March 10, 2013 Cycle C
Turning to the Gospel of St. Luke today we truly have the story of the vagabond son as an example for us. If he had stayed away after he ran out of the money, he might have never seen his father’s house again. Dead for years, he could have stayed buried in his dissipated life. Then the story would have had an unhappy, if more familiar ending. It was some mixture of pain, shame, need and remembered love that conspired the young man to set him back on the road home.
In recent weeks we have seen, another example of a “pig sty moment” in the story of Lance Armstrong. In the famous interview he gave with Oprah we heard about the moment Lance realized he had to end the lies.
Interesting enough it was not over the 75 million dollars in sponsorship deals that had suddenly evaporated, or having to walk away from his “Live Strong Foundation” that had raised millions of dollars for cancer research. It wasn’t even his lifetime ban from sports competition.
You see the moment Armstrong knew he had to come clean as he said when he reported, “I saw my 13 year old son, Luke, defending me and saying, ‘That’s not true. What you’re saying about my dad is not true.’ And that’s when I knew I had to tell him.”
Then Oprah asked him what he had to say to Luke. As he struggled to compose himself Lance recalled, “I said to Luke, listen, there’s been a lot of questions about your dad, about my career, whether I doped or did not dope. I’ve always denied that I’ve been ruthless about that—And finally I told Luke, don’t defend me anymore, don’t.”
And Luke responded, “Ok. Look I love you. You are my dad. This won’t change that.”
It was in that moment that Lance realized how bad his deception had gotten and how much hurt he had really caused. In the parable of Prodigal Son today we find how the son finally faces the reality of how badly he had messed up when he finds himself tending the pigs.
It’s fair to say that all of us have had our “pig sty” epiphanies: when we finally face the mess our selfishness, our insensitivity, our dishonesty, has made of our lives and the lives of those we love. Lent calls us to embrace God’s grace and it is recognized for us especially in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is the opportunity to experience God’s healing forgiveness.
This Tuesday, March 12th at 7pm, I invite you to join us here in the Church for our Lenten Communal Penance Service. It is a special time for us to come together. For in the second reading today St. Paul used the verb “to reconcile” five times, as he explored the depth of the forgiveness that Jesus has won for us and the implications of the new life which that brings. We are called to participate in that Sacrament of Reconciliation ourselves. The Parable of the Prodigal Son is talking about God’s attitude towards us in just the same way that Paul does: “God in Christ was reconciling the world to Himself, not holding men’s faults against them.”
This parable is not only about individual choices we make, but how we live as a Christian community. For we know forgiving others is probably the hardest thing any of us will ever be called to do. Yet, without it, we cannot live either individually or corporately as the people of God, as images of Jesus Christ.
As we participate in this powerful gift of forgiveness this week, we will receive the grace that enables us to lift ourselves out of the mud of our own sins so we can be reconnected again with family and friends. It is a grace that will empower us away from our selfishness and deceptions, and to recreate our broken lives into new beginnings of reconciliation and restoration.
For truly forgiveness is about building the future and healing the past, in order to live hopefully and joyfully in the present. Come together with us this week and experience Gospel forgiveness, putting aside your hurts and anger, your doubts and cynicism. We have been invited by the Lord God Himself to let go and to turn with hope towards a new future with Him.
Amen. Amen. Msgr. Tom Adrians, Pastor, Christ the King