MARCH 10th
2013. FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT
Gospel:
Luke 15:1-3;11-32
Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini,
broadcast on Vatican Radio
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Don Fabio’s reflection follows
the Gospel reading ...
GOSPEL: Luke 15:1-3;11-32
The tax collectors
and the sinners, meanwhile, were all seeking his company to hear what he had to
say, and the Pharisees and the scribes complained. 'This man' they said
'welcomes sinners and eats with them. So he spoke this parable to them:
‘A
man had two sons. The younger said to his father, "Father, let me have the
share of the estate that would come to me". So the father divided the
property between them. A few days later, the younger son got together
everything he had and left for a distant country where he squandered his money
on a life of debauchery.
'When
he had spent it all, that country experienced a severe famine, and now he began
to feel the pinch, so he hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants who
put him on his farm to feed the pigs. And he would willingly have filled his
belly with the husks the pigs were eating but no one offered him anything. Then
he came to his senses and said, "How many of my father's paid servants
have more food than they want, and here am I dying of hunger! I will leave is
this place and go to my father and say: Father, I have sinned against heaven
and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of
your paid servants." So he left the place and went back to his father.
'While
he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran
to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly. Then his son said,
"Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve
to be called your son." But the father said to his servants, "Quick!
Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals
on his feet. Bring the calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we are going
to have a feast, a celebration, because this son of mine was dead and has come
back to life; he was lost and is found." And they began to celebrate.
'Now
the elder son was out in the fields, and on his way back, as he drew near the
house, he could hear music and dancing. Calling one of the servants he asked
what it was all about. "Your brother has come" replied the servant
"and your father has killed the calf we had fattened because he has got
him back safe and sound." He was angry then and refused to go in, and his
father came out to plead with him; but he answered his father, "Look, all
these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed your orders, yet you
never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for
this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property - he
and his women - you kill the calf we had been fattening."
The father
said:
"My
son, you are with me always and all I have is yours.
But it was only right we should celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother here was dead and has come to life;
he was lost and is found."'
The
Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord
Jesus Christ
The
central figure in the parable of the prodigal son is the eldest son who is
envious that his brother has had the “enjoyment” of living a dissolute life,
and yet is welcomed home by his father with great celebration. We are all akin
to the eldest son in the sense that we continue to think of sin as if it were some
kind of delight that has been denied to us by an unjust father. Don Fabio’s
reflection on the parable highlights the level of depravity and baseness to
which a human being descends when he lives a life devoted to the satisfaction
of his own desires. To think of the state of sin as if it were an enviable way
of life is to fail completely to appreciate the depth and greatness of
humanity. Don Fabio focuses on the moment when the sinner realizes that his efforts
at self-satisfaction have left him empty and alone. In this moment, the sinner
recalls his secret and true identity. He realizes that he is a child of a
providential Father. This moment of truth, this “entry into himself”, is the
beginning of a process that will lead him back to the house of the Father.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son
is directed at those who secretly think that sin is enjoyable, and who are aggrieved
when the Lord welcomes such self-indulgent sinners back into the fold.
The principal figure in the parable of the
prodigal son is that of the eldest son, and this is clear when we consider the
context in which Jesus recounts his parable. The Pharisees are complaining because
Jesus is eating with sinners. In response ,Jesus tells them a parable that
finishes with the image of a man who refuses to enter the feast; a man who is
envious because (as he sees it) this sinner has had his self-centred gratification
and now is being welcomed back as a hero. Jesus realizes that the Pharisees are
grumbling about his association with sinners because they continue to think of
sin as if it were something enjoyable that has been prohibited to them. They
are envious that these ne'er-do-wells have indulged themselves in sin and yet
have the joy of eating and associating with the Lord. Jesus instead wants to show that sin is
destructive and involves the loss of our most authentic identity. Anyone who
thinks that sin consists in doing enjoyable acts that are prohibited has failed
to comprehend the depth and greatness of the human being.
The emptiness that the son
experiences is the result of the fact that he focuses only on the satisfaction
of his own desires. In such a context, love is absent, and our lives unravel
and become dissolute
We wish to focus on the process by which the
prodigal son begins to emerge from the self-destructive cycle of sin in which
he is immersed. The parable begins when the younger son asks for his share of
the inheritance. A few days later he gathers up everything he has and leaves.
