Twenty-Fourth Sunday C,
Unless you have just awakened
from a deep sleep while the scriptures were being read for this Mass, you
couldn’t have missed that each one of them had a common thread, namely, the
return of sinners to God. Finding the wandering sheep, recovering the lost
coin, welcoming back the prodigal son, Moses’ pleading God to have mercy on
sinners, and God’s leniency towards St. Paul for his former evil life: each
scripture in its own way tells the same thing. God has open arms for us when we
sin, if only we repent and ask for mercy. One of the clichés of modern
preaching that I detest is the old saw of God’s “unconditional love.” What I
don’t like about it is that it can easily be taken amiss. There are indeed conditions,
if not on God’s love, then certainly on His mercy. God will forgive any sinner
anytime, of anything but on condition that he’s truly repentant, that he
confesses honestly to a priest, and that he’s now changed his mind about
sinning–that, in other words, if the chance were to come his way again, he
would not do it all over again. We call this having a ‘firm purpose of
amendment.’ But rehashing that familiar phrase about unconditional love just
might lead one to think that it doesn’t much matter what he does because God
will put up with it and find that one’s sins really aren’t ‘all that bad.’ And
thus one might remain fixed and unforgiven in his sins, or, possibly, be led to
commit another sin, that of presumption, as if God owed him salvation.
Don’t misunderstand me:
sinners really do need to hear that God will forgive them no matter how many,
or how ugly, embarrassing, shameful, degrading, depraved their sins. But they
do have to pluck up their courage and tell it all in confession with real
contrition. It’s a small price really, when you think of it: just a little
self-inflicted humiliation for a new lease on the spiritual life. Especially
when mortal sin is involved, the proportion between the discomfort
of confessing to a priest versus the perpetual singeing of the flesh in hell is
too great not to opt for confession.
But for me, the eternally
perplexing question is not so much the forgiving part which we know God will do
while we are still on this earth and if we go along with His program on
how to be forgiven. The curiosity is that we stray from His grace in the first
place. This is a great mystery. Consider the story our Lord used. Whatever did
the prodigal son lack at home that made him want to move out of his home? It’s
not just an academic question, as you know: it’s been asked by many a parent
whose children had decided to move out of the house and to live on his own.
When youth leave their parental home in order to live in sin and debauchery
(just as was the case with the prodical son) the answer is clear: there were
some things they couldn’t get at home: sexual license being the number one
thing. At home there are rules (how I wish some of our homes were even more
regulated than they are!). What usually happens is this: the child becomes
rebellious, contentious, selfish, mean, insolent, and rude to the point where
he finally gets his ultimate wish with his parents’ concurrence, if only in
order to have relief from the upstart who has caused so much unbearable domestic
disturbance. The spoiled child, who had perhaps had got his way too often when
he was younger, grew to be intolerably snotty and, in the end, proved just how
spoiled he was: he got ousted from his home to be free of strictures, with no
one to answer to, no nagging parental rules, no one to check up on what he’s
saying on the phone, or doing and not doing, etc.
This condition of feeling
free is counted by the impious as a benefit. That’s how those who emancipate
themselves from God’s laws figure it, and this is how they may think about
themselves for several years to come. There is only one problem with the new
lifestyle: it’s an impossible flight from reality. Somehow truth always
surfaces. Either it is true or it is false that an irresponsible way of living
is right. They had wanted to believe that they could get away with this without
penalty; that there would be no bad consequences for their sins; that God doesn’t
care what they do; that there will be no final accounting for their deeds; and
that death is so remote as not to matter. ‘Live for the moment’ is the slogan
easily embraced by youth but, with the passing of sufficient time, its rings
hollow. When they finally do awaken to reality and to the truth of their wasted
lives, what then will they do?
There are two fundamental
possibilities. The first is taken by many, but (I hope) not the majority. It is
confirmation in sin. Our Lord called it ‘hardness of heart.’ This is the
fixation of a soul in sin so that one says to himself,
“it’s too late for me now. I’ll have to carry on without God, without the
Church, without confession, and live out my days as I have always been living.”
The theologians speculate that this is what may be meant by the “unforgivable
sin,” the sin against the Holy Spirit: final impenitence, which is equivalent
to despair of God’s goodness and forgiveness. The alternative reaction is
exactly that of the young man in the Gospel story. It’s the search for God’s
mercy and the return to normalcy, decency, responsibility. The Church is loaded
with people such as this, people who have recovered from a sin-drenched former
life and are enjoying once again the immense pleasures of faith and God’s
grace.
The point of the Gospel
parable of the prodigal son is not that one should do as he pleases because God
will always be there to mop up the mess afterward. It is rather that we ought
to remain always faithful in the Father’s house, like the dutiful elder son
(but without any of his resentment).
We should remember the woman
who found the lost coin (how happy she was!) or the celebration ordered by the
Father over his converted son. What matters is not what was past; God makes all
thing new. In the words of the parable: ‘We must
celebrate and rejoice because our brethren were dead and have come to life
again; they were lost and have been found.’ No wonder there is a psalm that
repeats over and over again: “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; for His
mercy endures for ever.”
Let’s not approve indulgence in sin for anyone. But if a sinner returns, let’s rejoice with him. The mercies of the Lord are inexhaustible.