Year C

24TH SUNDAY
IN ORDINARY TIME

► Text of Sunday Reflection

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”
by Fr Arek Orzechowski

When we look at one of the pictures taken in Rome’s Rebibbia Prison, we can clearly see, that during the meeting with assassin Ali Agca, St. John Paul II smiles. Andre Frossard wrote about Pope’s behaviour: “he holds the arm of his interlocutor, as if he wanted him to hug each other. Hug and save.”

We can see a similar picture in today’s Gospel. Jesus teaches in parables about God the Father, who is looking for his children, and is delighted when he finds them. We can see the true and unconditional affection of God towards a man – and this is his mercy. It radiates from God’s fatherhood.

St. John Paul II wrote in one of his encyclicals, that God’s Mercy “is able to reach down to every prodigal son, to every human misery, and above all to every form of moral misery, to sin. When this happens, the person who is the object of mercy does not feel humiliated, but rather found again and “restored to value.” The father first and foremost expresses to him his joy that he has been “found again” and that he has “returned to life. So mercy is manifested in its true and proper aspect when it restores to value, promotes and draws good from all the forms of evil existing in the world and in man. Mercy is an especially creative proof of the love which does not allow itself to be “conquered by evil,” but overcomes “evil with good.

Each of us should learn from the father in the Jesus’ parable. We often pray “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those, who trespass against us…” …but we also have to remember about Jesus reminder:  “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”.

In the logic of God, mercy is not dependent on repentance and confession. These help us to receive God’s love. But God does not wait for our initiative to show us his forgiving love. God’s mercy is always unconditional and precedes our decisions. This is God’s love.

St. Mother Teresa said that “Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand”. It is up to us if we want to taste this fruit.

► Readings, Reflections & Prayers

Scripture readings: Association for Catholic Priests
– www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie
Reflections and Prayers by Fr Jack Finnegan SDB

1st Reading – Exodus 32:7-11,13-14

The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’”

The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”

But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

2nd Reading: 1 Timothy 1:12-17

I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Gospel Reading: Luke 15:1-32

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. “Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.

When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”‘ So he set off and went to his father.

But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe-the best one-and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’

Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

► Lectio Divina

by Fr Juan José Bartolomé SDB

Introduction to Lectio Divine

To the righteous people of the time it was unthinkable that Jesus should associate with sinners and eat with tax collectors. And they had good reasons for their way of thinking.  People who, because of their profession or disordered lifestyle, lived in “impure” situations, far from God, were not fit company for a man of God. To the scandal of the “good” people, Jesus not only did not avoid bad people, but he actually seemed to enjoy being with them. He must have had very good reasons to transgress the social rules and hurt the sensitivity of the more devout people. And indeed he had!  He clarified them at length in one of the finest discourses of the whole of the New Testament. In it he justified his strange behaviour by appealing to the will of God. While he defended himself from rebuke, he upset his accusers all the more by pointing out that in realty he was doing nothing different from the will of God. His way of acting is exactly the same as God’s way of acting. He spends time with the people that God wants to be with. He associates with the people that God would want to draw near to. The reason and inspiration for his way of dealing with sinners is God himself.

Read: understand what the text is saying, focussing on how it says it

Luke has created a scenario in which he puts together three parables grouped round one theme. The entire text is a literary masterpiece, which relates events in the lives of his listeners, rich in detail and with a single message: the joy that God finds when he forgives.

The context is stated briefly (Lk 15, 1-2). In it an episode from the ministry of Jesus, albeit one that was repeated often, is raised to the level of a habitual way of acting on the part of Jesus. Jesus spoke to people of ill repute and allowed them to accompany him.  This behaviour, obviously scandalized the ‘good’ people: “tell me your company and I’ll tell you who you are.”

