Sitting with the Sacred

No post full this time. Everything’s fine. I’ll be in touch again next week sometime.

For now, I’ll just share a mini reflection on this Sunday’s gospel, the parable of the prodigal son. I feel like in a lot of reflections on this passage, the focus is primarily on how the sons respond to the father’s generosity at different points in the story.

I find it more helpful to focus first on what the father is like throughout the story. The father fulfills the prodigal son’s desires even though those desires don’t mesh with the father’s original plan for the inheritance. After the son leaves, I picture the father gazing at the road every day, longing to have his child come to him. And when the son does return, he doesn’t have to make it all the way back to his father’s estate. The father comes out to meet him, embraces him, and pulls out all the stops to celebrate his son’s return. The father also acknowledges the patience and loyalty of the other son.

It’s this father that we’re invited to imitate and this father that shows us how God relates to us. This image of God sure has been comforting in times when I’ve acted like each of the sons in the story. I always hope it’s an image that will help me be less like those sons in their more selfish moments. It’s the father’s image that I definitely want to imitate so I can help other people feel the way the prodigal son must have felt after being embraced by his father.