Fourth Sunday of Lent
When
people ask me what my favorite sacrament is, I don’t think they’re generally
surprised to hear me say the Eucharist.
Vatican II teaches us that the Eucharist is meant to be the source and
summit of Christian life, the beginning of our life in Christ, whence we get
the strength to live as disciples, and the goal of the Christian life, that we
have intimate communion with God.
For priests even more so, the Eucharist is the key to the priesthood, as
the priest acts in the person of Christ the Head, offering himself to the
Father represented by the bread and the wine which become the Body and Blood of
Jesus Christ.
I
think they are more surprised when I say that there is another sacrament that
is tied for first with the Eucharist, and that sacrament is Reconciliation. But it’s true. While I was, in some ways, prepared for
the joy of celebrating the Mass and bringing about, in an unbloody manner, the
sacrifice of Christ on the cross through the Eucharist, I have to say I was not
prepared for what a gift celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation would be.
At
this point I have to make a disclaimer: I don’t love to celebrate
Reconciliation as a confessor because I get to hear all your dirty little
secrets of the things you’ve done wrong.
What I love is the fact that I get to take part in an intimate moment
between the penitent and God and get to grant that penitent the forgiveness of
their sins in the name of Christ, and bring them back to the road to
heaven. It is an experience of
humility (because it takes true humility to tell God, not that we have made a
mistake, but that we freely chose to go against His will) and an experience of
love. I treasure the “ministry of
reconciliation” as St. Paul says in our second reading, that God has entrusted
to me. I am in awe of the fact
that, though I continue to need to
confess my sins (being a priest doesn’t mean that I suddenly stop sinning), God
has chosen me to grant that forgiveness to His beloved sons and daughters so
that they can, once more, be prepared for heaven.
Our
Gospel passage is all too familiar to us today. We likely hear it every year, at least once. But it is so powerful, if we let it
speak to us! We can put ourselves
in the place of the prodigal son, the son who wastes his inheritance on dissipate
living, and then who goes broke, and has to work as a swineherd (one of the
worst jobs that a Jew could have), and would love just to eat the pigs’
food. We can put ourselves in the
place of the son who recognizes that he needs to return to the Father, if for
no other reason than just to work as a slave so that he can eat. And we can put ourselves in the place
of the son who is embraced by the Father who has run out to meet him. We can put ourselves in the place of
the son, because that is what happens in reconciliation.
“All
men have sinned,” says St. Paul in his letter to the Romans, “and are deprived
of the glory of God.” We all tell
God that we know better, that we’d rather control our own lives and do our own
thing. It’s the ancient sin of
pride, which leads to so many other sins.
We squander the inheritance of grace that we received in baptism, when
we were made sons and daughters in the Son of God. And when we do that, we squander it quickly, and we find
that we are living a trashy life, amidst slops that are meant for the
pigs. But God does not abandon
us. He gives us grace, we use the
term prevenient grace, to lead us back to Him, to consider that the “threshold
of the house of God” is better than the “tents of the wicked,” as Psalm 84 says. Even just being close to union is God
is better than living with evil.
And so we start on our way back.
But before we can even get out the words of our apology, to try to argue
our case for being a slave rather than the heir that we were, the Father
embraces us and says to us
“Quickly bring the
finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his
feet. Take the fattened calf and
slaughter it. Then let us
celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life
again; he was lost, and has been found.”
God doesn’t rub in our
face the wrong we have done, but celebrates that we have returned to our
Father’s house, and that we are back to life in grace.
There
is nothing quite like the experience of welcoming someone back to the love of
God in reconciliation. Often,
those who have been away from the Church for some time or those who feel the
heavy weight of sin are brought to tears.
I am not ashamed to say that from time to time I am brought to tears as the love of God flows through me and I
rejoice in the fact that the penitent was lost and now is found, was dead and
is now alive by the grace of God.
I
want to invite each of you today, whether it’s been a week or a lifetime, to
come experience this great sacrament of God’s mercy, and to start a habit of
making regular confessions.
There’s no sin that can permanently keep you from the love of God, unless
you give that sin that power. God
will forgive all sins, if we come to Him in sorrow, sincerely at least wanting
to stop. Whether it’s lying; impatience; stealing; adultery; viewing pornography and the sin that often accompanies it;
sex outside of marriage; contracepting; murder; abortion; missing Mass; pride;
or whatever other sins we may struggle with, God wants to put a robe of love
around you and put the ring that signifies your place in God’s household on
your finger. Maybe it’s only been
a few days since you last went to confession. Maybe it’s been forty years since you last went to
confession. In either case, we
priests are glad to give you the assurance of God’s mercy. We have a great confession schedule
between St. Thomas and St. John, and we even have a communal penance service
with individual confession & absolution next Sunday, 17 March at 2 p.m. at
St. Thomas in case you want to go to a priest from out of town (though recall
that we can’t tell anyone else your sins, nor can we treat you any differently
based upon your confession). Don’t
stay stuck in the pigs’ slop. Come
back to the Father’s house. Let
God love you and forgive you.
“Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.”