Jesus’ response is not, strictly speaking, a direct reply. It is a long discourse built around parables. He defends his way of acting by telling three stories. Jesus wants to explain himself, but he does not justify himself. Instead, he speaks in a veiled manner about God and God’s preferences. Implicitly he is saying that by associating with sinners, Jesus is doing nothing other than what God wants, coming close to sinners if he can (but in one case this was not possible) and finding joy in forgiving them. The first two parables are symmetrical. They present two examples, from real life, of losing something – the shepherd who loses one of his hundred sheep (Lk 15, 3-7), and the woman who loses one of her ten coins (Lk 15,8-10). The loss leads to an anxious search.  Finding what was lost means much more than just restoring lost property. The finder is filled with joy at finding what was lost. This very human joy is a perfect example of the joy of God and of those who accompany him, the angels in heaven.

The third parable is developed much more. The main character is a father who had two sons, who were certainly very different from each other (Lk 15, 11-32). The first impoverished his father, depriving him of his patrimony and of his company.  Far away from his father, he squandered his goods and his life. Hungry and fearful of death, he “came to himself” and regained his father, though still at a distance. He rehearsed to himself what he would say to his father when he met him. His father did not even let him speak. It was enough that he had found his lost son and he ordered a great feast (Lk 15, 11-24). The elder son had stayed at home, working for his father. But he never felt free, nor did he feel like a son. He worked like a servant. He could not tolerate the feast for his brother, nor could he understand his father’s reasons (Lk 15, 25-32).  We do not know, because the author does not tell us, if he ever went in to the feast, if he accepted the newly returned wrongdoer as his brother, or if he shared the father’s joy. It was not the younger son who abandoned his father, but the one who had always served him, because in the end he refused to take part in the life of the family and his father’s wish to hold a feast.

Meditate: apply what the text says to life

Jesus explains his way of acting, not with plain statements, but in parables. He does not avoid the company of wrongdoers because he desires their good. He wants to bring them forgiveness and joy. The shepherd, the woman and the father feel the loss of what was theirs and the joy of finding it again. The joy of God will be no less. It is curious that this God of Jesus can feel the loss of what belongs to him, can suffer anxiety as he searches for it and rejoices when he find what was lost. In the sinner who returns to him, God not only finds the son who had left him, but rediscovers the joy he had lost when he lost what belonged to him. When someone comes back home, he brings joy to the family, like the son who came back in search of an employer but found instead a father ready to show his love and celebrate a feast.

What a beautiful, stupendous way God has of rejoicing! Anyone who has left God or even just lost sight of him will find joy when he returns. Not only that, but anyone who, like Jesus, seeks to bring back to God those who were lost, contributes to God’s joy.  Knowing what God is like obliges Jesus – and us – to live as God wants, even if this might cause a bad impression on people who regard themselves as good. God’s joy is far more precious than any criticism.

It will be difficult for us to understand the response of Jesus if we, even today, do not share the misunderstanding of those good people of his time in regard to his way of acting. Certainly, seeing him in bad company was not exactly edifying. It is hard to understand why he allowed people of such ill repute to accompany him both in public and in private, on the streets and at table. Like the ‘good ‘ people of his time, we get upset by the fact that Jesus prefers people who are not as good as we are, and who do not live by our standards. Like the people who criticized Jesus, we find it painful to see that people of doubtful reputation obtain favours more easily than those who make an effort to be really good. How is it that God continues to act better, or so it seems, with sinners than with people who have always been good?

Jesus answers by telling parables. The shepherd that has lost one sheep out of a hundred, and the woman who has lost one of her ten coins, and the father who sees his younger son leaving home, are images of God. They behave like God, both in the search and when they find what was lost, with the same anxiety over what was lost and with the same joy when it is found. Everyone knows that when we lose something of value, we immediately go in search of it. But is it normal to attach more importance to what we have lost than to what we still have, as the shepherd, the woman and the father did? Is that really how God acts? The shepherd left his flock in a not altogether safe place, not a very prudent thing to do! The woman stopped taking care of the house, again not exactly a clever thing to do! The father lived as if the only son he had was the one who had left him, which was not quite fair to the one who had stayed with him.

