parable of the Prodigal Son needs no introduction. It is perhaps the most moving of the Lord’s parables. Its length helps with character development which you don’t see much in the other parables, and this is why the story is able to endear us to each of its three main characters. Although the common title of the parable seems to focus on the wayward younger son, who squanders his inheritance and finally makes his way back to his father when he has lost everything, hoping to get a second chance, the characters and sub-stories of both sons serve solely to reveal the heart of the father, the true protagonist of this parable.

If Christ often inserts Himself into most of His parables which involve people instead of objects, this is one of those rare parables where none of its characters seem to point to Him. The spotlight is on the father, a clear reference to the Heavenly Father. Nowhere else does the Lord portray the Father in heaven more vitally, more plainly.

The impressiveness of this parable is that the story begins with the fact that the father grants the son’s request and hands over to him, his portion of the inheritance without any question - no argument, no lecturing, no threat of cutting-off this son although the son’s action tantamount to him wishing his father dead. That’s when you get your inheritance - when your parents are dead. But this son can’t wait for his father’s natural death and demands that which does not belong to him while his father is still alive. We may find the younger son’s behaviour odious and disgusting but little do we realise that many of us suffer from a similar issue. Many of us have an enormous sense of entitlement, feeling that we deserve special treatment, or that we have the right to something. We fail to recognise that everything we possess, all the imaginable and unimaginable goods which we possess are actually unmerited gifts from God. We have no claim or right to them but yet God, in His loving mercy and generosity, grants it to us even though we are undeserving.

The older son is no better. He too thinks that he is entitled to something because of his hard work and loyalty. He forgets that true love is unmerited – love does not have a price tag to be bought nor can you earn it. Instead of recognising his father’s love and generosity and that everything the father possesses is already his, the elder son only has resentment in his heart, resentment born once again from a skewed sense of entitlement. Once again, the father shows mercy to the older boy as he did to the younger one. Both are undeserving of his love, and yet not a harsh word from the father for the both of them.

As I had pointed out earlier, the remarkable thing about this parable is that it says nothing about the role of Jesus. He is definitely not to be identified with either the elder son nor the younger boy. All of us can identify with either one of them or perhaps even both, at some time or another. The emphasis of the whole story is the father, who gives us a glimpse of how much our Heavenly Father loves us and seeks to reconcile sinners to Himself. But our Lord is present in a special way – He is present in the telling of the story - He is the Word that reports this reconciliation. He is the judgment which the father passes - the son who is lost is now found, the one who died is now alive again. Jesus is the Word through which God establishes His eternal reconciliation with the world.

This is what St Paul attempts to tell us in the second reading: “It was God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the work of handing on this reconciliation. In other words, God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself, not holding men’s faults against them, and he has entrusted to us the news that they are reconciled.” The work of reconciliation is accomplished through Christ, and never apart from Him. Not by bypassing Him, but “through Christ” and “in Christ” does the Father reconcile us to Himself. For it is Christ who came to seek the lost until they are found, and it is Christ who died for us so that we may live. As St Paul beautifully explains: “For our sake God made the sinless one into sin, so that in him we might become the goodness of God.”

We’ve heard the parable of the Prodigal Son, and we have witnessed the astounding love of the father. But how do we make sense of this? There is one verse in the Sermon on the Plain that gives clarity to this parable: “Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate” (Luke 6:36). In commenting on this verse, Pope Francis asserts that “Mercy is the very heart of God!” This is the heart of the father in the parable. He accepted both of his sons, though he did not agree with what they did. He loved them completely, showing understanding, acceptance, and most of all, a divine forgiveness. His heart was completely open.

God’s mercy always gives us a second chance to encounter His Son Jesus Christ and to believe in Him. No matter how skeptical or doubtful we may be; no matter how far we have strayed from the experience of communion with Christ, in and through His Church; and no matter how seriously we have sinned, Jesus always reaches out to us with open arms. He embraces us and invites us to experience His friendship and His forgiveness. Nothing we have ever done could keep us out of the heart of our loving and all-forgiving God. Just as how the father welcomes back the prodigal son, we see the action of our Lord Jesus mysteriously hidden within the action of the father. Our Lord Jesus is the embrace of the Heavenly Father for fallen humanity as He stretched out His hands on the cross; He is the Bridegroom who weds His bride by placing a gold ring upon her finger; He is the sandal on our feet that makes our journey light; He is the fatted calf, the Lamb of God, sacrificed for our redemption. Yes, our Lord Jesus Christ is present in this tale of forgiveness, mercy and love. He is, as Pope Francis tells us, the face of the Father’s mercy.