24th Sunday of the Year C 2016

May the merciful God pardon all your faults, transform your life and enable you to imitate him by showing mercy to your needy  neighbour, not only in the remaining part of the Year of Mercy but also through all your life. Happy Sunday! + John I. Okoye

DOCTRINE AND FAITH

(Exodus 32,7-11.13-14; 1 Tim 1, 12-17; Luke 15, 1-32: 24th Sunday of the Year C  2016)

    The readings of today’s liturgy go directly to our hearts and call up a consoling message, which is: God pardons sins, He is merciful, loving; His love is beyond human comprehension. In the first reading God shows his mercy to his stiff-necked and gruntled people who fell into idolatry. God pardoned them; thanks to the disinterested intercession of Moses. The mercy of God was also shown to Paul and as he reasons, it was because Jesus Christ meant to make me the greatest evidence of his inexhaustible patience for all the other people who would later have to trust in him to come to eternal life. God shows mercy to all because Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Paul holds that he is the greatest sinner of all. However, the mercy of God is not only limited to the forgiveness of sins, cancelling or forgetting of the faults one has committed. It also means that as God pardons, he makes the sinner recuperate; He regenerates and renews the sinner in his interiority. As God was pardoning the sins of the people of Israel, at the same time, he was restoring them to the dignity of the covenant people. As He was pardoning Paul, he was transforming the sinner, and the violent blasphemer into an apostle and entrusting him with the ministry of the Word and reconciliation. When God pardons us our sins, he re-endows us with divine life and the dignity of sons and daughters of God.

    The two short parables of today’s gospel further shows how merciful God is. God has not only the mind of always pardoning the sinner but in addition, goes Himself in search for him, seeks him out so that he may be converted. Just as a shepherd continues searching for his lost sheep until he finds it, and as a woman who lost her coin would sweep the whole house in search of her coin, in the same way God follows the sinner, using all types of persuasion in order to guide him back home.

    In the parable of the prodigal son, the magnanimity of the father is shown in two ways. In the first place, he gave the younger son freedom to take his decision and make his choice. He did not oppose his leaving the house, nor his taking away with him his share of inheritance. When the prodigal son decided to return home, the father runs towards him to welcome him back as if he is waiting for his return. He embraces him, does not scold him, and restores him to the dignity of a son with a feast. In the same way, God respects, maximally, the freedom of people, even the liberty of sinners who, by their sins, are separating themselves from him. He leaves them go the way they have chosen, even though He knows it would bring them to ruins. And when they repent, he is always disposed to forgive, bring them into the intimacy of His house and recognize them as his sons or daughters. God also allows people to wallow among pigs and even experience great hunger. Coming to such depth of desperation, the prodigal son would, critically, reflect on his situation, discover his fault, realize that he has lost his right as a son and, has no alternative than to wait to be shown mercy. When someone has experienced the depth of his incapacity and then recognizes the value of grace, it will dawn on him that he is unable to help himself and that the only way out is the help from God, there is no alternative then for him than to fall on his knees and ask for forgiveness, mercy and help.

    If we consider ourselves good Christians and have never had the bitter experience of the prodigal son and never abandoned the home of our Father, we run certain risks. The first is to think that we are the just, those in peace with God and so we have not had the surprising experience of God pardoning our sins, showing us his mercy and transforming our lives totally and radically. It is also a risk, like the elder son of the parable did, not taking into consideration the grace we have had to have remained in the home of the Father, and have had the opportunity to share everything with Him and have been spared all the bitter and negative experience. God in his merciful love has given us the opportunity of this Jubilee Year of Mercy to really experience the pardon, mercy and reconciliation of God. He is waiting for us. He is ready to pardon all our sins and transform us in the depth of our being. Let us, like the prodigal son, decide: I will leave this place and go to my Father and say: Father I have sinned against heaven and against you… Happy Sunday!

 +John I. Okoye