Coming to His Senses

Saturday of the Second Week of Lent

Coming to his senses he thought, 'How many of my father's hired workers have more than enough food to eat, but here am I, dying from hunger. I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers."' Luke 15:17-19

Piety

Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance; Who does not persist in anger forever, but delights rather in clemency, And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt? You will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins. Micah 7:18-19

Study

Sometimes, the trap in reading a familiar biblical story is that you think you know it so well after hearing it read at Mass for 50 years, after countless retreats, after a school career of the Baltimore catechism, after eight required classes in theology and philosophy and the "Bible as Literature."  

Yet inside that familiarity is a pearl somewhere.  Your job, in studying this passage, is to find that pearl of great price.  Today, I thought I found it in the foreshadowing of the first reading which portrays a compassionate God, who delights in mercy, and who casts all our sins into the sea.  Yet, reading a level deeper, Micah of Moresheth was a contemporary of Isaiah and they both preached eight hundred years before Jesus was born. 

So, if the story of the Prodigal Son is not of the Merciful Father, it is about us coming to our senses.  Probably the son thinks nothing of asking his Father for what is rightfully his.  The request upsets the natural order by not waiting until the Father dies and he inherits the property and wealth. However, the Father agrees and off goes the son. 

God does not all of a sudden become compassionate.  The Father was always thus.  It is us who have to “come to our senses.”

Action

Keep the Men’s 134^th Team in your prayers today as they conduct Talk Day in the Community Room at Missionhurst. Their light must shine before the team before it shines before the candidates. http://www.arlingtoncursillo.org/134th-mens-weekend/

Keep the Women’s 149^th Team in your prayers as they get ready to launch into the full weekend experience this coming Thursday night (March 23^rd).  They need “different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit” including Palanca, weekend support and more.   http://www.arlingtoncursillo.org/149th-womens-weekend/

Your support of the Women’s 150^th Team is also “welcome here” as they are the third team in formation right now.  http://www.arlingtoncursillo.org/150th-womens-weekend/