OMELIE / Omelie EN

31 mar 2019

31/03/2019 – 4th Sunday of Lent - C

31/03/2019 – 4^th Sunday of Lent - C

Reading 1 JOS 5,9.10-12 * Psalm 33 * Reading 2 2COR 5,17-21 * Gospel LK 15,1-3.11-32

For the people of Israel it was a very significant step to go from eating the manna, coming from the sky as a free gift, to eating the products of the Promised Land! Unleavened cakes are the first food the people enjoys in the new land, unleavened cakes like the day they left Egypt. This bread is a sign of freedom, a sign that God keeps the promises, a sign that to suffering lived faithfully follows the joy of a new life!

New and bright is the life of the Christian: it needs a new “bread” to thrive, and it shows itself through new behaviors! Saint Paul reminds us that. The Christian's life is new because they are in Christ. Whoever units himself to Jesus does not eat the bread of a temporary life, and he does not meaninglessly move among things that are going to disappear, things coming from selfishness that produce loneliness. Whoever entered the 'heart' of the good news, entering, through the baptism or its rediscovery, the mystery of Jesus dead and risen, the same one is living a new condition; for him everything is different, starting from the goal of his life.

Saint Paul is speaking to Christians already baptized, who need to wake up and rediscover their vocation. They are the Christians of Corinth, some of which have behaved in a way to deserve a serious reprimand. They need to admit that, by disobeying Jesus, they have distanced themselves from the Father's plan and His love. They need to let themselves to be reconciled by welcoming the gift that God wants to give them through the ministers of the Church.

The apostle is aware of his role in favor of the Christians. His word is God’s word, his pleading is God’s pleading, his welcoming the sinner is welcoming God! Therefore he bursts out: “Be reconciled to God”. God does not hold grudge and to be reconciled to Him is possible, because the way has already been prepared. Jesus has given His Spirit to the Apostles for them to be able to welcome in God’s communion men who are far from Him. In this way God the Father's love can be enjoyed again by the believer fallen in the temptation of his selfishness.

The passage from the Gospel is a strong encouragement specifically for the sinners. Jesus' words are a lighthouse shedding light on God's face in order for us to admire His mercy. In the parable He does not nominate God, but it is easy for us to understand that He is talking about Him. The father who has two sons represents evidently God the Father. The way the Jews understand it can be read between the lines: the people of Israel and all the other peoples are realities very different, that consider themselves far from each other. The two sons of the father would represent, according to Jesus, these two realities opposed to each other. This opposition is well known to Jesus, so much so that in the parable He never puts in the two sons' mouths the word “brother”. Both of them, however, are sons of the same father: God feels the same love towards Jews and pagans.

One of the two sons is clearly a rebel. He goes far away, enjoying his part of earthly goods despising the father's desires, completely detached and uninterested in the possible needs of his brother. This son is enjoying a non-lasting joy, as the pagans, but his enjoyment is soon over. Earthly goods do not last forever and therefore the same happens to the joy coming from them. Freedom without love becomes slavery, a hard slavery, that slavery to the idols which the peoples of the world are under. At this point memory comes to his aid. The memory of the father’s goodness towards his servants produces in him the desire to go back, to meet him, and gives him the courage and the strength to be humble. The meeting is with the father, not with the brother. It is more like the meeting with the brother happens through the father’s heart and hands. The reconciliation needs to happen, and is actually happening, with the father. Reconciliation to the father is joy, and produces new life, shown by the brand new sandals, the brand new tunic and the brand new ring, and the big feast animated by music and dancing.

The father wants to explain the reasons for recognizing the brother come back and reconciled to the other son, who has become jealous and offended. Why the oldest son is refusing the father’s joy? Why he does not want to be like the father and learn from him? How much love this son is lacking! He does not want to be like the father, he does not appreciate him! His obedience was faked, in order to get preferential treatment and benefits. His obedience was not love. He did not possess the true spirit of a son: a true son does what he sees the father do!

The rebellious son has been reconciled, through his humiliation. The good son has not, he finds himself far from the brother, and, even worse, from the father. This is the danger in which was the people of Israel, to which Jesus addressed His parable. This is the danger in which find themselves today those Christians baptized at their birth, having been Christians forever. They are the ones who need to reconcile themselves to the Father in order to welcome whoever arrives only now to the faith and in order to rejoice with them for the gift of communion with the Father!

Our life is new when we become again like children for the Father, making our His way to love. We are not looking any more for temporary food that feeds only in the desert, but for the one that feeds the new life of obedient children who want to be with the father and like the Father, fully united to Him in the love towards all brethren! This food is the one which Jesus gives us here, His most holy Body.