And yet, as much as we may not like it, and with the risk that we may not understand very well, that is how our God acts, according to Jesus.  He is more interested in finding what was lost than in keeping what he has. He does not mind leaving the rest of his flock to go in search of the one that is lost. He is less concerned about what he has than about what he is missing. He works harder to restore what is lost than he does to hold on to what he has. We would never have thought that God would behave in such an unusual and irrational way, if Jesus himself had not revealed it to us. If Jesus allowed sinners to accompany him, it was not that he was unaware of their wrongdoing, or that he overlooked it or made excuses for them. It was because he wanted to offer them the possibility of becoming good.

Jesus knew well that God’s greatest joy is the conversion of a sinner. Like the shepherd who rejoiced when he found the lost sheep, and went to share his joy with his friends; like the woman who could not hide her joy when she found the lost coin, and called her neighbours to rejoice with her; and like the father who, when the prodigal son returned home, filled the house with music and feasting, in the same way God rejoices for the return of any sinner. However unjustified it may seem to us, his fidelity to the people who have never left him does not stop him rejoicing at the return of someone who had strayed. When God finds one who was lost, he finds joy. When someone comes back to God, he is merely restoring to God what is his due, and God’s joy is so great that he cannot keep it to himself. Like the shepherd, the woman and the father, it is God who is the winner when he finds what was lost. He rediscovers his lost property and his joy.

This might seem an exaggeration, but it is so true!  If we believe the words of Jesus, like the father who welcomes back his lost son, God is happy when he is able to offer a home and all the good things that go with it, to one who had left home and squandered his property, and now acknowledges that he or she is unworthy of God. The sheep that strayed was not punished by its owner when he found it. And the lost coin when it was found immediately became part of the woman’s money again. When the prodigal son came back home, he was met by the Father’s love and his decision to hold a feast to celebrate. Even more surprising is this desire for a feast on the part of God, when even one sinner is converted. And it is more surprising still that good people who have no need to return to God because they have never left him, do not cause him the same joy as the sinner who returns.

It might seem that God repays fidelity with sadness and sin with joy, but that is not really the case. One who has never been lost has never caused God pain or worry and so there is no joy at his or her being found. But we cannot avoid the conclusion that, according to Jesus, the joy that God feels when even one sinner returns, is always greater than the sorrow he experienced on losing him or her. The just do not cause as much joy, or do not cause any joy to God, because they had caused him no sorrow. But the sinner, like the son who had broken his father’s heart when he left him, is capable of bringing joy to God. There is no sin so grave, and no failure so shameful, that it can stop us from returning to God to restore his joy. If we bring joy to God, when we return to him, whatever the cause of our abandoning him was, why have we not already gone back? Will God not thank us when we give him a moment of joy? Could we who have sinned even dream of being a cause of joy to God? Whether it seems just or not, one who has never gone away from God cannot restore to him a joy he has never lost. The God of Jesus, like the shepherd, the woman and the father of two sons, rediscovers the joy of living when he finds what was lost. Is this not a wonderful reason to devote one’s whole life to giving God joy by bringing back his lost sons and daughters?

Jesus, who knew what God is like, and how to make him happy, went in search of all who had lost God to bring them back and so make God happy. The joy that God feels when he finds someone who was lost is reason enough for anyone who knows God to seek out the company of those whom God has lost and not yet found. God feels their loss but never gives up on finding them. He suffers in their absence but never forgets them. God is the one who gains when he pardons the sinner. He recovers what was lost and he finds joy. Precisely because Jesus knew the joy that sinners bring to God when they return, he did everything possible to bring about their conversion. If any of us consider ourselves good, and cannot give God the joy that God finds in the return of one who was lost, we can devote ourselves, as Jesus did, to encouraging sinners we know to return to God and give him the joy of pardoning them. It would be a meritorious exercise, even if it meant causing scandal.

And one last brief but important thing to note: the story Jesus told does not have a good ending. We will never know if the elder son went into the house to share his father’s joy. We don’t know, if, in the end, the father lost the son who had not gone away. People who think they are “good” run the risk of serving God always as faithful servants, and never knowing the joy of being with him in his home, not recognising as a brother the son of the same father. And if they do not accept the joy of finding their brother, they end up by robbing God of his joy and his fatherhood. At the end of the story, it depends on the “good” son whether or not the Father will have two sons.