14/03/2010 - 04 SUNDAY LENTEN SEASON - C
1 Reading Gen 5,9.10-12 Psalm 33 2 Reading 2Cor 5,17-21 Vangelo Lk 15,1-3.11-32
"All mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them".
It seems that, with these words, Jesus wants to manifest his joy for the communion
he enjoys with the Father. The communion of the Father with the Son is a mystery
greater than us, a mystery of love. To be able to communicate it to us, Jesus uses
words we can understand: what belongs to you belongs to me, and what is yours is
mine. We enjoy communion when we say of nothing "this is mine": either
wise, this could be a sign that we are moved by that spirit of egoism that tends
to reign in our hearts and keeps us away from one another. The union of Jesus with
the Father is a reality which we too share. In fact, he affirms, just to explain
what has been said, that the disciples belong to the Father, but were given to him
(Jesus). They belong therefore to the Father, even though they are his: we ourselves
do not feel the difference in saying that we are disciples of Jesus and children
of God. There is no jealousy between them: The Father enjoys the fact that we listen
to Jesus, and Jesus enjoys the fact that we adore the Father.
Jesus had asked the Father to be glorified: now, thinking of the disciples, says
that he is already glorified "in them". The life of the disciples is his
glory. They are the "place" where the fullness of the love of Jesus and
the beauty of his divinity are manifested. In what way can this be? Jesus himself
will tell us as the prayer continues. What highly glorifies him is the unity of
the disciples among themselves, the fact that they live his new commandment. When
one loves and trusts to be loved because of him, when one forgives with him, when
one carries the cross for his love, then one receives his Spirit and lives his life.
One becomes his glory, becomes a place where the being of the Son of God is manifested.
It's very consoling for us to know that we can being the glory of Jesus: I don't
believe there is a greater joy than this, a joy that helps us to take life trails
and sufferings with courageously and that makes us strong in all situations that
we find ourselves in to give witness.
After the celebration of the first Easter, in the Promised Land, the Jews did not
receive anymore the manna from above, but they started to eat the fruits of the
earth where they had arrived. It's an important moment in their history. It seems
that they need not anymore to be feed directly by God, but that they needed to provide
for themselves their necessities with their own work. The change is important: they
became aware that they were responsible of that land and that they needed to work
it so that it produces the necessary food; on the other hand, it's a moment that
was very much desired because it marks the coming of freedom. They had arrived home,
where one can avail himself from all that lies there?
This biblical text is read as an introduction to the parable of the prodigal son.
Even this one finds again his home after having been absent for a long time. Away
from home, he experienced only suffering and aloneness, hunger not only of bread,
but also of love, peace, and communion with others. Away from home he lost the right
to decide and to choose, as to feel and be in all truth, a slave of selfish people,
interested only in monies. In his reflection, he realizes that to return back home,
he needed to renew the ties that he had broken. In his great desire to a free life,
he left behind the source of life itself, broke his relationship with the father,
and therefore with his brother and the household of his father. He had remained
alone, attached to a little money from which he was hoping to satisfy the pleasure
of his freedom. Money had made him immediately sacrifice the capacity to love. Money
knows only how to elude people with its capacity of providing pleasures. Now, forced
by misery, that son returns to himself and remembers how good it was to live in
harmony and eat the bread in communion with the Father and the whole family. To
return back he need to repent from what he did and decides to ask for forgiveness:
forgiveness was to be asked from his father, but also from heaven, that is, from
God. Refusing to love men, he had refuse God himself. There is nobody, not even
an atheist, who does not need to reconcile with God to make his reconciliation with
other effective. God is the source of life. God is the true Father. He is the God
who give us brethren.
Every reconciliation is true and builds communion, when it is reconciliation with
God. That's why today the apostle st. Paul strongly exhorts us: "let yourselves
be reconciled with God". Now, this reconciliation is possible because Jesus
died and is risen for us, and because the Church has received "the ministry
of reconciliation". When Jesus offered himself to the Father in complete obedience,
with a total love, the Father saw the whole of humanity returning back to him. Jesus
has obtained forgiveness for all those who are united with him. "Let yourselves
be reconciled with God" meaning "welcome the Son of God in your lives",
Jesus. United with him, the Father is pleased, even if in our lives we have given
space to sin. United with Jesus we don't only become capable to return to the Father,
and the entire household, with humility, but also to the joy of those brethren who
were perhaps further away than us. In his parable Jesus speaks also of the difficulty
of the one who seem to be always faithful, but was carried away by judgment and
condemnation of the unfaithful brother. In this way he opens a space in his heart
for Satan, the accuser of the brethren, the one who wants to ruin everything. His
separation from the Father is huge, that he permits himself to even complain against
him and refuses his invitation to the joy of his brothers return. We all risk to
be "sinners", in need of reconciliation. The invitation of st. Paul is
therefore strong for all: "Let yourselves be reconciled with God".