4th Sunday of Lent C

When the Israelites crossed over the Jordan,
at the end of their exodus from Egypt,
they arrived in the Promised Land.
It was a home-coming because their ancestors lived in that region a long time ago.
Abraham settled there, and his grandson Jacob went from there to Egypt at the time of the famine.
They left as one family and returned some 400 years later as a nation.

The father in the Gospel parable allowed his son to exercise his free will, to go off and squander the money he gave him.
Many fathers would not have advanced an inheritance to a young son, especially not to one who was likely to behave irresponsibly.
Even more fathers would have grieved over the lost money taking up the son’s suggestion that he should go and live with the servants for a while to learn his lesson.

But the father Jesus described was no like that.
He did not keep his returning, penniless son at arms length.
For him the lost money, his son’s lack of love for the family, his lack of discipline and loose morals
were secondary to having him there with him because he loved him.

Love — St Paul told us - is always ready to make allowances
and it does not take offence or store up grievances.
Love is always ready to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes.
Our Father in heaven is like that — says Jesus.

The saints are already sharing everything that he has
and we too will be welcomed by him with open arms,
whatever wrong we may have done,
or however much we may have squandered the gifts he had given us,
or however little love we have for him and everything divine,
if only we accept that we need him and want to go to him and be with him.