We have different idioms to say the same thing: children are often very like their parents. There is the obvious likeness in physical attributes – things like hair color, eye color, etc. – but we also know that children and parents often have similar personalities as well. And even more important than genetics are the qualities that the child implicitly learns from the parent. Through observation, example, and imitation, a child learns from the parent how to be, how to exist.
But while children often take after their parents, we also know of counter-examples as well. Some children rebel against their parents and the values they had taught them, either consciously or unconsciously. Despite being taught well, despite receiving a good example, some children nonetheless choose the more difficult path of wanting to figure things out on their own.
The Return of the Prodigal Son (1773) by Pompeo Batoni
The parable of today’s Gospel is at its heart a story of just such a family, a story that revolves around the dynamic between two children who are very much not like their father. In this case, the apples have fallen far from the tree. The younger son is openly rebellious: he is gluttonous, wayward, and openly dismissive of his father. In desiring immediately his share of the inheritance, he implicitly treats his father as if he is already dead. The older son is a little better, but by the end of the story, he too is revealed to be quite flawed: he is jealous, hard-hearted, and disrespectful. By contrast, the father is generous, merciful, compassionate, and wise. What happened? How could the sons be so unlike their father?
The parable doesn’t tell us directly. But knowing what we know about parents and children, we can make an educated guess. It seems unlikely that such a loving and merciful father would have instructed sons badly or provided them a poor example. We have to conclude then that these sons simply did not know their father well enough. They had not appreciated his goodness or understood his love, and so they did not mimic those qualities according to his example. If only they had known him better, more fully, his goodness could have become theirs.
Perhaps you can see where I’m going with this. Jesus’s parables always tells us something about who God is and what our relationship with him must be like. This one is no different. Our Father in heaven rejoices to welcome back into his merciful love any sinner who recognizes their error, repents, and asks for forgiveness. But if God is always ready to forgive us, we must also ask ourselves why is that we fall; with a God who is so good and loving, why do we turn away from him? Surely, part of the answer is that though we are God’s sons and daughters, we do not know him as we ought. We have not understood his own goodness, the depths of his mercy, and so as in the parable, we seek happiness in created things or we become judgmental of others, self-righteous and self-justifying.
If we wish to know God better, more fully, there is no substitute for prayer. Prayer is the dialogue of relationship, the communion of spirit between ourselves and our Creator. Like a child who observes a parent, and learns from them how to be, prayer is where we come to understand who God truly is, and who we are in relationship to him. Most of us probably recognize we should pray more, and we may even desire to pray more, but we can’t seem to find time in our busy, daily schedules. When prayer is just something we “need to do”, just one more obligation, it’s easy to put off. We must see prayer as essential to our existence as food or drink, as life-giving as communication with our dearest friend, for that is what it is.
We also should not be afraid of wasting time in prayer, for in prayer, there is no such thing as wasted time. We don’t have to always be accomplishing something; we have to move away from that incessant need to have our senses filled and our minds occupied. We have to learn not to judge time spent in prayer by “what we get out of it.” In her book Essence of Prayer, the English Carmelite nun Sr. Ruth Burrows writes, “Prayer is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us. It is not primarily something we are doing to God, something we are giving to God but what God is doing for us. And what God is doing for us is giving the divine Self in love.”
The parable doesn’t tell us directly. But knowing what we know about parents and children, we can make an educated guess. It seems unlikely that such a loving and merciful father would have instructed sons badly or provided them a poor example. We have to conclude then that these sons simply did not know their father well enough. They had not appreciated his goodness or understood his love, and so they did not mimic those qualities according to his example. If only they had known him better, more fully, his goodness could have become theirs.
Perhaps you can see where I’m going with this. Jesus’s parables always tells us something about who God is and what our relationship with him must be like. This one is no different. Our Father in heaven rejoices to welcome back into his merciful love any sinner who recognizes their error, repents, and asks for forgiveness. But if God is always ready to forgive us, we must also ask ourselves why is that we fall; with a God who is so good and loving, why do we turn away from him? Surely, part of the answer is that though we are God’s sons and daughters, we do not know him as we ought. We have not understood his own goodness, the depths of his mercy, and so as in the parable, we seek happiness in created things or we become judgmental of others, self-righteous and self-justifying.
If we wish to know God better, more fully, there is no substitute for prayer. Prayer is the dialogue of relationship, the communion of spirit between ourselves and our Creator. Like a child who observes a parent, and learns from them how to be, prayer is where we come to understand who God truly is, and who we are in relationship to him. Most of us probably recognize we should pray more, and we may even desire to pray more, but we can’t seem to find time in our busy, daily schedules. When prayer is just something we “need to do”, just one more obligation, it’s easy to put off. We must see prayer as essential to our existence as food or drink, as life-giving as communication with our dearest friend, for that is what it is.
We also should not be afraid of wasting time in prayer, for in prayer, there is no such thing as wasted time. We don’t have to always be accomplishing something; we have to move away from that incessant need to have our senses filled and our minds occupied. We have to learn not to judge time spent in prayer by “what we get out of it.” In her book Essence of Prayer, the English Carmelite nun Sr. Ruth Burrows writes, “Prayer is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us. It is not primarily something we are doing to God, something we are giving to God but what God is doing for us. And what God is doing for us is giving the divine Self in love.”
Masaccio, The Holy Trinity (1425) [detail]
To learn who our Father is, we have the benefit of a Son to teach us. Christ reveals his Father to us, but he also teaches us how to relate to the Father ourselves, how to pray to him, how to trust in him, how to learn from his goodness and mercy in the way that we encounter others. In and through the Son, we too can reflect his Image of the Father’s love, an image of the divine life present here in this reality. At a minimum, we encounter this way of praying in and through the Son each Sunday at Mass. In the Mass, we are caught up in the Son’s self-offering to the Father, and we receive from the Father his greatest gift, the presence of his Son. The Mass teaches us how to be, how to exist in relationship with God, how to be a son after the Son, how to learn who our Father truly is. What a benefit a few additional moments of prayer in the Mass might do for us: perhaps arriving at Mass a few minutes earlier to prepare ourselves more fully for what we will receive, or perhaps staying just a few moments afterward to offer a prayer for what we have received. In prayer, as in all other things, God is not outdone in generosity.
Friends, the penitential practices we take up during Lent are good and just, but perhaps there is nothing that is as beneficial for us in this season as a deepened experience of prayer. Cardinal Robert Sarah says, “The most important moments in life are the hours of prayer and adoration. They give birth to a human being, fashion our true identity; they root our existence in mystery.” This Lent, where is the Lord inviting you to come to know him more fully? How is he inviting you to learn more deeply his own goodness, mercy, and love, so that you can mimic his example, so that those qualities can become your own? “Like Father, like Son” – like the Eternal Father, like the Divine Son, let us grow in knowledge, in understanding of who we are in relationship to the Lord and so receive all that he desires to give to us.
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