Homilies & Reflections

March 14: Fourth Sunday of Lent

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

From prodigal children to God’s children

Everything we hear, everything we see, everything we celebrate as a Christian community this time of year is an invitation to cross the Lenten desert to the Easter waters of baptism.

We journey with the elect through the final days of preparation, but we, the “already-initiated” Catholics, must make this journey our own if we are to find the Easter Vigil’s renewal of baptism significant, life-giving, and truly a deepening commitment to the person of Jesus. And so, baptism is the lens through which we will view this week’s Gospel.

This Gospel passage, the parable of the prodigal son, is so familiar that we may fail to see, to hear, and to understand. Perhaps this lens of baptism will allow us to see, to hear, to understand, and to respond again as if for the first time.

So often we are asked which of the three characters we most identify with. How am I the younger brother who was lured away making many wrong choices and living with the consequences? How am I the older brother whose hurt and bitterness blocked him from sharing his father’s joy at his brother’s return? How am I called to be like the father reaching out in love and forgiveness?

Instead, I would suggest that looking at the experience of each of the brothers empowers us to answer the basic Easter questions:

Do you reject Satan?
And his empty promises?
Do you reject sin so as to live in the freedom of God’s children?

Because I see that, like the younger brother, my journey has taken me away from love, I can identify the hooks and temptations that draw me away.

I see the empty promises I have embraced and what effort will be needed to confront and work against this as I answer, “I do.”

Like the older brother I need healing for the roots of my sinful choices as I choose to reject sin and choose freedom as I respond, “I do.”

When I watch and listen to the father I allow my image of God to heal, to grow, to deepen. And so, this Easter, when asked “Do you believe in God?” my heart responds “I do!”

— Bonnie Kirk

Bonnie is a pastoral associate at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada.