Homecoming is an exciting experience! It is a time for revisiting a place which was part of everyday life and a time for renewing relationships; a time for celebrating. But homecomings always necessitate leaving behind someplace or something. In today’s Gospel it is at the empty pig trough (for no one gave him any thing to eat), that the younger son in the parable “comes to his senses”, Luke tells us. He could go home to his father, where he would be fed and loved. Finally, he could leave behind his sinful past. What a moment of truth! Yes, he had prepared his speech, asking for forgiveness, but his father was so overjoyed to see him that he wanted to celebrate his son’s homecoming immediately; his son whom he loved so tenderly. It was this love that transformed his son, before he ever arrived home. Henri Nouwen , in his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, speaks beautifully about his experience of gazing on Rembrandt’s painting of the Prodigal. He says: “The more I gazed at the painting, it became, somehow, the heart of the story that God wants to tell me and the heart of the story that I want to tell God and God’s people. All of the Gospel is there. All of my life is there. All of the lives of every beloved sinner are there. The painting has become a mysterious window through which I can step into the Kingdom of God. It is like an open gate that allows me to enter into the presence of God who loves me.” May each of us have such an experience of homecoming this Lent.
-Sister Margaret Donner
Sisters of St. Mary of Namur . 241 Lafayette Avenue . Buffalo, New York 14213 . (716) 884-8221