Good stories do not need explanation.  They do need to be well presented.  Then personal reflection and application will enrich the listeners.  Today’s gospel is one such great story.  Known to the older generation as the story of the prodigal son, the younger generation term it the loving father, while many good living, settled folk may well be tempted to identify self-righteously with the elder brother.  Each of these three characters highlights aspects of the human heart and of life experience.  The younger son typifies a common occurrence of one taking his chance and brashly taking on the world only to come crashing down with a painful bump.  In failure, some return home.  Hopefully, in most families, there is a welcome home.  But such a welcome is sometimes resented by those who have never kicked the traces but who have meticulously served as dependable family members.

For Jesus, the story was multi-purposed.  Above all, he wanted to highlight that God our Father’s mercy is always awaiting us, no matter what the failure, and that making mistakes is part of the tapestry of human living.

Failure repented of and forgiven has the potential to help us grow in maturity and love. It is in our weakness that God’s glory is revealed.

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Sunday Missal: Page 579    †   New Edition: Page739

Psalm Response
Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Spring is a time of new beginnings.  Leaves sprouting, birds nattering, colours peeping out, blossoms bursting, all indicate new life.  Hope is in the air.  Good beginnings engender hope.  It is almost as if a bountiful harvest can be foreseen.  But there is many a slip between sowing good seed and harvesting a bumper crop.  A late frost can arrest growth.  Summer storms can wreak havoc, perhaps, even total destruction.  Still, there is hope.  Without hope nothing worthwhile is achieved.

Something similar happens in life and in particular, in the life of faith.  Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation, Marriage vows and Ordination all speak of new beginnings pregnant with great expectations.  Selfishness and sin, weakness and wanderlust, fear and fantasy, pride and prejudice can retard growth into mature faith-filled living.  But no matter what the setbacks here, there comes the chance to make a fresh start.

Today’s gospel is an invitation to make the most of such an opportunity with its clarion call to repent and its challenging image of the barren fig tree reminding us that we are called to go before the Lord with a bumper harvest of good works, of kindness to those in need, of fidelity in the face of suffering, of steadfastness in sharing faith.

Repentance is unfashionable because compromise is more accommodating.  But repentance is about reality.  Compromise is about fantasy.  The choice is to live in the world of make believe or to allow him to revitalise the seeds of the spirit within us one more time.  To be willing and able, to make a fresh start in life is God’s greatest gift to us.  He offers it now.

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Sunday Missal: Page 576    †   New Edition: Page735

Psalm Response

The Lord is compassion and love.

In order to grow, friendship needs space, sharing and trust.  Time alone is not enough to build friendship.   Some people can be work colleagues or neighbours for years without any real bond growing between them.  Friendship can only grow where people make space in their lives for each other and use it to get to know each other, to share hopes joys, fears and secrets, to trust the other person with what is deepest in oneself.

What was deepest in Jesus of Nazareth was his relationship with the Father.  He was the beloved Son.  Time and again, he went aside from the crowds to be alone with the Father in prayer.  Often, he took the apostles with him, especially Peter, James and John.  With them he shared his fears about his future sufferings, his hopes of glory, but, above all else, his bond with the Father.  One such occasion was on Mount Thabor where the trio glimpsed that their friend was the promised Messiah, the fulfilment of all their hopes.  They had left their fishing behind to be with him.  They had made space in their lives for his friendship and trust.  He responded by strengthening their faith.

Today is our day for making space and time for Jesus in our lives.  His response will always be generous.   Today is Thabor Sunday.

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Sunday Missal: Page 573    †   New Edition: Page731

Psalm Response

The Lord is my light and my help.

It is often suggested that each stage of a person’s life is deeply influenced by a particular drive or instinct.  While pride is ever-present in our hearts, the suggestion is that the young seek pleasure, the middle-aged want power and the old put their hope in possessions.   Some people find such wayward trends alive and well in every stage of their lives, and are happy in the ongoing human struggle by inviting Christ to be with them as they grow gradually in the gospel values that redirect these strong human drives.

Today’s gospel recounts in a vividly descriptive way how Christ himself experienced similar temptations.  The bread he was offered when he was hungry is a symbol of how easy it is to justify putting our own comfort and pleasure before the needs and rights of others.  His trip to the high mountain with its offer of control over many kingdoms, alerts us to the many ways in which we can be tyrants in small ways through emotional blackmail in our families and through pressure groups in the job or in school.

The desire to be accepted and popular can be so strong that we are often tempted to do what will please rather than what is right, as happened to Christ on the parapet of the Temple.

In each situation, the choice is between selfishness and the other’s good, between settling for human limitations or accepting our greatness as God’s children.  Lent is a time to strengthen the choice to belong enthusiastically to God’s family.

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Sunday Missal: Page 569    †   New Edition: Page727

Psalm Response

Be with me. O Lord, in my distress.