If you want to know Jesus, you need to know His mercy.
Read Chapter 15 of the gospel according to Saint Luke here.
Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son to illustrate the great mercy of God. The story first illuminates the gravity of our sins. It might be tempting to downplay the seriousness of the prodigal son’s offenses. He’s young, he’s living his best life, he goes to a few parties, he racks up some credit card debt. What’s the harm in having a little fun? But note how the story begins: the prodigal son goes to his father and asks for his share of the inheritance. The son is essentially saying to his father, “I wish you were dead already. You’re an inconvenience to me. Since you won’t die when I’d like you to, can you at least give me my share of the inheritance now? We can just pretend that you’re dead.” This is the greatest insult the son can give to the father. The life of dissipation the prodigal son embarks on from here is an affirmation, and a logical consequence, of his full-throated rejection of his loving father.
One of the most remarkable but often overlooked aspects of the story is that the father gives the prodigal son his share of the inheritance at all. A normal father, upon hearing such a request, would tell his son to go jump in a lake, if not worse. And this father surely knows what will result from giving his younger son his share of the inheritance. Yet this father allows his son to take the money and run. And our heavenly Father likewise allows us to reject Him if we so choose. We can choose to adore our Creator or reject Him. We can choose to trust His Son, our savior Jesus Christ, or we can refuse to serve Him. We can choose a life of love – by daily taking up our cross – or we can choose a life of selfishness. Why does God give us this choice? Because God is love, and He wants us to share in His love, and love cannot be forced. It has to be chosen. If the father of the prodigal son were to force him to stay, he might get sullen, unwilling obedience from his son, but he wouldn’t get love. And so it is with our Heavenly Father – he lets us choose. We can love Him and serve Him, or we can reject Him and run away like the prodigal son.
Of course things don’t work out for the prodigal son on his own. He blows through his money, a famine hits, and he finds himself feeding the swine. (For Jesus’ Jewish audience, this was the most degrading work imaginable.) He realizes he has sinned gravely and he needs to return to his father. Note that he doesn’t expect his father to forgive him. His exact words to his father are, “I don’t deserve to be called your son.” And that’s a true statement, as far as it goes.
Here is the most wonderful part of the story. What the prodigal son doesn’t realize is that deserving has nothing to do with it. The father always loves him. Nothing can stop the father from loving him, not because of who the son is, but because of who the father is. And that’s how it is with our Heavenly Father. God is simple. Human beings are complicated. We run hot and cold. We do good one minute and evil the next. But God is simple. He is our Father. He always loves us. He will never stop loving us. So when we run away, and we return to Him, He doesn’t begrudgingly take us back. He runs out to greet us. He kisses us. He dresses us in fine clothes and throws a giant party for us. He calls the saints and angels and invites them to celebrate with Him, for His beloved son who was dead has come back to life again.
This is what the mercy of God looks like. And it is available to anyone throughout this life, if we just return home to the loving embrace of our Father.
“We ought to favor forgiving sin after repentance, lest while grudging pardon to another, we ourselves obtain it not from our Lord. Let us not envy those who return from a distant country, seeing that we ourselves also were afar off.” – Saint Ambrose
Image: The Return of the Prodigal Son by Pompeo Batoni (downloaded from Wikipedia Commons).
Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet every day for the salvation of souls.
