Fr Leslie Miranda
| | REALIZATION OF FATHER'S LOVE | | Jos 5:9a,10-12, 2 Cor 5:17-21 Lk 15:1-3,11-32 | | March,14 | | 4th Sunday of Lent | Today’s parable starts with a man who has two sons. Their names are Faithful, but not good, and Prodigal the bad. Our world today has two types of people. They are the Faithful, but not good, and the Prodigal.
Let us look at the Prodigal, the Waster. He was restless, carefree and hated tying himself to a life on a farm. He was disgusted with the daily routine. Boredom got on his nerves. He wanted real life and a freedom to do what he liked. To make his dream come true he approached his father for a share of one-third of the estate that was permissible to the younger son according to Jewish law. He got it and set out for a distant country.
Away from home with no restrictions on him, it did not take him long to squander his property in loose living. But two disasters struck |
| him simultaneously. He ran out of money for he wasted capital without return, and famine overtook him. The double disaster brought him to his senses.
Joblessness and resulting hunger tortured him. The rabbinic saying: “Cursed be the man who would breed swine,” fell on him. He was forced to work in a pigsty, but that cleared his thinking and signalled his repentance. The starvation he faced, and the plenty the hired servants enjoyed at his father’s house, made him take the road back to his father’s house.
His confession did not make any excuses, he just said what he had done; he had sinned against God (heaven) and his father. He had lost the claim to sonship, and hoped for a job as a hired servant.
His father saw him at a distance and he ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him. ...Contd. | | |
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