Reflection for Fourth Sunday of Lent Year C 2022

The Gospel begins with Jesus being chided for eating with tax collectors and sinners – who you ate with in those days was important. Eating was a social statement as well as a source of nutrition. You”broke bread ” with people whom you are valued, whom you approved of, who were of your own kind. To hush those criticisms, Jesus tells a now familiar story – prodigal son.
The younger son takes his haft of inheritance early. Leaves home and squandered all his wealth on ” dissolute living.” When bad times befall him, he works as a common laborer. Starving, he envies the fodder he is feeding to the pigs. Coming to his senses, he decided to return home, beg his Father’s forgiveness, and ask for a job as one of his father’s hired hands. But” while he was a long way off” his father caught sight of him ran out to meet him. He kill a fatted calf and had a party in the wayward son’s honor.
We appreciate this story. Easily, we recognize that God is the father and we sinners are like the prodigal son. No matter what we have done, we can trust in the mercy of God. It gives us hope. It motivates us to do better.
Saint Paul reminds us that if” anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation…. God has reconciled us to himself through Christ and he gives us the ministry of reconciliation..this makes us ambassador for Christ, God as it appealing through us.” If we are to call ourselves Christians, we must not only appreciate the forgiveness of God and the reconciling of Christ’s incarnation and redemption, we have to emulate it! We have to live our lives in a Spirit of forgiveness. We have to show mercy to others, not just expect it from our God. We have to be reconciled to God and to seek or offer reconciliation with others. Ask yourself – whom might I forgive?

May God bless you
Fr. Dominic
Your brother in Christ