This departure is an inevitable development. When I decide that I want to live my
life in an absolutely autonomous way, then I soon cease to have a healthy
relationship with those around me. So the younger son leaves and goes to a
faraway place. It is important that the place be far away, because he wants to
do exactly as he pleases; he wants to be the centre of his world. Here he
begins to squander his inheritance. At home, the inheritance was defended and
conserved by the father. Everything that we possess has its ultimate meaning in
the context of love. In a context where love is absent, the life of the younger
son begins to unravel. His existence becomes “dissolute”. The Greek term “dissolution”
(translated as “debauchery” in the English version) has a fairly precise
meaning. It signifies “one for whom there is no solution” or “one who does not have
salvation”. The younger son has made himself the centre of his existence; he
hungers for something but he cannot attain satisfaction because he only looks
inside himself for the solution to his hunger. This unending quest for
satisfaction leads him to spend everything. Loneliness is a bottomless pit into
which we can pour everything we possess, but it will never be filled as long as
the emphasis remains on ourselves.
Sin promises satisfaction but
leaves us empty
The state of sin involves a loneliness
that is insatiable. We become slaves in a “faraway country” where we are reduced
to a state in which our only occupation is the “feeding of pigs.” In the Hebrew
tradition the pig was considered to be an impure animal, something untouchable
that belonged to the world of the indefinable. The prodigal son is thus reduced
to a state where he is wholly occupied with attending to impure things. But
even here his hunger is not satiated. He wishes to fill his belly with the
husks that the pigs are eating, but no-one will offer him anything. This is
exactly what evil does. It encourages us to take a wayward path, and then it
leaves us high and dry. Sin holds out the promise of nutrition for us; it assures
us that it will lead to satisfaction; but all it does is lead us into a slavery
in which we cannot find the minimum genuine satisfaction or true sustenance.
Sin takes us away from God and then leaves us with nothing.
If we live a life that is
oriented to the satisfaction of our appetites, then we will find ourselves
unhappy and alone
The prodigal son wishes to eat what the
pigs are eating. Even his desires have been reduced to the point where he longs
for the things that animals want. The human being thus sinks to the lowest
level. But even at the level of being reduced to an animal he cannot attain
satisfaction. The human being has a fundamental need for relationship, for association
with someone who loves him. It is in the other that he ultimately finds his
sustenance. The prodigal son, however, does not have anyone who will offer him even
the minimum of nutrition. This image evokes many things that we see all around
us today. The world is filled with unhappy people who have absolutized their
own animal desires and find themselves in devastating isolation. They are
reduced to a life of constant satiation of their basest appetites, their most
depraved passions; a life in which they become more ever more isolated and
lonely, and in which no-one gives them any authentic nutrition.
Salvation begins when we begin to
rediscover our true and secret identity: that we are children of a providential
father
At this point, the process of salvation begins
for the prodigal son. The English version tells us that he “came to his senses.”
This is a translation of a phrase which means that “he re-entered into himself”.
What does this remarkable expression mean - “to enter into oneself”? From a state
of pain and loneliness, he finally takes the right direction. Curiously, before
he can return to his Father, he first has to return to himself. He has to “enter
into himself” because he was previously living outside of himself, detached
from the deepest truth about himself. He was pursuing an existence that was
alien to what he really was. In this process of “returning to himself”, he
realizes that he is not an animal, he does not eat like an animal, he is not a
slave to be used by others for their ends, he is not a dissolute, a “man
without salvation”. There is salvation for him. He remembers his father and his
own dignity. He recalls the place where there is no shortage of the real
nourishment that he needs, where there is a father who gives bread in
abundance.
To embark on the road to
salvation, the prodigal son must firstly enter into the most secret part of
himself, his true self. His life of dissolution has not taken this true self
away from him. In every human being there is a true self, the place where his
secret identity lies. We must move towards this true self before we can begin our
lives again. We must rediscover this hidden interior truth in which we begin to
recall that we are sons and daughters, and not abandoned strangers; children of
the father, and not swineherds; children of the father, and not lonely orphans.
It is here that we have an intuition of our true dignity; it is from this point
that salvation begins and we begin to journey towards the house of the father.
Once we make the journey inside, then we begin to understand where we must go
outside. At the beginning, this journey may be made for convenience, but it is convenience
in the most profound sense – to seek genuine nutrition, something wholesome to
eat. God takes us poor as we are, knowing that we move towards him only because
we have been left with no other option. But then, gradually, he makes us worthy
and gives us dignity, placing the best robe on our back, a ring on our finger,
and prepares a feast in which we can truly be satisfied.
