Today’s Gospel of the Prodigal Son helps us to take a peek into the Heart of God the Father.
In the parable, the son took half of the family’s inheritance and spent it all on himself. He used the money for prostitutes. He did not care about his family, and wasn’t involved in their life, until he lost everything. He was unconcerned about his family and how they might be worried about him.
“Finally he came to his senses and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have enough food to eat, but here I am, dying of hunger! I will get up and go back to my father and 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.”
He must have slowly walked back home with his head hung down, expecting the worst. We see that he did not know his father’s heart.
What does his father do? He sees his son in the distance and runs out to meet him. He threw his arms around him, kissed him and hugged him. His father ordered his servants, “Quickly, bring the finest robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals in his feet. Take the calf and slaughter it.”
In the parable, the father was extravagant in His mercy. The prodigal son squandered his family’s inheritance by living a very sinful life, didn’t know his father’s heart, who was ready to welcome him back, to forgive, and even have a feast because of his repentance.
His brother also didn’t know his father’s heart. He thought his father should punish his brother, rather than have a feast. He was jealous and didn’t want to attend the feast.
I’m the chaplain for Living Giving Wounds, a newly formed national organization in Wichita whose members are Adult Children of Divorced Parents.
When children, whose parents divorced, become adults, often times, they have to deal with all sorts of difficulties, due to the dysfunction from when they were children.
After my parents divorced, one day, one of my younger sisters left home without telling anyone where she went. She took off with her boyfriend and no one could find her. After our family filed a missing person’s report, she came home, which caused an avalanche of anger and arguing among family members. It was a terrible situation. She didn’t experience the heart of God the Father.
In divorced families, some have more severe events in their lives than others. But, all have wounds from their parent’s divorce. For example, some children have never seen their father, since the divorce. Some parents pit their children against the other parent.
When becoming an adult, childhood scars can make one feel out of place. Like they don’t belong anywhere. They have a false notion that no one else has difficulties.
Divorce is traumatic for children who can grow up with false guilt, where they blame themselves for their parent’s divorce. Some parents even blame their children for it, which is very unjust. Some feel shame, thinking God doesn’t love them and sometimes have difficulty loving and forgiving themselves.
But, Life Giving Wounds helps them to look at their wounds, and discover God the Father’s healing balm and loves them extravagantly, that they are precious in the eyes of God. In fact, I personally believe all those who suffer from divorce are God’s special children, including parents.
There is a false idea, that those who are married have perfect marriages, and so the divorced can feel out of place. But, the truth is you do not know what goes on behind closed doors. There are no perfect marriages. There are people in every parish, who have very deep heartaches with regard to their family. But, it’s hidden.
We all have problems. We all make mistakes, and we all have family crosses.
Through Life Giving Wounds, we help adult children of divorced to forgive their parents and family members. We show them, that God can redeem these wounds and give them peace.
After I finished college and when I was working in Hays, I volunteered at an emergency shelter for teens. The teens who came to the shelter were either runaways or seriously neglected by their family. Some suffered from verbal and physical abuse, and other types of abuse that I can’t mention in a homily.
One evening while working at the emergency shelter, as I was watching TV, I noticed there was no noise in the house and it was oddly quiet.
I went to check on the teenage kids, and all 5 of them escaped through a window. Shocked and not knowing what to do, I called my supervisor, who called the police to report the missing children.
Those of us who were working at the shelter, drove our cars down the streets of Hays looking for them.
When I saw them walking on the sidewalk, I pulled my car up beside them and asked them to get in. Some didn’t want to return, but I reminded them that they had no other place to go. After about an hour, two teens were still missing.
I happen to drive by a Mexican restaurant and noticed the two sitting in a booth. We all went inside, sat together and a soda pop together.
I convinced them to come back to the house. As we were going back, I noticed a police cruiser and told the officer-- all were found safe.
The teenage children expected that I would yell at them or to take them to the police department. When we got back, they said, “Aren’t you mad at us?” I said, “No, I was worried about you and care about you. I’m glad you are safe.”
The teens in the emergency shelter would eventually go to foster homes-- to either someday be reunited with their family or be adopted or live in foster homes, or when they are of age-- to be on their own.
Just as the prodigal son and his brother didn’t know the heart of their father, and his brother didn’t know his father’s heart, so also the teens who ran away from the shelter, didn’t know the Heart of God the Father.
Jesus revealed the Father’s Heart by giving us the parable of the prodigal son, but also by forgiving the Samaritan woman at the well, the woman who committed adultery, He forgave the good thief on the cross. Jesus forgave Peter who denied Jesus three times, forgiving Zacheaus the tax collector, who cheated many. He forgave Saul, who persecuted Christians and who took the name, Paul and became an apostle to the Gentiles, who wrote many letters in the New Testament.
Over the centuries Jesus has forgiven a prostitute, who became a cloistered nun. He forgave a satanist, Barto Longo, who eventually promoted the Rosary, will be canonized this year. He forgave abortionist Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who was responsible for 7,000 abortions and became a pro-life leader. Jesus forgave Don Calloway was promiscuous and addicted to drugs, who was later ordained him a priest and is now Fr. Calloway of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception.
Do you have a false view of God the Father’s love and mercy? The Father gave everything He had, so that we could receive His mercy. And that everything was His only Son, Jesus, whom He sent into the world, to be scourged at the pillar, crowned with thorns, spat upon, slapped, carry a cross, stripped of his clothes, His hands and feet nailed to the Cross and then He died and if that wasn’t enough, after He was dead, His Heart with pierced with a lance.
By looking at a Crucifix, can’t you see how much the Father loves you? How can one reject God’s mercy, when the Father gave us everything, His only begotten Son?